Arthur Slade: A boy’s imagination on the loose
Once upon a time, on July 9, 1967, a boy was born in Moose Jaw and lived with his parents and three brothers on a ranch in the Cypress Hills of southwest Saskatchewan. There the family raised a breed of beef cattle known as Herefords and Arthur Slade did his share of chores. He drove a tractor and threw bales of hay.
When he wasn’t helping his folks or in school, Arthur used to spend his spare time at a library in a nearby small town called Tompkins (population: 219). He’d read anything he could get his hands on, starting with the contents of the bottom three shelves and, as he grew taller, all of the books on the top three shelves. He especially enjoyed reading Old Norse, Greek and Celtic myths. His favourite authors were Ray Bradbury, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.
Arthur liked books so much that he decided to write his own while attending high school in Gull Lake (population: 1,500). By the time he graduated, he had finished his first novel. He sent his novel to eight publishers. None of them wanted it. So he wrote another, and then another.
And then one day, Orca Book Publishers accepted Arthur’s seventh novel, entitled Draugr, a thriller that became the first instalment in his Northern Frights series. Now, somewhere in Canada, a little boy has pulled Draugr from its library shelf. As he gets caught up in the story inspired by Icelandic folk tales, the boy thinks to himself, ‘Maybe one day I’ll be a writer too.’
Today, Slade is considered one of Canada’s best children’s authors. One of his most celebrated books is Dust (HarperCollins Canada) - a chilling story set in a Depression-era Saskatchewan farming town called Horseshoe that focuses on 11-year-old Robert and his 7-year-old brother, Matthew, who mysteriously disappears with a strange man, named Abram Harsich, who visits the drought-stricken community and promises to bring rain.
The 2001 novel, which Slade wrote as an “ode” to Prairie literary legend W.O. Mitchell, became a national bestseller and won both the Saskatchewan Book Award and the Governor General’s Literary Award for children’s literature. The jury for the latter prize hailed Slade for his “tough, compassionate, clear-sighted and daring” writing.
A year later, HarperCollins published Tribes, the story of Grade-12 student Percy who observes his fellow students like an anthropologist (as his late father was), while struggling with his emotions to maintain a distance from the ritualistic tribes of jocks, the cool-and-detached and the lipstick-and-hairspray set at his high school.
The prolific Slade, who holds an undergraduate honours degree in English from the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, where he now lives, became a full-time writer in the early 90s after leaving a job writing advertising copy for radio.
Since the publication of Draugr, he has penned two more instalments in his Northern Frights series and also written John Diefenbaker: An Appointment with Destiny, a biography for young adults about the former Saskatchewan-born prime minister.
Slade has also created three comics, including Hallowed Knight, the story of an 11th-century Norman knight who is transported to contemporary New York to prevent the apocalyptic Darkening from occurring; and Great Scott!, which tells the tale of “Canada’s greatest Scottish superhero," who was "born with a bagpipe for a set of lungs”, is “stronger than a cup of Tim Hortons’ coffee” and “smarter than your average hockey player.”
Slade is now working on more projects for young readers. One novel, called Worse Than Starkers, is the story of 17-year-old, scientifically-minded Newton Starkers (a nod to Isaac) who sells truffles over the Internet, gets knocked out during a fight with a fellow high school student over which of the underground fungi are best, and wakes up with the ability to forecast activity on the stock market.
The second book, Megiddo’s Shadow, is more personal. A historical epic set during the First World War, the novel gets part of its title from Megiddo, a city near Jerusalem, which itself bears the name of the root for “Armageddon,” that has hosted more battles throughout history than any other place on earth, according to Slade’s research. The story also draws inspiration from family. His grandfather, a First World War veteran, served in the Middle East with a British Army cavalry during the Battle of Megiddo between the Turks and Germans.
Slade is also now tackling the second book in his new Canadian Chills mystery series. Regina-based Coteau Books recently published the first title, The Return of the Grudstone Ghosts, which involves adolescent detective Daphne Shea and a haunted school in Moose Jaw.
As he told CanWest News Service in late 2003, the best part of his career is the ability to write books he would have enjoyed reading when he was a child. And his favourite target audience are 10- and 11-year-olds. “That’s when you could fall into a book,” said Slade. “As adults, you rarely get that experience.”
- Christopher Guly