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In Conversation: Evan Solomon

© Paula E. Kirman

Evan Solomon likes to tell stories. That's the main reason he alternates between journalist, screenwriter, and now novelist. In his first novel, Crossing the Distance, Solomon tells a story of brotherly love. Jake, a television host, has to deal with the fact that his brother Theo, an activist, has killed a logger as part of a protest. As if that isn't enough, Jake is accused of shooting his lover, and hides out for a while with his brother as he tries to clear his name. While they spend time together, numerous revelations from their past come to light as they struggle to see each other for who they have become. At the same time, there is a satirical parallel plot involving the television station where Jake works and how they handle the crisis of their number one star being involved in a scandal while at the same time trying to report on the events to their audience.

Solomon's extensive background in religion was a catalyst for the novel. He likens the struggle between the brothers to Cain and Abel, and Jacob and Esau. Solomon, who attended Hebrew school for his elementary years, has had a long term fascination with religion, pursuing a joint Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Religious Studies and a Masters in Religious Studies.

The former host of CBC Newsworld's FutureWorld, Solomon currently hosts the Newsworld's Hot Type. He is also the co-founder and former executive editor of Shift magazine, and has worked as a journalist and writer throughout North America and Asia. I caught up with Solomon when he was in Edmonton during his national book tour in support of the Crossing the Distance.

Paula: You described your novel as being about love, but not love in the classic sense of the term. Could you elaborate on what you mean by that?

Evan Solomon: A classical love story is always a boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl. A love story has a resolution. This is about brotherly love, first of all which is also an archetypal story, a Biblical story -- the Cain and Abel or the Jacob and Esau. The question about love here is what are the limits of love? When does unconditional love become conditional love? Classically, we are always trying to test the limits of love. When G-d says to Abraham, "go take your son up to the mountain and sacrifice him to me. Is your love for your son greater than your love for me?" That's an archetypal question, which is how much do you love your kids or your siblings. It's not necessarily a religious thing; non-religious people struggle with the same question, the limits of love. Let's say kids of Nazis, there's a lot of psychological studies about children of Nazis, can they love their parents a generation later when they found out their father was a commander of Auschwitz. This book is about a brother trying to find out if there are any conditions on unconditional love. Jake has to discover if what Theo has done is enough that their bonds of love can't sustain that. We all have to figure that out, when we have to resolve our differences.

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