Local author explores history through fiction
Posted Jan 29, 2010 By Sheena Bolton
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EMC Entertainment When setting out to write a novel, Pete Hodgins Sr. says he always makes a point of travelling to the featured locale beforehand to give his book an authentic feel.
Sheena Bolton, Ottawa South EMC
Author Pete Hodgins shows off his two novels at his Alta Vista home.
And while many of his books are fictional, most of them stem from real historical events, such as his And The World Turned Black: Toko Cicak, A Voyage of Self Discovery, which is about the volcanic explosion of Mount Tambora in April 1815. His other published novel, See Atlin and Die, is set in a small village in British Columbia, where Mr. Hodgins had spent two years working.
"With the kinds of books I write, I find it's extremely important to travel to the places, to gain an understanding of the atmosphere," said the Alta Vista resident. "I don't write things in the present time period because I find they change too much, so I use history."
To get a better sense of the eruption of Tambora, Mr. Hodgins, 77, travelled with his wife, Gardie, around the Greater Sunda Islands of Indonesia, where the mountain is located. There, they looked at the volcanic remains of Tambora and other smaller volcanic eruptions.
"We travelled the ring of fire and looked into an old volcano, one of the biggest riffs in the world, and all you see is black when you look across," said Ms. Hodgins. "The area looked similar to a moonscape, very desolate."
Mr. Hodgins began writing in 1965 and has written approximately 14 novels, though currently only two are complete and available for purchase.
See Atlin and Die is the author's newest book, published in 2009.
The book follows a wilderness surveyor's expedition in British Columbia. The book is based in 1953, long before the time of GPS and other such technological devices.
To write the novel, Mr. Hodgins used some experiences from his time in the area in the 1950s when he was a surveyor.
"I used some of my experiences, as well as some events that happened around the time I was there."
Mr. Hodgins did much research for his other book, And The World Turned Black: Toko Cicak, A Voyage of Self Discovery. This work of fiction follows the historic timeline in 1815 when Mount Tambora exploded.
"This was the biggest explosion in historic times ... this thing was so great (that) when it exploded it blew a whole forest in the stratosphere," he said. "It killed only 100,000 people because it's surrounded by ocean."
It was such a horrendous event, he explained, that there were environmental impacts witnessed around the world. For example, in the United States 1815 was the year of no summer, with snow reportedly falling in New York in July.
Mr. Hodgins got the idea to write a novel about this happening after he was researching for another story about a fictional volcano exploding. In his research he came across Tambora.
"I started researching this and I noticed that almost everybody who lived anywhere near this volcano was killed and the few who survived were illiterate," explained Mr. Hodgins. "There was one guy who survived ... who lived 25 miles away. He would have been killed too had there not been mountains in between the volcano and (where he lived). He was the only eyewitness who would properly tell that happened."
Mr. Hodgins' novel follows this man's experience.
"Anyone should be interested in reading this book because this volcanic eruption affected the weather patterns all around the world," he said.
Mr. Hodgins was born in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Montreal and came to Ottawa when he was seven years old. He started to focus on writing after retiring as a civil engineer.
Currently Mr. Hodgins is working on his first series about naval ships.
"It's the 1800 naval history and begins in early 1777 in the years of the American Revolution. But it's not about Americans, the central character is an Irish farm boy," said Mr. Hodgins.
He plans to have about six books included in the series.
Mr. Hodgins' two novels can be purchased for $25 each by contacting Mrs. Hodgins at 613-731-7648. They are published by Baico Publishing Inc. and can also be ordered through Chapters.
