READ MY BOOK
Adam’s Witness, by J.C. Paulson.
There was a time, not too long ago, when I desperately needed to find a place of peace and personal control over at least part of my life.
There was too much loss, and too much impending loss. Real life wasn’t cutting it, there for a while. And one early morning, when it was too dark, a sliver of light pierced the gloom.
It shone on a plot. Two characters. Three locations. And four months later, I was trying to write a murder mystery entitled Murder by Monstrance.
It ended up as Adam’s Witness, a Saskatoon-situated crime-romance novel that had its origins in a bad decision by a local church: to ban two LGBTQ choirs from singing in its sanctuary. I’ve long asked myself why we humans like to close doors to those different from ourselves — or worse, attack them just for being who they are. What is that hate about?
Adam’s Witness is by no means a literary masterpiece of questioning, but I do try to answer that question in a couple of ways.
Meanwhile, I wonder how, why and when we love. Love can be hard to come to. What holds us back from falling in love, being in love, nurturing love? Who can be trusted to return that love?
I did not want to write a ponderous or preachy sort of thing, though. I wanted to write something people might have fun reading — a romp, a murder mystery, a romance — while also, hopefully, exploring love and hate, and reflecting my community back to myself and itself.
As a youngster, and even as an oldster, I have craved reading about my own place and time.
Our beautiful city has been frequently depicted in the pages of books, but not enough for me. I wanted to fill a tiny part of that gap, and explore some of our issues with a fictional lens.
I also wanted to, needed to, create my own world for a while. I discovered I really liked it there.
I think I’ll return there soon.
Adam’s Witness is J.C. Paulson’s debut novel; she is working on a sequel. The book can be found at McNally Robinson Booksellers, on all Amazon channels in Kindle and paperback, and via her website, www. jcpaulsonauthor.com.