The Black Wolf: A Novel By Louise Penny - 38

As I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, my friend, The Black Wolf is unusual on a number of levels. The first, and most obvious, is that the plot, as you’ll know by now if you’ve read it, is hauntingly similar to real life.

I wrote the book, as I said in the author’s note, a year before all the talk from the American President about making Canada the fifty-first state. I worried that my leaning on that plot point would be unbelievable, but it turns out is far too believable.

The other thing that is unusual is that The Black Wolf is the second half of a whole. A sibling to The Grey Wolf . At the end of that book I took a chance and ended it with the words, “We have a problem.” It was not actually, “The End.”

The challenge after twenty books with the same characters and same location is not writing the same book. Over and over.

I know, because I read the emails, that some readers want me to set each book totally in Three Pines. To have the villagers front and center. And in many of the books they are. But that is not always possible. I made the decision early on that for the longevity of the series, for its credibility, and for my own creative health I needed to set every few books away from the village.

I do understand this desire to live in Three Pines. I share it. I created the village as a place of refuge. Where we would find companionship and comfort and acceptance. And safety.

Perhaps slightly ironically now, Three Pines is an old Canadian code created to tell Americans fleeing tyranny when they are across the border and safe. In the book, Armand tells Whitehead that he will protect him when the battle for the fifty-first state begins.

Just look for three pines, he tells his American friend.

I love writing the scenes in Three Pines. In the bistro, the bookstore. Those conversations among intimate friends. The love they have for each other. Loved for who they really are, not who they might pretend to be to the outside world.

I love that Armand has found a harbor there, a haven. A place to exhale.

But sometimes we need to leave, so that the haven does not unintentionally become a prison.

When we return, it is all the sweeter.

When I was a child, I was terribly shy. Unsure of myself. Afraid of many things including other children. Afraid of being excluded, and so I chose to exclude myself, to step away and spend time alone. So, I would not be hurt. One of the exceptions was my grandfather. We’d go for walks through public gardens. He’d take my hand, and we’d talk. Though often he’d just recite poetry. It got so that poetry and conversation were one and the same to me. There was nothing unusual, nothing intimidating about it. Even if I didn’t understand it, I understood the intention.

One of his favorites was by Sir Walter Scott (my grandfather was a product of his generation). Before long, listening to Papa, I had memorized:

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land!

Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,

As home his footsteps he hath turn’d,

From wandering on a foreign strand!

Home. After yearning for home for much of my life, I found it in a village in Qu é bec, with Michael, with the dogs. With the miracle of newfound friends. And now, in Three Pines. With you.

Three Pines is a state of mind. A place we carry with us always and live in when we see the chance for the clever, often cutting, remark, but choose kindness. When we are forgiving, as we sometimes need to be forgiven. When we choose decency, and acceptance. When we have integrity and the courage to stand up for what we know to be right. Even at some personal cost.

It’s now twenty years since Still Life , the first Gamache, was published. Twenty years since you first wandered into Three Pines and met all the villagers. In the introduction to that book, I wrote about the years I spent without friends, and the aching loneliness that brought me to my knees. And that the great gift wasn’t having a book published, but that I had so many people to thank.

That remains true today.

Thank you to Lise. To Del. To Rocky. To Linda and Isabelle. To Normand and Peter and Bow. To Mellissa and Paul. To Shelagh. Thank you to Danny and Lucy and Ben. To Kirk and Walter and Guy. Thank you to Joan. To Jack and Jane, to Wendy, to Oscar and Brendan, Don and Erin and John. To David and Linda. Thank you Sukie and Bonnie, Hillary and Patsy and Kathleeney and Allida and JuJubee and Ann and Judy and Cheryl, Rita and Bob, Will and David and Jon. Thank you to Pascale and Jean, to Samatha and Nathalie, to Sally and Eliza and Cynthia and Victor and Chris and Zoe. To Sara and Janet and everyone at the Three Pines caf é . To Tara, Matthew, and Thom at Virgin Hill.

Thank you to Jill, who looked after Hunny with such love and tenderness, and now looks after Muggins and Charlie when I am away.

Thank you to Ann Cleeves and Ann-Marie MacDonald and Alisa Palmer. To all my writer friends, including Rhys Bowen and too many to thank, but you know who you are.

Thank you to my family, for all your patience and support. To Rob, Audi, Sarah, Ryan, Rhett, Waylon, Adam, Lindsay, Nora, Amelia, Kim, Laura, Lucy, and Oliver, to Mary and Brian and Charlie. I love you.

Thank you to my wonderful publishers! Many of whom have become close personal friends. Kelley Ragland, Jen Enderlin, Andy Martin. Thank you Sarah Melnyk, Paul Hochman, Allison Ziegler, Tom Thompson, David Rotstein, Jon Yaged, Louise Loiselle, Jo Dickinson, Jamie Broadhurst. Thank you, Steven Barclay. Thank you to the magnificent Raymond Cloutier, my friend and neighbor, who voices the French audiobooks, and to Jean Brassard for becoming the Qu é b é cois voice of the English audiobooks.

A book is both an individual effort—a year sitting alone, working and worrying. And a collaborative effort. This is in your hands because all those people also believe in Three Pines.

Thank you to my agent, David Gernert, and his great team including Rebecca Gardner, Ellen Goodson Coughtrey, Will Roberts.

Thank you to John MacLachlan Gray who, in collaboration with the actor Eric Peterson, created Billy Bishop Goes to War and allowed me to quote from that great work of Canadian stagecraft.

Thank you to all the booksellers, librarians, and readers who quickly adjusted expectations, and embraced the new all-Canadian tour for The Black Wolf . I am grateful.

Thank you. For coming to Three Pines with me. For following Armand, wherever the need takes him.

Thank you to Canada, to Qu é bec, and specifically the village of Knowlton/Lac Brome for keeping a place at the table for me and so many others who long for a safe place.

Yes, I know. A list like that can be boring, unless you happen to be on it. And maddening if you happen to have been left out. (Sincere apologies if I have failed to thank you. I hope you can forgive me. It is a function of my memory and not my gratitude.)

And finally, a special thank-you to my Golden Girls, Muggins and Charlie, for bringing such unexpected joy into our home, along with all sorts of other things including sticks and dirt and … what’s that smell? Is that really mud?

I wake up in the night and feel Charlie’s breath on my face, and Muggins’s body curled up against mine. And I know I am not alone.

The Black Wolf is about choices. About creeping threats disguised as friends. About the courage it takes to be a dissenting voice, to stand up and step forward.

But finally, at its heart, like all the Three Pines books, it’s about the power of friendship. And love. And the great comfort of coming home.