TALE OF FAMILY AND LOSS
Cape Breton-based author releases ‘All Is Beauty Now’ inspired by her mother
West Margaree resident releases first novel.
Sarah Faber’s debut novel “All Is Beauty Now” is inspired by the stories her mother told her, about living in Brazil and living with a parent suffering from bipolar disorder.
“I was really fascinated because on the one hand they had what sounded like, initially, this idyllic life,” she explained during a phone interview from her home in South West Margaree.
“But when my grandfather became ill, there were times when their lives would become very unpredictable. He wasn’t dangerous … but his moods would become very erratic.”
“All Is Beauty Now” was released in the U.S. on Aug. 8 and in Canada on Aug. 29, through McClelland & Stewart.
It tells the story of a family in Brazil which is set to leave for Canada when the oldest daughter disappears. This delays their move for a year and the book starts in the final months before they leave.
“It’s about a golden family whose fortunes take a turn,” Faber explained.
Hugo and Dora are the parents. Their decision to leave comes after Hugo is diagnosed with bipolar disorder and is able to get better health care in his native Canada.
This is similar to what Faber’s mother’s family went through, but this is where fact becomes fiction.
“Obviously I wasn’t there, so you have to embellish and change things and then you sometimes have to change things to suit the story you’ve written and not what really happened,” she explained.
“So even the things that are ‘true’ or a ‘true event’ end up being totally fictionalized.”
It took Faber, whose father is from Cape Breton, about eight years to write the book and she wanted to present Hugo as a character who has a mental illness and not a character defined by the illness.
“The mental illness is a big part of it, how they live with it, how it reverberates between each member of the family… I also think it’s about each character’s experience with letting go of the life that they had,” Faber said.
“Hugo is my favourite character and I spent a lot of time trying to make him seem like a full character and not a series of symptoms and episodes. That was really important to me — that he be complex and complete and not wholly defined by the bipolar disorder.”
As well as bipolar disorder, Faber’s mother suffered from other physical illnesses so parts of the book reflect on her experiences as well.
Set in the 1960s, Faber spent a lot of time researching the era. Each chapter is told from the point of view of a different character.
“That’s a huge part of the story, that everyone gets their own perspective. Even Luiza
(the sister who goes missing), we get her perspective in flashback. Hopefully by the end of the book you understand what happened to her, why she went missing,” explained the mother of two.
While Faber does miss some of the conveniences of Toronto
where she was born, especially in the winter months, she thinks Cape Breton is the best place for her.
“For me, as a writer, it is a better lifestyle. There’s a sort of quiet that lets you sink into the state of mind that you need to write. There are less distractions,” she said.