Recently, I headed over to meet with author Lori Lansens at her publisher (Random House)’s office to speak with her about her new novel, The Girls. Biking furiously down University Avenue to make it to the interview on time, I entered the building sweaty and disoriented, only to walk in on the publisher’s fancy launch party for the International Festival of Authors.
While a large gathering of famous writers and publishers sipped white wine and ate canapés, I tried to find Lansens’ publicist.
“Lori’s almost finished,” she assured me as I took off my bike helmet. “Why don’t you hang out for a bit?”
So I drank a glass of wine and polished off some smoked salmon, engaging in small talk with the crowd. And then I was called in to meet Lansens.
She cut a glamorous figure, shod in high-heeled boots and wearing a black dress, her long and highlighted hair flipped casually over her shoulders. As we sat down to chat about her newest work, she ran me through the course of her lengthy cross-Canada book tour (she was off to Montreal the next day).
For those who haven’t heard of what is undoubtedly one of the hottest books of the year, Lansens’ The Girls is about twin girls in their mid-20s who grow up in a small Western Ontario town with their adopted parents, Aunt Lovey and Uncle Stash. And oh, yeah-they are also attached at the head (a rare condition known as crainopagus twins-one pair of such twins still survives today).
“The book is a love story, but between sisters. It really is,” Lansens insists. “Usually love stories are more conventional, but this seems to be attracting people’s attention. I am finding that people really do see themselves in these characters.”
The author relates an anecdote of a woman asking her to sign a book, “To Bob, the conjoined twin of my heart.”
“She told me it was because they really couldn’t live without each other,” Lansens says, smiling.
“One thing that struck me about the reader response was how much people want to share this book. It really is about connections, and its core is the bond that people have in their relationships.”
Lansens always wanted to be a writer, much like her main character, Rose, who she claims is the character closest to herself that she has ever written. She certainly has an interesting past-moving to Toronto at age 22 from small-town Chatham with her husband, and working as a telemarketer selling subscriptions for The Globe and Mail. After she quit her day job, Lansens worked as a waitress in the evenings so that she could write during the day. Her first story sold for 11 dollars, which Lansens promptly spent on a half case of beer (she claims it was her “sweetest victory”).
“I’m not a writer who suffers. I know that writers often talk about how painful the writing process is, but I feel a sense of celebration in my writing of how lucky I am to have this job. It’s incredibly cathartic.
“While I’m not conjoined and I don’t have a sister, there was something organic when I was writing this book, some weird degree of channeling,” Lansens explains. She notes that her husband calls her a “Method writer,” like Method actors who will live a certain way to prepare for a specific role.
In addition to her two novels-her first book, 2002’s Rush Home Road, scored a coveted Oprah’s Book Club placement and was optioned for a film by Whoopi Goldberg-Lansens has also written screenplays, short stories, and plays. After having spent a year and half with The Girls (while raising two toddlers at the same time), one wonders if there were any parts of the story that Lansens wanted to change.
“Oh, yes-all of it!” she quips.
“The character of Uncle Stash liberated me when I realized that art is not something you finish, but abandon. My book is rare and imperfect, but I love that it will be read [anyway].”
