Anne Michaels on her Booker and Giller-nominated novel ‘Hold’ – Brandon Sun

TORONTO – According to Anne Michaels, a book doesn’t just have to say things, it has to be listened to.

The author of “Held”, which was shortlisted for both the Giller and Booker prizes, said reciprocity was key to the writing process. When she writes her novels, she tries to anticipate her readers’ needs and ensure that they stay with her as she tackles big, fundamental questions.

“When I know I’m getting into difficult areas, areas that perhaps we naturally want to move away from (the horrors of war and even moments of intense beauty that are hard to sustain or bear), I want to keep the reader close. the Toronto-based poet-novelist said in a recent video call.

“I want to be able to take us to the edge right before we come back.”

In “Held,” a multigenerational examination of a family spanning more than a century, Michaels aims to answer questions about trauma and war; about the ways we make meaning out of life; It’s about the love that creates families.

The book is not linear; each episode is a short story of sorts, revealing another piece of the family’s story. It opens on the battlefields of World War I, where a photographer-turned-soldier is on the brink of death. The story follows him to England, where he must grapple with what the war took from him and what he left behind.

From there, Michaels moves back and forth in time, introducing the reader to the man’s grandchildren, his wives, and their wives’ parents.

Each generation asks the same questions over and over again, and each brings the reader closer to the answer. How do we understand the world? How do we remember? How do we comfort ourselves and each other?

These questions are too big to be answered in his original medium, poetry, Michaels said. That’s why he also writes novels.

“Eclipsed” is only his third novel in his decades-long career. His first book, “Fugitive Pieces”, was published in 1996, exactly ten years after his first poetry collection, “The Weight of Oranges”.

“Fugitive Pieces” was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and won the Trillium Book Award, as well as what is now known as the Amazon Canada First Novel Award and the UK Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her second novel, “The Winter Vault,” was published in 2009 and made the Giller shortlist that year.

Although she appreciates that novels allow her to spend more time with the reader, exploring more complex topics while piecing together a narrative, they take much longer to write.

“It takes years to figure out how a book fits together,” he said.

“Sometimes one department speaks what is not said in another part. He listens to so many things inside the book – to generations, to people who love each other, to people separated by time or distance… the book is listening. I hope the reader is listening. I am listening.”

“Hold” is one of five books shortlisted for this year’s $100,000 Giller Prize and one of six for the U.K.-based Booker Prize, worth 50,000 British pounds (about $90,000).

Booker judges describe “Hold” as “a powerful and lyrical kaleidoscope of novels created from the scattered images and memories of four generations of a family across all lived experience.” The winner will be announced on Tuesday evening, while the Giller will be distributed next week.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.