Katie Welch is joining us today to talk about her novel, Ladder to Heaven. Here’s the publisher’s description:
In 2045 an earthquake ravages the Pacific Coast of North America and the world shifts. Suddenly people and animals can understand each other, while the chaos of climate change combines with the destruction of the earthquake in terrifying ways. Inland, where she should be safe, Del Samara finds her life spiralling out of control. Struggling with addiction and with her ranch in ashes around her, Del decides her family would be better off without her. Leaving her daughters behind, she retreats to her father’s fishing cabin with her dog, Manx. When she emerges three years later, she finds the world since the earthquake has become a very different place and she begins a dangerous journey to Vancouver Island to find her family and, perhaps, find peace.
What’s Katie’s favorite bit?
“As a rule, animals were bemused by the chronic dissatisfaction to which humans were prone, and didn’t respond to wishes and hopes. Things were or they weren’t. Speculation was nonsensical.”
Without question, my favourite bit of Ladder to Heaven was writing the climax scene. It felt as if the characters, alive in my imagination, were acting independently of the writing process, and I was simply recording events and dialogue as they unfolded. It was possibly the most fun I’ve ever had while composing, but I can’t share the scene without spoiling the story, so instead, here is my second-favourite bit: talking animals.
Animals talk to Del, the protagonist. She believes she’s hallucinating until she emerges from three years in the wilderness and discovers that the phenomenon is universal. She goes on a journey by foot, horseback and sailboat over the coast mountains and across the Salish Sea to her childhood home on Vancouver Island. Along the way, animals reveal how much humans have compromised the natural world. Struggling to survive, the animals Del meets crave a life independent from the chaotic evil of human activity.
We believe the way things are is the way they will always be, but inevitably, the world shifts. I don’t think it’s farfetched to believe that people and animals could come to understand each other better. In fact, I think it’s necessary if we’re going to survive as a species. It seems to me that nature has a wisdom that surpasses ours, and we would be wise to respect it.
“People say animals cannot speak,” reads one of the novel’s epigraphs. “Of course they speak. They speak to us all the time. The only thing is that we don’t really listen.” Eva Meijer, a philosopher and animal rights activist, famously said this in an interview, and I knew in my guts it was the truth. We humans pave surfaces, build things and zoom around in machines in order to pretend we’re not animals ourselves. But of course we are, and the more we study animals, the more evidence accumulates that they are just like us – thinking, feeling individuals. Bees dance. Octopuses use tools.
If our planetary neighbours are like us in so many important ways, it becomes increasingly hard to abuse and ignore them. We don’t ignore animals, say millions of pet owners and farmers. People ooze empathy for dogs, cats and horses, the animals they have domesticated, and in children’s books, people portray the farm animals they consume as their adorable friends. At some point, if we’re honest, we have to connect the adorable talking chicken on television with the deep fried nuggets we’re having for dinner. And wild animals? We love the idea of whales and grizzly bears but won’t concede them the territory they need to survive.
In Ladder to Heaven, the conceit of animals speaking serves a narrative purpose – reflecting the foibles and failings of humans – and provides entertainment. But much more flowed from the decision to have animals communicate than I anticipated. Inventing the voices and gestalts of different species was an exercise in fun and intuition. Cougars, solitary and imperious, use the pronominal “we” and make demands. Coyotes are hoodlums, wandering in packs and snickering. Rabbits are angry and resentful.
Writing animals shifted my worldview. I changed my diet and behaviour. Tish and Tosh, the sea lions to whom Del tells her story, are as real and permanent to me as any human character. I love their fictional company, and they have expanded my conscience.
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BIO:
Katie Welch lives in Kamloops and on Cortes Island, B.C. Her debut novel MAD HONEY was nominated for the 2023 OLA Evergreen Prize. She is a two-time alumnus of the Banff Centre and was a finalist for the 2023 CBC Short Story Prize.