That’s not how we read: a conversation with author Brian Francis
“The weird little things are the most personal. They’re so uniquely our own and a physical reminder of the people and places that, at one time, were our entire world.”
~~
The promotional life of a book is generally short: a year of sporadic reviews and interviews, maybe a festival appearance, with the possibility of a brief extension if the book gets nominated for a prize. After that, in book-marketing world, it’s over; we’ve moved on to the next shiny new book.
But that’s not how book lovers read. Sure, we read new books. But just as often, we’re discovering and delighting in books that have been out for years. In this segment, I celebrate books the way we, the book lovers, actually read them: on our own schedules. Because great books deserve more airtime.
~~
This month I’m delighted to chat with Brian Francis about his memoir, Missed Connections: A Memoir in Letters Never Sent. Brian has written three novels, Break in Case of Emergency, Natural Order and Fruit, which have been finalists for the Governor General’s Literary Awards, the Trillium Book Awards and CBC’s Canada Reads. He’s also a food blogger and a regular columnist for CBC Radio’s “The Next Chapter.”
In 1992, Brian placed a personal ad in a local newspaper. He was 21 years old, just coming out, and looking for connection. Years later, he replied to 13 of those letters. Using the letters as a springboard to reflect on all that has changed for him as a gay man over the past three decades, Brian’s responses cover a range of topics, including body image, aging, desire, the price of secrecy, and the courage it takes to be unapologetically yourself.
~~
LG: Brian, it’s great to reconnect to talk about Missed Connections, a book that moved me deeply as a reader for its emotional content and interested me greatly as a writer for its structure, as memoir-through-letters.
This quote from the book seems like a great place to kick off our conversation: “I’ve always believed that the random and unfiltered souvenirs of our lives, rather than the curated and polished, are the most revealing.” Talk to me about the idea that it’s often the little things – a matchbook, a note – that end up having more emotional resonance for us as we age than larger, more solid items that might have material value.
BF: As I get older, I tend to value the souvenirs of my everyday life, or rather, an everyday life that no longer exists. Recipe index cards in my mom’s handwriting. A note from my dad, reminding me to renew my car insurance. It’s physical proof of a reality that I once knew well, but has moved so far into the past, it’s hard to convince myself it really happened. I have a box of some of my grade school artwork and, while I was clearly no Michelangelo, I have a hard time connecting to that kid. It’s almost like he isn’t me, but a version of me. And that artwork brings me closer to him. Or, at the very least, reminds me he was me. If that makes sense! But I also think the weird little things are the most personal. They’re so uniquely our own and a physical reminder of the people and places that, at one time, were our entire world.
LG: Yes to all of this. The handwritten notes from our parents. And our childish artwork! I have a drawing of a horse I did in elementary school, and when I look at it, I’m instantly taken back to that time – to a friend who loved horses, to her mother’s homemade cannoli, to how much I loved drawing. That artefact instantly propels me back in time, cracks open the door to those experiences and feelings again.
Now that you’ve mentioned the importance of “the weird little things” do you want to give us one item, without comment on its meaning? In return I will offer a small plastic pink hedgehog.
BF: A pair of wisdom teeth. Your hedgehog sounds much more aesthetically pleasing.
LG: Barely! I recall reading that this was a Covid project for you. Tell me about that. You and I were both working in communications in public libraries when Covid struck (you in Toronto, me in St. Albert), so it was an incredibly busy time for people in our field, dealing with the public’s deep – almost desperate – need for public library services more than ever, turning programs around online as quickly as we could, and all the logistics that went along with that. How did this project fit into a time that was personally locked down but professionally really, really busy?
BF: It was a pretty wild time. I vividly remember the day the library closed. I rode the elevator to the top floor and down again, looking across this deserted space. It went against everything libraries stand for: congregation, community and access to information. All I could do is react and pivot. React and pivot. I suppose, in some ways, it was an ideal time to write, although it was hard to focus with so much else going on. I shut down in some ways, but I was also on a deadline, so I couldn’t shut down for long! Missed Connections was a play before it was a memoir. We closed the show on March 8, 2020. Just a few short days later, the entire city shut down. We were so lucky to get the work out there. That resonated with me in the weeks and months ahead – how lucky you were if you got to put something out there in the world. So, it was a time of chaos and a time for reflection. But I think many people felt that way.
LG: I remember telling my boss a year or so later that the word “pivot” was starting to make me twitch, because that was literally all we did, moment upon moment upon moment, for so long. I’m not sure if I envy you or feel badly for you, having a book deadline during all that chaos! I didn’t have the pressure of personal writing deadlines during that time, and I truly struggled to be creative.
