How fanfiction and lesbian longing led to Rose Sutherland's debut novel
The Toronto-based writer discusses her novel, A Sweet Sting of Salt, with Antonio Michael Downing
The Norse and Celtic folktale known as "The Selkie Wife" tells the tale of a fisherman who falls in love with a selkie woman and hides her sealskin so she cannot return to the sea, that is, until her child steals it back for her years later.
When writer Rose Sutherland learned of this myth, she was taken aback by the impression that readers were meant to feel sympathetic towards the fisherman after the selkie escapes, and set out to reimagine the classic story with a sapphic twist.
Sutherland is a Toronto-based writer, former patissier apprentice in France and occasional bartender. A Sweet Sting of Salt is her first novel.
A Sweet Sting of Salt is a historical novel set in the fictional town of Barquer's Bay, Nova Scotia in the nineteenth century. Jean, the local midwife, lives an isolated simple life in her cottage but all is set awry when she finds a woman in labour by the sea. After Jean helps Muirin deliver her child, the two grow affectionate towards one another. But Jean is left with more questions after meeting Muirin's husband in this twist on the myth of The Selkie Wife.
Antonio Michael Downing spoke to Sutherland about their journey from fan fiction writer to published author on The Next Chapter.
You tell the story from the point of view of Jean who finds this mysterious woman having a baby, Muirin. Why did you choose that point of view to tell your retelling of the story?
I feel almost like the point of view chose me. Jean reached out of absolutely nowhere the second that I went, "huh, it would be interesting to do a version of The Selkie Wife," grabbed me and went, "and it's about me!"
There's always a child in the story and that was part of what horrified me about it. Because as much [as the story is] billed as a retelling, it's very much its own original story that is very much one of those kinds of classic romantic lesbian period dramas except without the terrible ending and because I'm tired of being done dirty by the ends of those movies.
So when I looked at this notion of there always being a baby, I was like well the only person that this woman would come in contact with would be the midwife. And then Jean developed really quickly because I [thought] this would be a fun excuse to write about home in a way that I hadn't in a while…Just the notion of this really prickly, no nonsense, down to earth, lonely woman who's living by herself, trying to have a very sensible, no nonsense existence and has cut herself off pretty hard from a lot of her emotions and then this person just shows up in her backyard desperately in need of help. I knew coming in that it's going to be a queer love story between the midwife and the selkie. But in terms of choices, I knew that she needed to be someone lonely.
You're obviously a voracious reader and I'm told that you wrote some fan fiction back in the day?
So many people take a really dim view of fan fiction but the fact is that so many people who write before they're capable, like even when they're children, are not coming up with wholly original stories. So it's great to take characters and mess around with them and throw them into weird situations [and] it's a surprisingly good way to hone your craft.
It's a surprisingly good way to hone your craft- Rose Sutherland
I discovered the musical Les Miserables when I was about 14 … I decided at the ripe age of 15 that what I needed to do is read the novel Les Miserables unabridged. I can't say that I understood all of it, although I really did enjoy most of it. So I've been involved in that fandom for years and years off and on and a few years ago I was going through some stuff and I was like, "what used to make me happy back in the day?" I haven't sat down and written a ridiculous story about characters from Les Mis in years. I started writing Les Mis fanfic and handing it off to a very small portion of nerds on the Internet. And no, you cannot have my AO3 handle.
Setting this in the 1830s – I'm getting the sense that that just called to you rather than you chose it based on your previous answers.
Now, funny enough, I did choose it. I chose it for the nerdiest reason, it's in fact a Les Mis Easter egg. I decided to set it in the year 1832, which is the same year as the student uprising in Les Mis. To be fair, it wasn't just because of the Les Mis thing, it was because since I've been playing in that sandbox for so long, I already knew so much about the time period by osmosis. I mean, I had to go and research some very specific things, especially because it's Nova Scotia, you're not in France, but it felt like I got a lot of information for free.
When I first started writing this book, it was almost like I'm just going to write it in a random spot. I came up with this notion of starting on the first page: the ship was burning and the ship exploding in the Bay. And then I arrived on the South shore of Nova Scotia to double down on some stuff and I showed up in Mahone Bay and discovered that a ship had exploded in the Bay there, The Young Teazer, in 1813, right at the tail end of the war. That couldn't have been more perfect, obviously, this is my town. We won't name it that because I've done too many things that are a little bit fictional for this to be the real town of Mahone Bay. It feels like so many things about this book just kind of dropped into my lap almost by accident.
Longing seems to be a staple of lesbian literature.- Rose Sutherland
There is a lot of longing in this, it's really a slow burn of delicious fire here. What is it about Muirin that Jean finds so captivating?
Jean would have a hard time telling you that, I think. There is certainly a bit of that instant connection chemistry thing going on. While I would not call this a genre romance novel, it's got some of the underpinnings and that sense of instant spark is definitely there. But a great deal of what attracts Jean to her is her sense of humour and her ability to be affectionate, which all things considered, it's impressive she still hangs on to that part of herself and is like, "no, actually this is mine and I get to express it how I want." But she is so free in ways that Jean is not because Jean is so tightly wrapped. As I was doing revisions, I made Muirin touch her so much just so every time she did it, Jean could tense up and be like I don't know how to react to this. The longing seems to be a staple of lesbian literature, really. I have never read a book of this type that is not full of longing.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.