A Q&A with Author Roy Blomstrom about The Iterations of Caroline

1. Where on earth did the idea for this novel come from?

 

Perhaps not from anywhere on earth! It arrived from wherever inspiration normally originates. To Ancient European civilizations, inspiration was a divine gift. I wouldn’t go so far as to claim divine inspiration for this novel, though.

 

Truthfully, I don’t rely on inspiration very much. I enjoy playing, and this book came from a lot of time thinking about stories. I’ve been reading science fiction, and even writing short stories, for decades—since before I retired from teaching high school, some twenty years ago. I’ve been reading what I call “big ideas” books for a long time, too. Those interests came together as I toyed with ideas for this book. And much of the book came from the characters, as they developed and I put them into stranger and stranger situations.

 

This novel isn’t the first full-length novel I’ve finished, but it’s one of the first few I’ve completed. In its first draft, I was still experimenting with form and voice, and I wrote about ideas and situations I enjoyed—to keep it fun for me.

 

From a writing perspective, The Iterations of Caroline really took off for me when David finds himself in a universe in which the Spanish Flu killed a far higher percentage of the population than in the universe we live in. Sending David all across the continent in that parallel universe let me think in more depth about the potential ramifications of that one change. It also helped me think through other possible changes, and how they might, or might not, change the history I’m familiar with.

 

And, of course, the characters were interesting, and I had fun with them. It was amusing to me to have David become Watson to Caroline’s Holmes.

 

 

2. Your previous book, Silences: A Novel of the 1918 Finnish Civil War, was a historical novel. This one is science fiction or speculative fiction. What are the similarities and differences in writing these two different types of novels?

 

They’re actually a lot more similar than you might think. In both types of novels—any novel, really—the writer has to evoke a believable, coherent world for the reader to step into. Half of Silences was set in 1955, a time I remember. Even for that time period, however, I researched this region so I could make it real for the adult characters. The things that were important and interesting to ten-year-old Jimmy might not be as interesting to his grandmother, Viktoria.

 

In The Iterations of Caroline, my job was to imagine what would likely happen at different points in human history. I was less interested in wildly different universes (for example, one in which the dinosaurs survived that meteor) than in universes that were similar to ours. It was tempting for the “time travel,” the subject which so enthralled Bernie, to resemble the forms of “time travel” we’re familiar with—you know, going back to 1920s Germany to kill Hitler, that kind of thing. But that story is a different kind of “what if” than I wanted to explore. I really wanted David and Caroline to move among possible worlds.

 

In the end, in writing any kind of story, you select details that let your readers create the novel’s world inside their own heads. Books are forms of conversations between the writer and the reader.

 

 

3. You mention that David and Caroline are moving within possible multiverses—do you really think it’s possible to find a universe in which humans have gills?

 

Good question! One to which I don’t have an answer. In fact, I’m not sure we can know the answer. Personally, I don’t understand the physics well enough to know whether gilled humans are possible, or even if it’s within our human ability to accurately perceive the cosmos.

 

But it’s interesting to think about how someone might experience gills, if it were possible. It’s like a math problem (the only kind I really enjoy): Assuming that it’s possible for a universe to exist in which humans have gills, how might a person from our universe, or one like it, end up there? And in what ways would that universe differ from ours? Those were the questions I really enjoyed playing with.

 

 

4. What do you hope a reader understands after reading The Iterations of Caroline?

First, I hope they enjoyed it. I don’t see a reason to read anything that doesn’t entertain you. And I’m grateful if anyone invests time and effort in spending a few hours with this book.

 

Beyond that—I’m reluctant to prescribe “lessons.” But if I were pressed, I’d really hope that readers pay attention to the ending. Spoiler alert! I liked the chapters in which David and Caroline talk together about the kind of world they’d like to live in, and then go out and make it so.

 

In some ways, we all have that power. We may not be able to grow gills, but we can all appreciate neighbourhoods with sidewalks.