Seeing our theatre friends – and artists of all stripes – have shows and events cancelled was heartbreaking – I’m glad you got through closing night before the world shut down.
BF: Like “pivot,” there are many phrases I associate with that time: social distancing, flatten the curve, you’re on mute. Although, six years on, I still forget to unmute myself.
LG: You’re not alone in that. In your response to Letter #9 you say, “one of the biggest lessons in life is understanding that your own evolution never ends. Everything you’ve learned has to be relearned. Attitudes need to be constantly rechecked. Opinions demand to be questioned.” Talk to me about how you approached your answers to the letters — did you sit with each one for a while? Or did you find, once you began, that all these thoughts had been lying there in your mind, waiting to be said?
BF: I think most of the answers were, as you aptly put it, “lying there in my mind.” Each of the letters had something in it – a phrase, a scenario, a vulnerability – that I used as my creative springboard. But I think that’s all of us ever need – an invitation to go deeper within ourselves and see what we pull out. I kept asking myself, “Why should I be writing a memoir? I’m a guy from Sarnia who leads a pretty uneventful life.” But I did myself a disservice in thinking that. I did my parents a disservice. My partner. My life. My story was worth telling. Everyone’s story is worth telling. I’m just lucky I had a platform to do so.
LG: I loved that you ended the book with a letter to your younger self, and also that you offered yourself only two dates to remember: the day you came out to your parents, and the day of your wedding to your partner of twenty years. Was it easy or difficult to keep it to two dates, after spending so much time invoking and living inside so many rich – and painful – memories?
BF: It wasn’t hard to keep it to those two, although there are many other dates in my life that have significance. But they were dates of joy and discovery and healing. They were part of who I was, and my story.
LG: This book started out as a play you did in 2020 called Box 4901. Tell me about that process – creating the play, then living within it in that deep way that only comes from performing the piece repeatedly, then turning those script pages and performances into a book. Were there many changes? Did your feelings about the piece change as it continued to evolve from script page to your performance onstage and then back to the page again in a different format?
BF: Let me be clear – I have zero theatre experience. After I had compiled a draft of the letters with my responses, I approached a friend and theatre creator, Rob Kempson, for his thoughts about what the work could be. Rob ran with it, bringing it to life on a stage in a way I couldn’t have imagined. It was terrifying being on stage every night, but so exhilarating, too. Anything can happen in live theatre. I loved that entire cast and crew. Writing is so solitary, but theatre is so much more a team effort. Everyone relies on everyone else in these essential and intimate ways.
In terms of the book, I got to dig much deeper into my responses. That was more my comfort zone. I was so influenced by the visual aspect of the work, which was such a different writing process for me. But I also knew I had to make the book different than the play. That’s the main reason for the retitling. Each had to be its own thing.
LG: There is such tenderness and humour in this book, woven through some painful and dark moments; reading it is a rich experience that I had to pause and savour time and again.
In your response to Letter #6, I was moved to tears reading about the letter you gave to your university roommates after moving out, in which you came out to them. You called it one of the bravest things you’ve ever done. This whole section is so moving.
You follow that with Letter #7, and its increasingly sexual tone. I was reading outside, and when I read your hilarious non-answer to this letter, I laughed out loud and scared all the sparrows away from the hanging feeder. After such a personal and poignant time in the previous letter, that response was Comedy Gold.
And then in the next letter, when you recall your younger self giving your number to a man who had frightened you, and questioning why afterward, it was a punch of reality so many of us can relate to – the wish to defuse, not make an enemy.
These three pieces – the whole book – felt beautifully arranged, like you were taking care of the reader, guiding us from one moment to the next, giving us breathing spaces, then taking us somewhere new and difficult. Talk to me about your use of humour when writing about difficult topics, and how you chose to arrange the letters.
BF: I’m glad you enjoyed those letters and their responses! Humour can be such a great tool. It’s a way of cleansing or of lightning the emotional load for the reader. Humour that follows sadness or painful moments is much funnier. Because you need the humour more. That said, humour can also work against you, a way of avoiding sincerity or being vulnerable. I struggle with that sometimes because humour was the way I got people to like me. As I’ve aged, I enjoy being humorous on my own terms, but it can still be a trigger for me and feel like I’m chasing after people’s approval.
LG: That’s such a great point. I like to think, as we age, we learn to use it more for good, as a tool, and not to hide behind. But it’s seductive, too.
BF: It’s hard to let go of some the baggage we carry around, regardless of our age. In terms of the structure, I give much of the credit to my editor, Anita Chong, for her guidance. She knew the effect the arrangement would have on readers and helped shape their experience with her keen eye. Bless the editors, that’s all I can say.
