Interview with author David Chariandy

CL: What is a soucouyant and what is its significance as the title?

DC: A soucouyant is a vampire-like spirit in the folklore of certain islands in the Caribbean, particularly, in this case, of Trinidad. A soucouyant is female. She sometimes disguises herself in the skin of an old woman, but she sheds this in the night to fly as a ball of fire in the air, and to suck the blood of her victims while they sleep. They say that if you awake with a tired feeling and a strange bruise upon your skin, you might have been visited by a soucouyant.

In my novel, the mother reports that she saw a soucouyant, but the meaning of this event or story is only revealed gradually and perhaps never with absolute clarity. For the most part, the soucouyant functions as a symbol of the pasts that each of the main characters have struggled to forget – pasts that continue to haunt these characters in shadowy or spectral forms. Also, a soucouyant, from the son’s perspective at least, is a word that is simultaneously familiar and strange. It’s a word, among many, that the son has heard his mother utter throughout his life, but that he doesn’t completely understand; and his relationship to his cultural history is similarly doubled or ironic. (I should perhaps confess that my own parents oftentimes remind me that I myself don’t always pronounce the word "soucouyant" properly -- with the ‘t’ at the end of the word left silent.)

CL: How did you do your research into dementia?

DC: I absorbed a great deal from watching my grand-aunt and talking with my aunt and parents. I also read a great many books on various forms of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s. Finally, I asked a specialist to read over my novel to make sure that circumstances depicted were at least plausible.

CL: Typically, patients suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's are older than Adele and have older children to care for them. What is the significance of the son in your novel being too young to take responsibility?

DC: It’s true that Adele’s is a rather unusual case of pre-senile dementia, as a medical specialist in the novel explicitly points out. Here, I took a bit of poetic license because I wanted to tell a story not only about someone with dementia, but also about the ways in which youths deal with their parent’s cultural pasts. I also felt that a youth might be more prone to committing the obviously very shocking act of abandoning one’s mother in such a condition – although I should point out that the main character in the novel does this in a state of genuine despair, and only after he tries to convince himself (perhaps half-heartedly) that he has provided for her wellbeing in some way. The novel begins with his return home and his effort to make amends and to reveal the terms of his initial flight.

CL: What is the role of history, and especially the history of immigrants to Canada, in your novel?

DC: History is such a fiendishly complex term; but I’ve always felt that it suggests a story of the past that has become officially sanctioned and endorsed, a story rendered in institutionally acceptable forms and language. History, of course, is tremendously important to write, study, and preserve; however, I suppose I’m more interested in the question of memory, rather than of history, in my novel. Memory suggests to me those stories of the past that haven’t found official or institutional endorsement, but which may exist, nevertheless, in the minds or voices of those whom we don’t always consult when we go about writing or studying history. Memory also suggests to me its own peculiar language and narrative forms. We know the typical "style" of history – the clear or transparent language of facts and events that we oftentimes encounter in schools. But we also know that the "style" of memory is oftentimes very different, and sometimes very difficult. Memories rarely abide by the rules of linear storytelling. Memories are often vague and uncanny and triggered by obscure experiences, symbols, or words. In my opinion, a novel of memory would have to structure itself appropriately and take risks with plot and language in order to adequately evoke the dynamics involved.

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