Interview with author William Deverell

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Our December pick for the Canadian Living Book Club is April Fool by William Deverell, a whodunit set in southwestern B.C. (Click here to read an excerpt from the book.) We chatted with Deverell about his novel, his characters and his favourite causes.

Canadian Living: What inspired you to write this book?

William Deverell: My fans. Reviewers. Everyone under the sun seemed to be urging me to bring back Arthur Beauchamp, the protagonist from Trial of Passion, a novel I'd written several years earlier and which won the Dashiell Hammett award. I think I finally understand why readers find him so engaging and (frankly) loveable -- it's because of his many frailties, his weaknesses: he was presented in that earlier novel as troubled, self-doubting, driven to impotence by a vibrant wife whose infidelity rendered him an alcoholic cuckold. In April Fool he retains similar human faults -- and, as my neighbourhood bartender once told me, people admire weakness in others if for no other reason than it makes them feel better about themselves -- especially when the character is a high-ranking member of that powerful and much-denigrated profession, the law.

CL: Like Arthur Beauchamp, you are a lawyer by training who has chosen a peaceful life on the Gulf Islands over practising in the city. What other similarities does Arthur have to you?

WD: I was hoping you wouldn't ask that question. I am now forced to insist with as much vehemence as I can muster that I am not an impotent alcoholic cuckold. But I am also forced to admit that Arthur's retreat from the city was inspired by my own, that I also felt burned out by the courtroom and that I too read poetry, listen to classical music, and am married to an organic gardening activist. One takes inspiration for his characters where one finds it -- in this case, my life, my career (and my own inner insecurities).

CL: April Fool revolves to a great extent around an environmental issue -- preserving land from development. Why did you choose this as a theme?

WD: I have long been involved in environmental causes, particularly on the Gulf Islands, where I have strongly opposed thoughtless developments (one of them right next door to us) that are causing great harm to a unique ecosystem that is supposedly protected by law (the B.C. Islands Trust Act). I fear I am one of those eco-neurotics who run around depressing everyone with bad news about the planet. But I also fear we humans are threatening the extinction of one species too many (ours) if we don't wake up to the dangers threatened by climate change and exponential world population growth.

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