Sarah Louise Butler’s novels have gotten deep into my head, and so it was interesting to finally talk to the person who created them and get a sense of what her literary projects—inspired by the wondrous geography of British Columbia’s interior—have been all about. Her latest, RUFOUS AND CALLIOPE, is a treatise on memory, geography, homegoing, and the particular dynamic of sibling relationships. It’s a sprawling canvas in a different way than Arundhati Roy’s A GOD OF SMALL THINGS is a sprawling canvas, but the two books still have creative threads in common, including the presence of a set of twins.
In our conversation, Butler talks about how she’s inspired by her particular geography, about driving with a windshield full of mountain, and how she had a real sense of her reader with her second novel, writing it with a view of leading them through her literary terrain, almost like guiding a perfect hike. She talks about how her reading tastes have been shaped by her experience as a Little Free Library steward, which has connected her with genres she wouldn’t have necessarily gravitated toward otherwise. And she tells me more about The God of Small Things, and about how she was inspired by Arundhati Roy’s boldness.
In Rufous and Calliope, Sarah Louise Butler takes readers deep into the rugged British Columbia Interior, where the mysteries of nature collide with the fragile threads of memory.
Rufous Flanagan, a modern-day cartographer, embarks on a solo trek through an ancient mountain pass in search of the summer hideaway he once shared with his siblings as child runaways. With every step, the vast, untamed wilderness presents both physical and emotional challenges, forcing Rufous to confront not only the treacherous terrain but also the unravelling of his own mind.
His memories—sometimes vivid, sometimes slipping away—become a map guiding him through towering forests, dry creek beds and smoke-filled skies. In this landscape, not everything is as it seems: echoes of the past lead Rufous on a journey that blurs the line between dream and reality. As the elements close in, this novel offers a suspenseful tale of survival, memory and family bonds.
Sarah Louise Butler is a novelist based in the West Kootenay region of the BC Interior. With a background in physical geography and environmental studies, her stories seek to portray natural landscapes and their non-human inhabitants as characters in their own right. Her debut novel,The Wild Heavens, was a 49th Shelf Book of the Year, and a favourite of book clubs and libraries across the country, including being chosen as a Vancouver Public Library Top 20 Favourite Books of 2020. It was recently translated and released in France. Her second novel,Rufous and Calliope, is a “geographical fiction” that features runaway children, treehouse hideaways, early-onset dementia and the persistence of hope amidst ecological grief. Butler was named a CBC Writer to Watch in 2020. Follow her on Instagram: @sarahlouise.butler
Coming soon! Pre-order DEFINITELY THRIVING today!
