JoAnn McCaig is the author of the new novel Beneficiary. Her other books include An Honest Woman. She taught for 20 years at the University of Calgary, and she owns the independent bookstore Shelf Life Books in Calgary, Alberta.
Q: What inspired you to write Beneficiary, and how did you create your character Seren?
A: My inspiration for writing the novel is that this character and her life story just kept pestering me and refused to stay in the drawer.
I wrote the early drafts of the first two sections of the novel, "The Vigo Reaction" and "Family Fugue," in the 1990s when I was a beleaguered single mom in grad school. (Which is a good thing, because now that I’m a grandmother, I barely remember what it was like to be the mother of a bunch of little kids, but those two sections fortunately captured it.)
Over the ensuing years as I worked on the novel, the central character’s name changed many times. First it was Sarah, then it was Sally. It was even Ramona for a while.
But then, during Covid, when I made the commitment to complete the novel, “Seren” floated up out of the ether, so fresh and unfamiliar that I thought I’d invented it. And I loved the resonant suggestion that her life’s journey is one that moves toward serenity.
However, I later learned Seren is in fact a fairly common Welsh name, AND just last year (and this is weird) I also stumbled upon a very early version of the novel in which my central character was named, you guessed it, Seren! So I guess the name was just meant to be.
Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: The original title was The Venus Hum, which comes up in an early draft (since deleted) when Seren’s young son is diagnosed with a venous hum, but she immediately imagines the word as referring to the goddess of love and not a body part.
And to me, this mixup was indicative of how Seren’s ambivalence and confusion about romance was like a barely detectable hum or murmur in her heart.
However, in 2004, Calgary author Suzette Mayr published a novel called Venous Hum, and I realized that I needed to find a new title. Still, my early plan was to name each section after a misheard or misspelled medical condition, like Venus Hum for Venous Hum.
Hence "The Vigo Reaction," which is what Seren hears her doctor say in the delivery room when he’s actually saying vasovagal reaction. And also "Family Fugue" which suggests a fugue state as well as a game show.
I settled on the current title very late in the game when I finally began to see how Seren is the beneficiary not only of her father’s estate but also of all of her life experiences: every up, every down, every crazy-making and impossible situation, they all push her toward becoming the woman she was always meant to be.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: I never know how a book is going to end when I start writing. I am a meanderer. I just kind of wander around in the material and see what happens. I’m also something of a magpie, gathering shiny beads and bits of string and bringing them all back to the nest to weave into some kind of cohesive whole.
For me, writing is a process of discovery, not the working through of a pre-set plan or idea.
Q: The author Barbara Joan Scott said of the book, “The book is structurally brilliant, but it’s Seren who will captivate: witty, complex, flawed, shining in her uniqueness.” What do you think of that assessment?
A: It’s gratifying to hear such a generous statement.
Let me put it this way: I’ve loved fiction since I was a child. And though I adored the work of Charles Dickens, one thing that always bothered me was his utterly flat depictions of female characters: they were either impossibly saintly (Agnes, Little Nell) or implacably evil (Estella, Miss Havisham).
I want to read about characters who are fully rounded and puzzling human beings. I would rather that Seren be seen as interesting than as likeable or “relatable.”
Q: What are you working on now?
A: There’s no new fiction on the horizon at the moment. (Well maybe a story or two -- which, come to think of it, is actually how all three of my novels started out….)
But I’ve published a few essays in anthologies lately, one in a collection about infertility called Barren, and another about my mom in a collection about family secrets.
So my current plan is to gather together these nonfiction pieces, and add some new ones about various topics that interest and/or obsess me these days -- like the hideous decline in literacy (spelling errors in The Guardian! A punctuation error in The New Yorker! A misplaced modifier in a national newspaper!) and perhaps publish a collection of personal essays.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I’m active in several areas of the book world. For 20 years, I taught English at the University of Calgary. I co-founded and still own Shelf Life Books, an independent bookstore in my hometown of Calgary, Alberta.
I was the co-founder of the literary press Freehand Books, and am currently the owner of a Saskatchewan based literary publishing company called Thistledown Press.
Thanks so much for your interest in my work, Deborah. I appreciate it.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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