 

This book came out during the COVID-19 pandemic—was actually delayed by the interruptions—and, assuming that vaccines work and we ensure that everyone on earth has access to them, we’ll be able to emerge from those restrictions someday. As we do, it might be worthwhile considering what elements from pre-COVID we want to return to, and what have outlived their usefulness for us.

 

Thank you for reading The Iterations of Caroline!

 

A Reader's Guide to The Iterations of Caroline

1. In the first chapter, after falling in the bedroom, David learns that his wife, Darlene, seems like a different person. He then sees differences in his physical world—railroad tracks that were missing in his “home” universe, speed limit signs in miles per hour instead of kilometres. Yet he’s not sure whether the view is different from across the bay, or whether those lupines in the driveway were the same ones he’d always seen.

 

What would need to change in your or your surroundings before you realized that something was different? And maybe the something that had changed was you?

 

 

2. If you’re Canadian, you’re familiar with Terry Fox. For those who aren’t, Terry Fox was a young man with bone cancer. His treatment required a portion of one leg to be amputated. Believing he’d been cured, he wanted to spare other young people his experience. In 1980, he decided to run across the width of North America—thousands of kilometres from Newfoundland to British Columbia—to raise money for cancer research, in what he called his Marathon of Hope, running the length of a full marathon every day.

 

His effort caught the public’s imagination, and people assembled along the route to cheer him on. When he reached about the halfway point, near Thunder Bay, Ontario, he found that his cancer had returned. He abandoned his marathon and died some ten months later. Cities across Canada still hold Terry Fox runs. More about him is at his namesake Foundation’s website, terryfox.org

 

In one of the early universes David lands in, David seems especially unnerved by the vandalism of the Terry Fox monument—the hand still missing, the amethyst in the base chipped away. If you traveled to a different universe, what iconic figure, statue, or symbol might be especially upsetting if it’s missing or vandalized?

 

 

3. The travels that David and Caroline undertake greatly expand their experiences of life. Caroline finds versions of herself that spent significant time on the west coast of the U.S. David grows gills.

 

But their travels also involve loss. David never finds his friend Carlos, and his aunt’s family in Washington isn’t there. At one point, Caroline “loses” her friend Stan.

 

They also face truths about themselves—for example, David learns that a different version of him is a better poet. And he recognizes that he’s not really the main character in the story; instead, he’s along for the ride as Caroline grows stronger and more confident her abilities.

 

What kinds of choices have you made that looked to be “grand adventures” but also included losses? Have you ever made the best of a bad situation forced upon you, and found consolations in it?

 

And which of those situations do you think David and Caroline are in? Are they making the best of a bad situation, or embarking on a grand adventure that involves loss?

 

 

4. What did you think of the different versions of Bernie that David and Caroline encounter? In one, he’s living in a basement apartment, happily fixing appliances. In another, he’s a wealthy international software genius—also apparently happy. And yet another Bernie, whom Caroline meets and David doesn’t, is a professor at Lakehead University.

 

What do you think caused these different lives for Bernie—were they the result of different choices he made, or different elements in the universe in which that Bernie happened to live?

 

How about you? Have you ever said, “In another life, I’d …”? What would have to change—in you or the universe—to live that life?

 

 

5. What moments in the book show the kind of teacher David Williamson was? Do you think he was a good teacher? Was he a good learner?

 

Which are you better at, teaching or learning?

 

 

6. David and Caroline are reluctant to admit that Rey is determined to kill them. They’re even more reluctant to kill him, even to save their own lives, partly because it seems unlikely that they could find a method that Rey couldn’t escape.

 

Do you think David managed to successfully lure Rey to his death? How do you think David will handle his troubled conscience going forward? What other options, if any, do you think Caroline and David had?

 

 

7. At the end of the novel, David and Caroline discuss their ideal world over yet another cup of coffee. They talk about a universe that includes poetry, sidewalks, and flowers in flowerpots hanging from lampposts. They want a universe in which Bernie and Dr. Anna are alive. By speaking it, they create it.

 

What elements would be important in your ideal universe—both seemingly trivial, like flowers, and more meaningful, like specific individuals? What actions can you take to help bring about that universe?

 

Thank you for reading The Iterations of Caroline!