Robert Hough, Artsci’85, was walking his dog in Toronto when an idea for a novel struck him from nowhere – or, at least, from deep in his subconscious.
“I can’t explain it. I’m not an anarchist. I have really no interest in politics. And yet, there it was: Why not Emma Goldman?”
His muse has a great sense of timing. As he read Goldman’s autobiography, it struck him how much this revolutionary and writer born in 1869 might speak to the 21st century.
“She would be a major player in the No Kings movement, and #MeToo. Those were her two things: women’s issues and the distribution of wealth in America. She would be completely unafraid.”
All the same, it wasn’t the politics of Goldman’s life story that drew Mr. Hough in, but the psychology, especially her relationship with Alexander Berkman. His novel, Anarchists in Love, follows these two young idealists as they develop into revolutionaries – and plan the murder of an industrialist who set armed Pinkerton agents against striking workers.
That interest in human behaviour goes back to Mr. Hough’s time at Queen’s, where he majored in psychology. At Queen’s, he wrote a reg-ular satirical column for The Lictor, a weekly paper published by the Arts and Science Undergraduate Society. Mr. Hough remembers that column as “good training” in coming up with something entertaining on deadline.
Mr. Hough became a freelance writer in Toronto and published his first novel, The Final Confession of Mabel Stark, in 2001. His books have been nominated for several awards, including the Trillium Award, the Giller Prize, and the Governor General’s Award.
His novels often examine historical figures and settings. When it came to Anarchists in Love, Mr. Hough found the real events so compelling (and occasionally outrageous) that he wasn’t tempted to invent. “I promised myself I wouldn’t change anything in their story. I would make up as little as possible. Luckily, it was all there.” The challenge was to get to know these long-dead revolutionaries, how they walked and talked, so he could bring that naturalism to their portrayal in his novel.
Mr. Hough is now working on a satirical novel – which, in some ways, goes back to the skills he developed writing that column for The Lictor as a student. In the meantime, he’s been fascinated by how Anarchists in Love has tapped into readers’ frustration at the disparity between billionaires and the rest of us.
“There’s something in the air,” he says. “It’s the second Gilded Age we’re living in. And, in fact, the distribution of wealth today is very similar to what it was during Emma Goldman’s time.”
is available from Douglas & McIntyre.
