A Country of Eternal Light by Paul Dalgarno – note from the author

Image: Sophie de witt

A Country of Eternal Light is essentially a ghost story. Margaret Bryce, our narrator, is a native of Aberdeen, Scotland, who’s been dead since the mid 2010s.

Margaret’s not a particularly mystical woman (she doesn’t necessarily believe in ghosts, for example), and yet she finds herself visiting and revisiting scenes from her past, out of sequence – and she’s not just recalling them; she’s actually there, in ghostly form. That means sometimes there are two Margarets, living and dead, and sometimes only Dead Margaret watching something she didn’t experience first time round.

She revisits moments from her childhood; with her best friend, Barb; with her estranged husband, Henry. But mostly, she visits and revisits her twin daughters, Eva and Rachel.

As children, the twins were extremely close but drifted apart in their teenage years. Rachel now lives in Melbourne, with her wife Gem and their two children. Eva lives in Madrid, where she teaches at an international school. The first time they’ve been in the same place together for years is when they return toAberdeen to spend the last few weeks of Margaret’s life with her.

A Country of EtERNAL IGHT

Margaret doesn’t know why she’s visiting and revisiting these moments, although she does have a growing sense that there’s something she’s maybe forgotten, either by accident or on purpose. She also starts to suspect that she can interact, even just a little, with the world of the past and present.

As we go back and forth with Marg, we also get to revisit some key historical events that happened during her life and that of her family. The allied bombing of Würzburg, Germany, during World War II; Margaret Thatcher’s ‘right to buy’ housing scheme in the UK; the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster in Aberdeen, the death of Princess Diana – right through to the Black Summer bushfires and Covid/ post-lockdown era in Australia.

Stories and their importance play a big part in this book, whether that’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which is stitched all the way through, or the work of Virginia Woolf, Robert Burns, Jane Austen, the Bible … even the seemingly impromptu bedtime stories Rachel tells her children in Australia. And that belief in the power of stories is related in many ways to why I wanted to write this book.

Frankenstein manuscript. Image: Eden, janine and jim/ flickr.

I’m from a working-class background, where the assumption was that there were certain books you didn’t, couldn’t or shouldn’t read, certain ideas you probably shouldn’t engage with. And if you did, you probably wouldn’t understand what you were reading, thinking or saying. That you didn’t go to university – that was another assumption. That improving yourself meant, at best, learning a trade as quickly as possible and leaving it at that.

As per that model, I left school at 14 with no exams and started working as a painter decorator’s apprentice, then as a washing machine engineer. A few years into that, in part, I think, because I had a love of music and was besotted with Bob Dylan and his lyrics, I signed up for a night class in English literature at my local college in Aberdeen. It changed my life.

For much of the year, it was just me in my work clothes and my teacher, Donald Cunningham, who was in his final year before retiring.

To cut a long story short, I couldn’t believe there was someone, maybe lots of people, for whom stories and literature mattered – not just as an airy-fairy thing for ‘other people’ but as a vital life-giving force available to everyone, a free resource that was literally there for the taking.

I didn’t have the words to express to Mr Cunningham what all of this meant to me at the time, but we kept in touch and I was able to tell him a few years later, while studying for a literature degree at uni.

Once, when talking to my paternal grandma about the text I was reading for my studies – Paradise Lost – she said casually that she’d enjoyed it but didn’y really rate the sequel, Paradise Regained, both of which she’d borrowed from the library at some point. I was stunned. This was someone who worked in the fish yards gutting fish, who was the first woman to successfully give birth to triplets at Aberdeen’s Foresterhill hospital and then had to raise them, and my infant father, on the smell of an oily dishcloth.

Jean Dalgarno (top left) with my aunts, the dalgarno triplets

My maternal grandad, an electrician by trade, taught himself to speak fluent Spanish from tapes, again borrowed from the library, after meeting a Spanish family, who became lifelong friends, on holiday. He was also a voracious reader across multiple genres. He was proud of me, as the first in our family to go to uni. As were my gran, my mum, and a number of others in my family, who would often say variations of: I’d have loved to have gone to university … if only I had the brains.

I’d try to tell them the truth, that there were loads of not-so-smart people at uni, a surprising amount really, and so many that were way less intelligent and engaged than them.

But I don’t know that they were ever fully convinced by that.

This book, then, is something of a tribute to them, to anyone who shines as brightly as they did, despite the odds, without fully realising it.

Because of Covid and other life issues, I remember thinking as I was writing it: if this is the last thing I ever create, I want it to be something that connects with people as deeply and genuinely as possible, something that expresses what I want to say as honestly as I possibly can.

It’s a story about love and family, written with my head, of course, and my hands, but also – more than anything I’ve done before – from the heart, and that’s where I want people to feel it as they’re reading it: in their hearts.

Buy A Country of Eternal Light by Paul Dalgarno (Fourth Estate).

