An Evening with Karen Smythe

Karen Smythe will join us to discuss her most recent novel, A Town With No Noise on Monday, September 29 at Public Kitchen.

Karen Smythe is the author of the novel This Side of Sad (Goose Lane Editions, 2017), the story collection Stubborn Bones (Polestar/Raincoast, 2001), and the critical study Figuring Grief: Gallant, Munro, and the Poetics of Elegy (McGill-Queen’s U.P., 1992). Several of her short stories have appeared in Canadian literary journals including The Fiddlehead, Grain, and The Antigonish Review. A Town with No Noise is her second novel. A former English professor and university Registrar, Karen is now retired and lives in Guelph, Ontario.

A Town with No Noise is an unquiet, disquieting, yet hopeful book. It presents many narrative lines focusing on the experiences of two women—Samara (Sam) Johansen, a young woman assigned to write a story promoting the fictional town of Upton Bay; and Sigrid, her Norwegian grandmother, who grew up in the fictional town of Faldskaus during World War Two.

During their days in Upton Bay, Sam and her boyfriend J. stay at the home of J.’s grandfather, Otto, who’d been a German soldier during the war. Scenes with J., Otto, and various townspeople are counterpointed with vignettes that happen beyond Sam’s purview, creating a composite portrait of the place that belies its appearance as a peaceful community. Sam’s evolving perspective and growing awareness of social issues are magnified when she learns the complicated truth about her grandmother’s life in Occupied Norway and the Holocaust that happened there, changing her understanding of who she is and who she wants to become. Combining fact and fiction and using multiple story-telling techniques, A Town with No Noise is a moving novel that tackles themes of racism, privilege, and injustice, raising questions about how history is written—and why it matters.

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