All roads lead to here
Defying Gravity puts readers out of place
by ROBYN MAHARAJ
Prairie Books Now, Summer 2000
It's a tale of television, intrigue, and soul searching
Jennifer Wynne Webber offers up a journey with some strange twists in her first novel, Defying Gravity.
Miranda, a television news producer, is on holidays with her fiancé. He abandons her on a mountaintop in Jasper, where she meets Indrin, a young man contemplating his last summer before starting school to become a Catholic priest.
They become friends and head to Vancouver. But along the way, they're asked to escort a young Rwandan refugee, Edmond, to the west coast to reunite with his brother, also a refugee.
"The main characters are forced to step out of the world they know in order to experience this journey," Webber says, "the literal journey as well as the spiritual".
At first, "Miranda is a bit cynical when it comes to religion," Webber says. But she gradually comes to develop a broader perspective as the journey goes on.
Like Miranda, Webber has worked in television news for years, including a stint as CBC's arts reporter for Calgary. She grew up in Saskatoon, and says she's been writing all her life.
"Although I have had many different work experiences, from studying acting and working in the theatre to working in television, writing has always been the one constant," she says.
Webber also writes short stories and poetry, and has had a play staged in Saskatoon.
Because of her experience as a reporter, Webber had to fight the urge to edit while writing. In order to get the manuscript done, she made a deal with herself to finish the first draft before beginning the editing process.
"I am always fussing and tweaking as I write," she says. "I suddenly realized I would never get done if I kept stopping. At the same time because I am a visual person, I see things very clearly - a character, a setting, a scene.
"If I trust myself, I can quite easily just follow my imagination and write."
That trust was always hard for Webber to develop but the result of allowing her imagination to roam freely is the completion of a novel which is unpredictable - an outcome which Webber admits was a goal.
"Audiences today are so sophisticated. Between books, film and the theatre, audiences are very adept at guessing where story lines are going.
Because this novel was an exploration of new territory for me as the writer and an exploration for the characters, I wanted the reader to experience that feeling of exploration as well."