Читать книгу Saltus - Tara Gereaux - Страница 6

Saltus is a fictional account of a real event that happened in my hometown. When it happened, I had been living outside the province for several years, but it still rocked me. I was stunned by the harrowing act of desperation and by all the factors that may have led to such a decision. I was also fixated on the people in town who may have been involved. As years passed, I continued to think about this, and about my own experiences growing up in that town and hanging out in that hotel. I started to wonder how such an event might have impacted the lives of the people involved and the decisions they might make. How would it reverberate? This is how the story began.

Embarking on writing this novel forced me to think about how to tell it. Although it’s fiction, it is based on real events and that makes it delicate and complex. I made the decision early on not to write from Erin’s point of view. Erin’s story (and that of the real-life Erin) is a different one than my experiences as a cisgender writer, and outside of the perspectives I wanted to explore. I recognize this creates a silence or gap within the novel. Although Erin’s direct point of view is not included, her character is very much present. To ensure that I captured and represented her experiences appropriately, I worked with a sensitivity reader who also grew up in a small town on the prairies and related to Erin’s situation.

I also recognize that the experience at the story’s centre remains a very real issue today. Limited access to gender-affirming health and medical care for trans and gender-diverse individuals, especially those living in rural and remote areas, continues to be a problem. In light of these considerations, I am committed to donating 10 per cent of the author’s proceeds from sales of this book to a local or regional non-profit agency or agencies that provide gender-affirming supports and services to transgender and gender-diverse individuals.

While this novel was inspired by a real event and has grown out of my own experiences growing up in that same small town, the characters are entirely fictional. They also use language and terms that are not appropriate in today’s world, but that are intended to reflect the mindset of some people in that time and place.