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Writers view America, up close and personal

Two Canadian authors chronicle their road trip across the United States, on a journey of discovery and understanding
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Breakfast at the Exit Café: Travels Through America

By Merilyn Simonds and Wayne Grady

Greystone Books

$32.95, 316 pps.

 

Many people would be slightly hesitant to set out on a lengthy road trip with their spouse; after all, living in the close quarters of a car and without the creature comforts of home for more than a few days is bound to spark a few tense moments.

But in December 2006, authors Wayne Grady and Merilyn Simonds - who are also husband and wife - decided to take the long way home from Vancouver, where Merilyn had been acting as the Writer In Residence at UBC's Green College. Rather than simply go cross-Canada, as they had done before, the couple opted to head home to Ontario via the southern rim of the United States, in hopes of avoiding harsh winter weather and exploring places they had never been before, like the Grand Canyon.

But shortly after setting out on their trip, they encountered snow:

"'Funny to think that we came this far south to avoid driving through snow,' Marilyn muses, her tone not as light as she'd clearly like it to be.

"'Yes,' I say, 'but we're in Utah. It's the best snow in the world.'"

Um, excuse me, but there may be a few people in this town who object to that claim.

Merilyn and Wayne are both accomplished, published authors, but the book chronicling their journey - Breakfast at the Exit Café: Travels Through America - was the first time the couple had worked collaboratively on a project. And they didn't set out to do so. In fact, one party was quite opposed to the idea, initially.

"I don't think we started talking book until after we hit the deer," Merilyn reflected.

Yes, that's right, they also managed to hit a deer in Escalante, Utah.

"So we're driving along - we've been driving for three or four weeks - and we hit this deer and we drive through the storm of the century and we're in the middle of all of these environmental refugees in Albuquerque, so we think, 'wow this is pretty amazing.'"

They began bouncing around the idea of chronicling their "holiday" in a co-written book.

"But I personally did not take that seriously, so I just kept doing what I always do, which is taking notes," she added.

"And saying, 'Yes, yes dear,'" Wayne chimed in, laughing.

"We'd never written a book together. It was terrifying!" Merilyn explained.

"We had no history of writing together. In fact, we had very, very clear rules about even reading each other's work... They mostly were for my benefit because I was very sensitive and not very confident in my work. And I'm the sort of writer who, even if I want to work faster, I always do 15 drafts."

Merilyn was concerned that her methodical style would clash with Wayne's off-the-cuff, fervent approach to a project.

"We spent a lot time talking about how we would go about it: would we write one voice? Would we each take separate chapters? And we started reading books by two people and seeing how other people had done it."

After much thought, they decided to give each section a distinct voice by starting with either "M" or "W" to indicate the narrator. And as it turns out, Merilyn's worries were unwarranted.

"We got to the point where we were sitting at the same table and passing pages back and forth," Wayne said. "It sort of went from being two people writing in caves on the opposite side of the valley to a newspaper office or magazine office."

"And actually, Wayne, that part came in Whistler," Merilyn chimed in, "where we didn't have our own offices, because of the nature of (Alta Lake Station House)."

Yes, that's right: they actually fine-tuned the second draft of Breakfast at the Exit Café here in Whistler this time last year, as they were our Writers In Residence.

While a large part of the book is a personal travelogue, a running, witty dialogue between the couple as they travel through 22 states, they're also exploring a serious underlying issue on their journey: our relationship with our neighbours to the south.

"We discovered that a marriage between two people is not unlike the sometimes uneasy truce that exists between two countries that have lain beside each other for a long time."

"When we set out, both of us I think had fairly negative biases against the United States," Merilyn admitted. "I grew up in South America in the 1950s where, mostly what I saw was ex-pat Americans... and Wayne grew up in Windsor, beside Detroit, so he sort of saw that whole Detroit thing. And although we travel a lot, we never had really traveled much in the United States."

Their trip was an attempt to see what America is really like, up close and personal.

(There are also quite a few interesting factoids on history, literature and geography scattered throughout, to allow readers a more intimate glimpse of what makes America tick.)

"We found out the banal truth, which is that individuals are the same everywhere, that the people and the politics aren't necessarily the same. But we did find some real cultural differences," Merilyn said.

"The question that I kept asking myself, sort of in the back of my mind, was, 'why don't we get along better with these people?'"

Quite early on in the book Wayne mentions an interesting encounter with an American book clerk who said, "I don't think Americans are very interested in other countries." During their trip, they discovered that statement to be largely true.

"I put that there because, I mean it happened, but it set the tone for the rest of the trip," Wayne explained. "Nobody - nobody - in the whole time that we were in the States asked where we were from or what it was like!"

"For two months!" Merilyn exclaimed. "Once it hit me that it wasn't happening, it was fascinating. People were really interested in where we were traveling in their country and they wanted to recommend places to see and all that, but not one person asked a single thing about Canada."

Their trip through the States also coincided with a rather tumultuous time - a time of political unrest, really - during late 2006 and early 2007.

"When we were in Texas, for example, we were expecting everybody to be walking around with George Bush buttons and that we would have to careful with what we said. But as it turned out, we couldn't find anyone in Texas who was in favour with George Bush," Wayne chuckled. "It was quite remarkable."

Late last week, the couple was getting ready to hit the road together, again, though this time, the trip was much shorter (they were making their way to another stop on the Canadian writers festival circuit).

Next up, they're heading to B.C. to take part in the Vancouver International Writers Festival and our own literary event, Whistler Readers and Writers Festival, Oct. 14 to 16. They will lead three workshop/panels at the festival: "The New Paradigm: the book is dead and who is in the nursery?" "The State of Book Publishing Today" and "Write. Fight. Love."

For more information on the festival, visit www.theviciouscircle.ca.