This is a photograph of my grandmother Jennie's seal. The inscription says "Dinna Forget" and when I am asked why I wrote Medical Man, the answer is contained in those words...we need to remember our history whether it is our family, our country or our place in the world. If this story was not written, it would be lost.
The next question I often hear is, "Why did you write it as a novel, why not a bigraphy?"
The answer to that is also simple. This is a story, and I wanted readers to enjoy reading it as such, to get to know Robert and Jennie as real people who had dreams and hopes and sadness and conversations and who played a real part in Canadian history.
Their letters and journals were a wonderful way for me to to "hear" their voices and of course, I knew these people and spent many hours with them when I was a young child...a quiet child who probably overheard many conversations that I shouldn't have. I was also part of many dinner time conversations, listened to and loved my grandfather's stories, or heard him talking to my father, also a doctor, about medical matters.
I also wanted their story to reach a larger audience than might be reached by a straight biography...thus Medical Man is a story and I wrote it as such, and almost everyone I speak to has a story to tell of their parents or grandparents,
so.... "Dinna forget".
The next question I often hear is, "Why did you write it as a novel, why not a bigraphy?"
The answer to that is also simple. This is a story, and I wanted readers to enjoy reading it as such, to get to know Robert and Jennie as real people who had dreams and hopes and sadness and conversations and who played a real part in Canadian history.
Their letters and journals were a wonderful way for me to to "hear" their voices and of course, I knew these people and spent many hours with them when I was a young child...a quiet child who probably overheard many conversations that I shouldn't have. I was also part of many dinner time conversations, listened to and loved my grandfather's stories, or heard him talking to my father, also a doctor, about medical matters.
I also wanted their story to reach a larger audience than might be reached by a straight biography...thus Medical Man is a story and I wrote it as such, and almost everyone I speak to has a story to tell of their parents or grandparents,
so.... "Dinna forget".
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