LG: You asked your nephew’s boyfriend this question and I want to know how you’d respond: who’s your favourite queen from RuPaul’s Drag Race?
BF: Where do I even start? There are so many to choose from! If I had to pick one, I’d say Jinx Monsoon. Yes, she’s a fantastic queen, but there is so much talent there. A true entertainer.
LG: Oh, great choice. She’s amazing. And only when I tried to answer this question for myself did I fully understand how difficult it is! I think, under duress, I’d say Bianca Del Rio for similar reasons – the fashion, the acting challenges, the comedy.
The same year that Missed Connections came out, Ivan Coyote released Care Of, in which they also responded to letters they’d received from strangers over the years. It felt like such a gift to me as a reader to have these books come out in the same year, with such overlapping and yet unique experiences. I still dream of getting you both in the same auditorium for a fantastic author event in which you discuss the power of, and breadth of possibilities to be explored through, epistolary writing.
BF: I did an online event with Ivan to discuss our two books a couple of years ago.
LG: Damn! How did I miss that? Also, it’s proof that I have really great ideas.
BF: You certainly do! It was a nice event, although I struggle sometimes with online events. I still prefer in-person discussions when possible. The epistolary format can work so well for writers. Even the act of letter writing seems so archaic in these days of texts and emojis. If the men who replied to me hadn’t written their letters on paper, I wouldn’t have them today, which makes them even more precious. And I loved that most were in the handwriting of the letter writer. You can tell so much about someone from their handwriting. And I love what Ivan did, writing back to these people who had written to them and how the pandemic was such a perfect opportunity to stop, slow down and respond in such beautiful and thoughtful ways.
LG: Do you ever see yourself writing and/or acting in another show?
BF: I’m glad you think I have an opportunity to act! I don’t think my participation in Box 4901 can be considered acting. I was the guy behind the podium, reading letters. The cast were the true actors. What I took away from that experience was the partnership. It was merging literature, or creative nonfiction, with live performance. I loved that the play brought those worlds together. I don’t really see myself writing or performing in another show, but you never know when Broadway will come calling…
LG: Brian, that’s how they get you! The first time I was on stage I was supposed to be reading my work from behind a podium while other people did the acting and dancing. The next thing I knew I was declaiming from atop boxes (which a dancer had to teach me to gracefully step down from) and pushing an Elvis impersonator around in a shopping cart. A few years later I was performing a two-week run of Joan Didion’s one-woman show The Year of Magical Thinking, which was, as you noted earlier, utterly terrifying – but also one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Theatre people are dangerously persuasive.
BF: They are! They bring such a commitment to the work. It’s hard to resist that energy and passion. And live performance is so immediately gratifying. Also, it’s one form of art that gets rebuilt every time you perform it. No two performances are the same. The audience plays such a big factor, too. Some nights they were very vocal, and, at other times, quiet. They played such an integral role in the performances. As writers, we’re not always used to experiencing real-time reaction to our work.
LG: What are you working on now? Do you hate being asked this question? I always find it hard, especially when people ask what it’s about. “Um … humans … struggling … but it’s also funny? And I slide as many of my obsessions into my writing as I can, so if I’m writing it in the summer it’s going to include green worms?” So, tell us as much or as little as you like.
BF: Yes, it can be tough to talk about your work! My current project is a baking book called The Remix. It comes out with Appetite by Random House in a couple of years. My partner in it, Colin Asuncion, was in the cast of Box 4901. The book features retro recipes (supplied and written about by me) and then Colin “remixes” the recipes to make them more sophisticated and modern for today’s palettes. It’s been a lot of work, but so much fun, too. I’m looking forward to sharing these recipes – and hoping people make a few along the way. And I can promise, none of the recipes call for green worms.
LG: I appreciate that. The book sounds amazing. I know from blog posts you used to share on Twitter – before it became a hellsite we chose to flee – that you’ve got a strong interest in food and cooking, and that you approach it with joy and playfulness. How did you select the recipes?
BF: Many of the recipes come from my collection of Canadian community cookbooks from the 60’s through to the 80’s. I highlighted my collection on my food blog, Caker Cooking. And I have my mom’s old recipe box, which is stuffed with magazine clippings, index cards and pamphlets. I don’t think she made a fraction of the recipes, but the intention was always there. That’s the bittersweet joy of baking – there are so many recipes, but never enough time, or flour, to make everything.
LG: So true, for baking, and for writing. Brian, thank you – it’s been so illuminating and fun talking with you. Now I’m inspired to spend hours browsing my recipe collections, my box of old letters, and re-bingeing Drag Race.
Learn more about Brian Francis and his books and his Caker Cooking adventures.