What's Going on With Local Author Adrian Barnes
By Sara Golling
His first novel, Nod, was short-listed for the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke award and has been widely read and reviewed. Nod was originally published in Great Britain by Bluemoose, and has since been published in several other languages. Now Nod has been published in Canada by Titan, so we can all buy our very own made-in-Canada copies of this thought-provoking masterpiece.
Adrian Barnes, a Rosslander since 1997, has provoked and stimulated local thinking in a number of ways. He was the founder and original editor of the independent on-line publication, the Rossland Telegraph. Before inventing the Telegraph, he edited and published a high-quality newspaper, The Kootenay Eye. Alas, the Eye was not as long-lived as many readers would have liked it to be. Barnes is also responsible for Foment West Kootenay, a movement and FaceBook page for discussion of ideas — largely on what is wrong with our current society and how it could be improved or completely changed. Barnes made comments there in June of 2014 that seem prescient, given political developments in Canada since then.
Barnes has recently become experienced at enduring surgery and chemotherapy, after realizing that something was amiss when he began hearing music not audible to others. His brain had been invaded by an advanced, special-effects-producing tumour. So Barnes’s own venture in publishing — with another Rossland literary luminary, poet and novelist Almeda Glenn Miller — has undergone some shifts on its way to publishing Barnes’s second novel. Big Bad Wolf is the publishing company, and Barnes’s second novel is Satan à la Mode and, sorry folks, it won’t be available until later this year. If you want to reserve (or pre-order) your copy of the new novel through Big Bad Wolf, you can do that. Check out its FaceBook page and home page to order, or for a glimpse of the book, and a hint of Barnes’s backstory and current (or at least recent) state of mind. Satan is illustrated by artist Yuliya Kashapova, and her graphics alone are a luxurious treat. Add to that Barnes’s collection of quirky characters and their zany doings, and the book is definitely one of a kind.
Both of Barnes’s news publications introduced local readers to his sharp wit, sardonic observations and evocative writing. With Nod, a very much wider readership discovered Barnes and his talent. Satan à la Mode will engage even more readers around the world.