A Country of Eternal Light and happy/ unhappy endings

Bride Of Frankenstein. Image: Universal Pictures

By Paul Dalgarno

In Frankenstein films, they usually miss out the novel’s framing narrator. His name is Robert Walton and the book we’re reading is a series of letters he’s writing to his sister in England, Margaret Saville, first from St Petersburg and then from the boat he’s captaining towards the North Pole.

Desperate for fame, terrified of failure, Robert excitedly recounts the stories he’s being told by a bedraggled Victor Frankenstein, who has been found – implausibly – alongside Robert’s ice-bound ship on a dog sled. Victor offloads the story of his life and the monster he’s created. Various people have also told the monster stories, which it has duly related to Victor, who then shares them with Robert, who then offers them to Margaret and us.

Image: Paul Dalgarno.

Passing on information without stories is hard. The basic building blocks (character, setting, plot, conflict, resolution) are as central to The Three Little Pigs as they are to War and Peace. But they’re also essential for gossip, architecture, fashion, memory, religion, humour, politics, friendship, history, philosophy, terrorism, music, theatre, accounting, games, film, parenting, dating, geography, finance, cooking, journalism …

Commonly, there’s a line drawn between non-fiction and fiction – the first being ‘true’ and the second ‘made-up’.

We feel we know the difference. With the destruction of the Twin Towers, we can (if we were alive and old enough) remember it happening. If we go to New York, we can see where the towers once stood. Unfortunately, that incident wasn’t made-up. But the story, even as it was unfolding, partially was. As always, we looked for patterns and previous experiences to compare it with – hence the vox pops of rightfully horrified people saying it was ‘like a disaster movie’. What we learned, on the most basic level, was that it could happen – because it had.

Why is Hansel and Gretel still a tale we tell young children, and they enjoy, a couple of centuries since it was set in print by the Brothers Grimm? Is it fanciful that a house would be made of gingerbread? Yes. Is there truth to the notion that adults might abandon their children in a time of famine? Yes. And that – whether it’s breadcrumbs or by other means – children should hone their instincts of self-preservation? Also yes.

For good reason, science has developed checks and balances to ensure (or try to) that the truths it uncovers are not made-up, but science is no less dependent on story. Sir Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity – long since usurped by Einstein’s general theory of relativity – lives rent-free in our minds thanks to the story of him observing an apple falling from a tree, something most of us have seen or can easily imagine. 

The celebrated six-word short story attributed to Hemingway – For sale: baby shoes, never worn – is a long-read when compared with Einstein’s far punchier E = mc2. Both rely on storytelling and our own – or other people’s – ability to work out what’s going on. Both say something that, on a primal level, seems true. We are experts in panning gold from even the muddiest, murkiest stories – outdone only by those clever and devious enough to manipulate us with them for personal gain.

Science is grounded in the principle of replicability: apples always fall downwards, the sun always rises in the east. But so is fiction, memoir, and poetry. When a poet like Maya Angelou writes lines like ‘You may trod me in the very dirt/ But still, like dust, I'll rise’, we don’t need that to be literal for it to be true, or for the sense of its truth to be replicated many millions of times over.

When an author like Muriel Spark peppers a novel with a phantom phone-caller who keeps telling the characters  ‘Remember you must die’, the truth is as real as the atom.

In trying to explain his desire to explore the world, Robert Walton in Frankenstein writes to Margaret that ‘There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.’ Whether it’s Mary Shelley, Marie Curie, you or me – stories are what get us closer to understanding, or at least to knowing there are others asking similar questions.    

Paul Dalgarno is the author of A Country of Eternal Light (Fourth Estate). This article was first published in the Sunday Herald Sun, February 2023.

Poly and Paul Dalgarno in the media

A selection of interviews, podcasts reviews and articles about Poly by Paul Dalgarno. Poly is available in print, ebook and audiobook.

Video and podcast interviews:

• Words and Nerds Podcast with Dani Vee

• Yarra Valley Writers Festival: Rick Morton interviews Paul Dalgarno

• Literary Elixirs

• Avid Reader: in conversation with Chloe Higgins

• Final Draft podcast

• Stories Behind the Story Podcast with Cheryl Akle

Written by Paul Dalgarno:

• Poly is a novel, not a manifesto. Herald Scotland

• Writing Sex Should be (Un)Easy. Lee Kofman’s writing blog

• Polyamory and the Mirror on the Wall. Archer Magazine

• How to Write a Novel While Working Full-time. ArtsHub

• The Six Questions I Always Get Asked About Being Polyamorous. The Guardian

Print/ online interviews:

• Penthouse Australia

• The Booktopian

• Good Reading

Reviews:

• Loving Polyamory. The Monthly

• Poly, a romp through romance and sexuality. Australian Book Review

• Queensland Reviewers Collective

• Out in Perth review

• Sydney Arts Guide review

• The Book Slut review

• Better Reading review

Selected review quotes and endorsements:

‘Poly might well be a masterclass in how to write dialogue […] Sardonic and playful, this is a world in which virtues don’t have definable corresponding vices. Love isn’t a concept of wholeness or oneness, nor can it be divided. It is a natural state – wonderful, often chaotic, fully lived – and this is what Paul Dalgarno gives us in Poly.’ – Australian Book Review

