happy husband and father by day author
of beautifully melancholy novels by
night hi I’m Rebecca Brayton and welcome
to watchmojo.com and today we’re
speaking with David Bergen about his
latest work the retreat tell us about
the retreat kind of the book and the
significance of the title the retreat is
a novel about a family of six four
children and two adults who head off
from Calgary to Kenora to spend the
summer in 1974 at a commune in the
process of being there Lizzie the oldest
who 17 meets a young boy called Raymond
Seymour who’s 19 he’s Aboriginal Ojibwe
he delivers chicken and skinned rabbits
to the to the retreat for their meat
what follows from that is is people
telling Lizzy he shouldn’t be hanging
out with this boy she doesn’t listen she
really likes um he likes her in some
ways it’s a sort of a Romeo and Juliet
of the 70s and with some tragic
consequences how does your background
affect your fiction I’m a father and
very aware of how parents can be locked
into a way of thinking and children of
course they’re much more curious and
open the other thing is I’m i come from
a religious background and one of the
characters in this novel Nelson is 19
when he’s taken away from his Aboriginal
families place with a Mennonite family
and men and their families were prone at
that time to wanting to sort of take
kids in and foster and adopt them to
save them to change them or to
proselytize and those are all dangerous
things I read that you and your parents
kind of agree to disagree about what you
write it’s mostly my father was a minute
late pastor I can’t have him looking
over my shoulder while I’m writing in
some ways that that leads to tremendous
friction I think I’ve broken away from
from whom I what my background is I am
no longer a practicing when tonight you
know religious person but I think it’s
certainly shaped who I was it made me
observe the world in a certain way the
retreat uses a you know a true
historical story as its kind of backdrop
why did you choose the occupation which
is kind of an obscure historical
reference as a piece of your novel I
think that’s a good word it is obscure
not a lot of people have heard of the
occupation of an ex and I park in 1974
which was over you know a month long
and they were demanding very very very
important rights the right not to be
thrown into prison for absolutely no
reason they’re a right not to be beaten
on the streets of canara you can’t have
a story about Raven Seymour who’s the
jib way not being aware of something
that actually took place during that
time guys I guess I could have changed
the year but I thought well this this is
very mrs. opportune and and so I
exploited it why didn’t you tell us a
bit about the virtues of fiction versus
non fiction I wrote 300 pages of a non
fiction based on my experience in
Vietnam I showed it to an editor and he
said go write a novel I also don’t find
that the same gargantuan truth in
nonfiction that I will find in fiction
which is a contradiction i know but i
think it’s true that that fiction peels
back layers in the scabs of life in a
much greater way than nonfiction does
and so i’m probably doing what i want to
do that’s probably why I stick to
fiction probably why I should thank you
very much thank you very much
of beautifully melancholy novels by
night hi I’m Rebecca Brayton and welcome
to watchmojo.com and today we’re
speaking with David Bergen about his
latest work the retreat tell us about
the retreat kind of the book and the
significance of the title the retreat is
a novel about a family of six four
children and two adults who head off
from Calgary to Kenora to spend the
summer in 1974 at a commune in the
process of being there Lizzie the oldest
who 17 meets a young boy called Raymond
Seymour who’s 19 he’s Aboriginal Ojibwe
he delivers chicken and skinned rabbits
to the to the retreat for their meat
what follows from that is is people
telling Lizzy he shouldn’t be hanging
out with this boy she doesn’t listen she
really likes um he likes her in some
ways it’s a sort of a Romeo and Juliet
of the 70s and with some tragic
consequences how does your background
affect your fiction I’m a father and
very aware of how parents can be locked
into a way of thinking and children of
course they’re much more curious and
open the other thing is I’m i come from
a religious background and one of the
characters in this novel Nelson is 19
when he’s taken away from his Aboriginal
families place with a Mennonite family
and men and their families were prone at
that time to wanting to sort of take
kids in and foster and adopt them to
save them to change them or to
proselytize and those are all dangerous
things I read that you and your parents
kind of agree to disagree about what you
write it’s mostly my father was a minute
late pastor I can’t have him looking
over my shoulder while I’m writing in
some ways that that leads to tremendous
friction I think I’ve broken away from
from whom I what my background is I am
no longer a practicing when tonight you
know religious person but I think it’s
certainly shaped who I was it made me
observe the world in a certain way the
retreat uses a you know a true
historical story as its kind of backdrop
why did you choose the occupation which
is kind of an obscure historical
reference as a piece of your novel I
think that’s a good word it is obscure
not a lot of people have heard of the
occupation of an ex and I park in 1974
which was over you know a month long
and they were demanding very very very
important rights the right not to be
thrown into prison for absolutely no
reason they’re a right not to be beaten
on the streets of canara you can’t have
a story about Raven Seymour who’s the
jib way not being aware of something
that actually took place during that
time guys I guess I could have changed
the year but I thought well this this is
very mrs. opportune and and so I
exploited it why didn’t you tell us a
bit about the virtues of fiction versus
non fiction I wrote 300 pages of a non
fiction based on my experience in
Vietnam I showed it to an editor and he
said go write a novel I also don’t find
that the same gargantuan truth in
nonfiction that I will find in fiction
which is a contradiction i know but i
think it’s true that that fiction peels
back layers in the scabs of life in a
much greater way than nonfiction does
and so i’m probably doing what i want to
do that’s probably why I stick to
fiction probably why I should thank you
very much thank you very much
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