Author finds success with quirky crime novella
Award-winning Edmonton writer says upending the genre was a lot of fun
There’s nothing more delicious than writing something purely for fun, and having it be a smashing success.
That’s the agreeable position in which Edmonton author Wayne Arthurson finds himself, now that his novella, The Red Chesterfield, has been named best crime novella at the 2020 Arthur Ellis Awards for Excellence in Crime Writing.
The book, part of editor and novelist Aritha van Herk’s Brave and Brilliant series and published by the University of Calgary Press, follows a bylaw enforcement officer as he battles noxious weeds and never-ending garage sales, only to find himself obsessed with a red chesterfield mysteriously dumped in a city cul-de-sac.
Arthurson is the award-winning author of more than a dozen books, often featuring First Nations characters including Leo Desroches, a Metis journalist and the hero of three of Arthurson’s mystery novels.
A mere 99 pages in length, The Red Chesterfield moves at a brisk pace, often humorously disrupting the tropes of crime fiction. The Journal spoke to the Alberta-born son of Cree and French-canadian parents about bedtime reading, sibling rivalry, and nicknames.
Q How did you come up with the idea of structuring a story around a discarded red chesterfield?
A I had that image in my mind for a long time. I don’t know where it came from, but I thought, ‘I’ll use that some day.’ Then I built on the idea of who would find a discarded red chesterfield. A bylaw officer, of course. And it goes from there. What do we do with the chesterfield is just one of those great, unanswered questions.
Some readers see the book as an example of magic realism, because the red chesterfield keeps reappearing. I thought, ‘great, thank you for seeing magic in the chesterfield.’
Q Why did you decide to write a novella?
A I wanted to see if I could do it. I read a lot of fiction and I do it at night and often it’s like ‘I can go to sleep when I finish the chapter.’ But that’s sometimes another 40 pages. I wonder ‘why can’t they cut it down? I don’t need to know every thing about what this character is wearing.’ I wanted to take this down to the basics, but still have enough detail to get the character across. The experience really taught me about making things small.
Q Your main character goes by ‘M,’ and his brothers are ‘J’ and ‘K.’ Why did you give them letters instead of names?
A Those are their names. It keeps things small, and ties into the small chapters, and this family with little names. Families will often call each other different names, that only get used inside the family. It’s my story, and it felt right.
Q You wanted to play around with the conventions of crime fiction in this novella, such as the red herring, and the Macguffin.
Why?
A In crime fiction, the detective will give up everything to solve the crime, including putting their lives, or their families, at risk. Like when someone is told that they have to dig their own grave. Why would someone do that? You dig the grave. Why would I make that easy for you?
So I wanted to mess with that. What if a character had a normal life and wouldn’t actually give up his life, or his family, to solve the crime? At one point, M is threatened by a guy in a truck and told to ‘get in.’ But M doesn’t. M runs away. And then grabs a bus to get home, and it takes a long time because you always have to go downtown first when you take the bus.
This book was a lot of fun to write; I really enjoyed it. It was so freeing. I think I’ll try to come up with more ideas that I think are fun, and just go with them.
Q What about this book made it a contender for the Brave and Beautiful series that’s edited by Aritha van Herk?
A I wrote this because I was procrastinating about another book, but I had no expectation that anybody would publish it. I sent it to them because they do unusual stuff that’s different in tone and style, and from what an author usually does. They said ‘this is exactly what we’re looking for.’
I respect Aritha so much as a writer and editor and she was fantastic, and working with the University of Calgary Press was fantastic. When you’re in the publishing industry for a long time, you get beaten down sometimes. The U of C Press renewed my faith in the Canadian publishing industry.