Will Ferguson
September 2017
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THIS BOOK BEGAN WITH a story my mother told me. My mom, Lorna Louise Bell, worked as a psychiatric nurse at the Weyburn Mental Hospital in the 1950s under Dr. Humphry Osmond. She often spoke about her time at Weyburn, and the stories she shared with us were, by turn, unsettling, heartbreaking, occasionally uplifting, and at times inspiring. She mentioned psychological experiments that occurred at facilities in the U.S., where mental patients suffering from the same identity delusion were brought together and forced to confront their doppelgängers. The roots of these experiments can be traced back as far as the 1660s and the Case of Simon Morin, as cited in this novel. A similar encounter between women who believed they were the Virgin Mary occurred at a mental facility in Maryland in the 1950s, and the unexpected cure that resulted from this was later reported in Harper’s Magazine, which directly inspired psychologists such as Dr. Milton H. Erickson (whose experiment in bringing competing Christs together succeeded) and Dr. Milton Rokeach (who failed). Although inspired by these stories, The Shoe on the Roof remains a work of fiction.
Several people helped me with this manuscript. My oldest son, Genki Alex, read the first drafts and provided invaluable advice and feedback. He also took a rather snazzy author photo. My brother, the playwright and author Ian Ferguson, provided great help in sorting out the story in its early stages. And my friend Karen Jorgensen, a painter, explained how one might go about searching for “perfect blue.” She also showed me around her artist’s studio, even letting me smell her paintbrushes at one point. As fortune would have it, Karen’s daughter Kelsea Gorzo, whom we’ve known since she was in kindergarten with Alex, is now studying neuroscience at the University of Calgary. (The mouse brains experiment described in this novel is taken directly from Kelsea’s own experiences, right down to the seventy-two hours she spent watching “mice videos.”) I should also thank Doru Gorzo for his hospitality and patience with me as I endlessly quizzed his wife and daughter about their work.
Dr. Jaideep Bains at the Hotchkiss Brain Institute kindly gave me a tour of his lab, answering my questions, however inane, and explaining in layman’s terms what all the various equipment does. It was very helpful, and I thank Jaideep and everyone at Hotchkiss for allowing me to peek over their shoulders and scribble down notes while they worked. (I should also note that the Bains lab, though equally cluttered, is far tidier than the one presented in this novel.) It goes without saying that I am not a brain surgeon or a scientist, and any errors or oversights in how I presented the fields of neuroscience, neurology, psychiatry, or physiology are entirely my own and should not be ascribed in any way to anyone who helped me along the way.
The Alberta Foundation for the Arts provided crucial support for this project, and I thank the foundation sincerely for this.
Several works proved instrumental in researching The Shoe on the Roof, too many to list here, but I would like to note: The Spiritual Brain by Dr. Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary, which provides a cogent look at the interface between neuroscience and faith, and Mapping the Mind by Rita Carter, which remains one of the best overviews of neuroscience on the market. The expression “book of woe” is a reference to Gary Greenberg’s The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry, which makes for sombre reading. Bonnie Fournier’s wonderfully frank and often funny memoir, Mugged, Drugged and Shrugged, of her time spent as a nurse on the streets of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside provides a fascinating look at the front lines of mental health care, addiction, and homelessness. And although Dr. Rosanoff’s views are grounded in the behaviourism of B. F. Skinner and the reality therapy of William Glasser, The Shoe on the Roof is not meant to be a comprehensive critique of either.
Two people loaned me their names for characters in this book: publicity maven Frances Bedford (who is not a nun, lapsed or otherwise) and historian Jeffrey Keshen (who is not, as far as I know, a recovering heroin addict with delusions of divinity). Thank you both! And Bruce Bennett as well.
I’d also like to thank everyone at Simon & Schuster Canada for their unwavering enthusiasm: President and Publisher Kevin Hanson; Editorial Director Nita Pronovost, who did a splendid job editing the manuscript; VP of Marketing Felicia Quon; Managing Editor Patricia Ocampo; Publicity Director Adria Iwasutiak; and Publicity Manager Catherine Whiteside. There’s a reason Simon & Schuster is the fastest-growing publisher in Canada! I should also thank copyeditor Joshua Cohen for his meticulous work. (Any quirks or inconstancies in style and usage are wholly my responsibility, however.)
Finally, I thank Terumi and Yuki Alister deeply for their love and support while I was writing this strange book. Arigatō ne!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
WILL FERGUSON is the author of three previous novels: Happiness, a comedic story about a self-help book that actually works, and thus destroys the world; Spanish Fly, a con artist coming-of-age tale set amid the jazz halls and dance clubs of the Dirty Thirties; and 419, a story of heartbreak and revenge in the international world of cybercrime, which was awarded the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Ferguson’s travel memoirs include journeys across Japan, Rwanda, and Northern Ireland. A three-time winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, Ferguson has been nominated for both a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Award. He lives in Calgary with his wife and their two sons.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Will Ferguson
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Interior design by Carly Loman
Jacket design by David Gee
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Ferguson, Will, author
The shoe on the roof / Will Ferguson.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-5011-7355-4 (hardcover).—ISBN 978-1-5011-7356-1 (ebook)
I. Title.
PS8561.E7593S56 2017 C813'.54
C2017-901864-7
C2017-901865-5
ISBN 978-1-5011-7355-4
ISBN 978-1-5011-7356-1 (ebook)
Will Ferguson, The Shoe on the Roof
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