Ander Monson is holding court about Other Electricities in most delightful fashion:
I can, however, speak to my intentions, and I see the voice as being either the mother (who is herself a mystery–probably dead, though possibly gone to Canada, and her postcards on the website serve, I hope, to complicate this–and maybe that’s a metaphor regardless, Canadian as dead (at least to these characters–I should say I have nothing against Canada, since where I’m from we’re practically Canadian, we get their TV, their sports, much of their culture, but the space North of the border is this big Other up there–white space, the unknown, my own personal Congo/Heart of Darkness or whatever). The voice of the mother (though again it’s possibly some even weirder thing speaking, a sort of greek chorus in the book, or the place, or the town, or the Paulding Light, which is real, by the way (you can see a bizarro low-budget film in the style of the Blair Witch Project at: Paulding Light.com)) (and sorry for my nested parentheses, which might be a bit ridiculous, but I like them) is one of the few times in the book where there’s real solace offered to Yr Protagonist, or to the other characters.
Canadian(s), can you dispute this? And the Paulding Light is real. Who knew? Please consider this a plea for all writers to incorporate real mysterious lights into their books.
I will even forgive the fact that Ander Monson (b. 1975) makes me (b. 1976) feel like a 1991er.
