APOL is touring Nova Scotia’s Northumberland Strait this week, where it had a homecoming of sorts in the town of Antigonish. It is revealed in Poplar Lake, the upcoming prequel to A Person of Letters, that Genny Patersdotter, the heroine and feminist foil for the narrator of both books, hails from Antigonish, and is a graduate of the town’s St. Francis Xavier University. To APOL’s great disappointment, neither the town nor SFX has yet erected a statue to the brassy Patersdotter. (There is a perfect spot for it, too, right in front of town hall…)
Antigonish is home to the storied Coady International Institute, named for Rev. Moses Coady, a founder of the cooperative movement in Canada. (There is a statue to him on the SFX campus…) The town is also home to the oldest continuous Highland games outside of Scotland. Yes, they’ve been tossing the caber in Antigonish since 1863. And speaking of tossing: before the APOL entourage left town it tossed a few back with the locals at the Townhouse Brewpub, where it found the in-house ales and cheerful company most refreshing. A good time was had by all.
Note: “APOL” is the anthropomorphic version of my satirical novel A Person of Letters, which has gone on tour without me (with a post-modernist wink and nod to magical realism). Follow APOL’s quixotic world tour here or on my Facebook Author Page, and read about all of APOL’s (mis)adventures in sequence on this tour archive. For information about the book, go to Martin Scribler Media.
Ron Thompson, Author 