‘A fresh, witty take on modern masculinity and the lengths a man will go to for love. And sex. Lots and lots of sex.’ —Angela Savage

‘A quintessential 21st Century love story, Poly will shake you up, madden you, have you in stitches and, most significantly, make you consider your own life more deeply. I couldn’t put this novel down.’ —Lee Kofman

‘No one uncovers our human frailties quite like Paul Dalgarno – part relentless investigative journalist, part poet of the bohemian suburbs. Poly is authentic, merciless and wincingly accurate; black humour at its best.’ —Jane Rawson

‘An engaging entanglement of love, desire and distraction.’ —Angela Meyer

‘Poly takes us into the heart of a loving family we want to be part of, no matter how dysfunctional it gets. A rip-roaring ride through contemporary Melbourne that will have you heartbroken one moment and laughing the next. This is a portrait of real, lived poly life – with all of its paradoxes and complications – that I recognise with delight.' —Rochelle Siemienowicz

‘Dalgarno lays bare the complexities of modern adult relationships, neatly balancing a discussion of freedom and self-expression with an examination of the adult responsibilities of careers and children.’ —Books+Publishing

‘Explores modern masculinity through a polyamorous lens. An entertaining, hot mess of an emotional rollercoaster from start to finish.’ —Penthouse

‘A very modern novel of manners […] Paul Dalgarno weaves a tale of twenty-first century sexual relationships, family dynamics, parenting issues and dramas, and betrayal… themes of sex, drug-taking, and family are linked with the concepts of masculinity and trust to create a novel which explores contemporary relationships in a very charming and disarming way. A fine debut with engaging characters which deserves to be widely read.’ —Queensland Writers Collective

‘Polyamorous romantic drama. A wild ride. Dalgarno includes mental health issues that impact on contemporary relationships as several of the male characters are suffering anxiety and/or depression along with questioning their masculinity.’ —OUTinPerth

‘What a cracker! One of the most pleasing reads published in the present pandemic […] Dalgarno is disarmingly adept at depicting his inner-city dwellers facing self-esteem issues as they confront the twilight of their youth and try to reign in their renegade responsibilities […] funny, honest, and nimble.’ —Sydney Arts Guide

“A hilarious but moving story of modern relationships in all their diversity, and an exploration of the fragility of love.” —Good Reading

‘Humorous and clever in its juxtapositions of domesticity and sexual exploration …’ —Kill Your Darlings

‘In a post Fifty Shades of Grey world, Poly is another story with sex at its heart. The prose is light-hearted, non-judgemental and drizzled with droll humour. Dalgarno’s writing is lively, and upbeat. It’s a racy, pacy, can’t-stop-to-take-a-breath romp of a read, and the protagonist’s stark honesty and relatable frustrations with everyday life makes Poly a page-turner.’ —ArtsHub

‘A hilarious, witty and engrossing debut. Fun and pacy black comedy… Absorbing… a refreshingly honest and authentic take on love and sex, as well as an intimate exploration of 21st century masculinity… Dalgarno’s use of prose, is raw, visceral and pulsing with energy. Dalgarno doesn’t shy away from touchy subject-matter either, exploring the topics of polyamory, sex, mental illness and masculinity so explicatory it will leave you wincing yet craving more… Incredibly funny… Poly is a raw, hilarious and intimate portrait of contemporary relationships in all their diversity.’ —Better Reading

‘An exploration of identity and love with all their messy, flawed complexities, Poly commendably handles issues around mental illness and suicide.’ —The Big Issue

‘Poly normalises masculine anxiety and open relationships. Poly’s dirty realism rarely tumbles into ethical compassing. Dalgarno’s best achievement is in montaging Chris’s spasmodic thoughts – adrift anywhere between bathing children at home and watching over Sarah having sex with a stranger – which means that Poly remains fundamentally about men and their primitive fear of other men as a threat to their procreative prowess. The novel’s whodunnit subplot overlays and animates this thematic focus. Is Zac an imposter on a calculated mission to usurp Chris’s role as the man of the house? Has he done anything inappropriate to the kids? A movie-script ambiance gives these flickering moments a sense of dimension …’ —The Monthly

Come to the launch of Poly ... and stay at home

I’m really happy that one of my favourite writers, Lee Kofman, will be launching Poly and asking me some questions (hopefully easy ones) at a Readings Books event on 2 September, 2020, via Zoom.

You can register for that here – it’s free, and will start at 6.30pm AEST … If you’re not on the east coast of Australia that could be virtually any time of day. In the UK, it’ll be 9.30am, in mainland Europe 10.30am, in Perth, Australia, it’ll be 4.30pm. For everywhere else, I’m sorry, you’ll have to work it out yourself. The cut-off for registrations is 5.30pm AEST on the day of the event.

I’ll see you there, hopefully, in a rectangular box, in your kitchen or in bed. And, needless to say, you can buy the book online (anywhere in the world) or in your favourite local bookshop in Australia and New Zealand.

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