Written by Maximillian Dunham
Photos by Mikaela Burns
On Tuesday, Oct. 4, Canadian author Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer read from her third and most recent novel “All the Broken Things.” Kuitenbrouwer published her first novel, “The Nettle Spinner,” in 2005, which was placed on the shortlist for Amazon’s First Novel Award. In addition, she was awarded the Sidney Prize for her story “Will You Staunch the Wound?” in 2012.
Published in 2014, “All the Broken Things” is a story about a young Vietnamese boy named Bo, who moved to Canada with his mother, Thao, and baby sister. The story takes place in 1982 about four years after the family immigrated.
Bo’s younger sister, named Orange, was born disfigured due to the effects of Agent Orange used in the Vietnam War. Bo, a testy adolescent, often gets into fights. Gerry, a bear trainer, observes Bo fighting one day and proceeds to recruit him to be a bear wrestler in the circus.
Bo gets a bear cub, whom he names Bear. Max, the man who runs the freak show, hears about Orange and begins to pursue Thao in an effort to recruit Orange for the freak show. Bo wakes up to find that he is alone in the house with his bear cub. He then sets out to find his family with his new companion at his side.
Kuitenbrouwer read two different excerpts from the book. The first detailed the relationship between Bo and his sister, and the second excerpt followed Bo as he procured a job at the circus. After reading the excerpts, Kuitenbrouwer facilitated a question and answer session. The first question was pertaining to her research process. Kuitenbrouwer said that she researches until she feels she has enough to start writing. After that, she does research on an as-needed basis while writing.
“It was interesting hearing Marlon James talk about his research process because he seemed to do everything up front. I can’t do it that way,” said Kuitenbrouwer.
Kuitenbrouwer also lamented the fact that the novel was originally two separate stories.
“I initially had thought that I was going to be writing a book about a young white guy who is discovered by this carnie,” said Kuitenbrouwer.
She wanted to write this book based on a true story of a young boy that wrestled bears in Canada. However, when she came across the story of Canada’s involvement with Agent Orange she decided to put the bear wrestling story on hold as it was not as pressing in her mind. She got to a point where neither novel was progressing. They were both lacking too much energy to continue, according to Kuitenbrouwer.
“I went to a friend’s cottage and I was swimming in the lake and suddenly I was like ‘oh my god it’s the same book,’” said Kuitenbrouwer, evoking a few chuckles in the crowd. “Suddenly this white kid became this Vietnamese boy with his little sister.”
When asked about governmental acknowledgement and compensation for Agent Orange, Kuitenbrouwer revealed one of her ultimate goals for the book.
“I had hoped that the book would bring some attention to it and that there would be some compensation from the Canadian government,” said Kuitenbrouwer.
After the question and answer session was over, Kuitenbrouwer sat by the bookstand eager to converse with anyone or sign a copy of her book.
Anna Wermuth, a sophomore at Colorado College and writing enthusiast, enjoyed the different perspective that Kuitenbrouwer brought.
“I think just hearing about her perspective, I didn’t really know much about the immigrant population in Canada and it’s just cool to have someone from outside the U.S. come and read from their novel,” said Wermuth.
Another CC student, senior Andrew Scherffius, was convinced to come to the event after Kuitenbrouwer paid a visit to the fiction writing class he is in.
“She had some really interesting insights about what makes writing stories difficult, such as sharing your idea for a story before you finished writing it,” said Scherffius.
Scherffius said that his favorite part of the reading was the description of a bear licking ice cream off of a boy’s toes through the slats of a porch.
“I thought that was a really visceral image. I closed my eyes and I could really feel it and I thought ‘why not keep reading?’” said Scherffius.