Peggy Revell
There’s murder, drugs, and drama in Finland, Ont.—and it’s coming from the pen of district resident Chris Gallinger, who has just released her first novel, “Justified.”
“I think I wrote [the novel] because I want to leave a piece of me,” said Gallinger, a homemaker and mother of six from Finland.
“This is me, this is something I enjoy doing,” she stressed. “I enjoy playing with words, I like to talk.
“And I love it when people look at me and say, ‘You wrote a murder mystery?’” Gallinger laughed, explaining many just expect her to be “home baking cookies.”
“Justified” is a murder mystery set in Thunder Bay.
“It’s about a woman who starts her life at 18 going to university in Thunder Bay and runs into a lot of trials and tribulations on the way,” Gallinger recounted.
“There’s murders, and drugs, deceit, dishonesty.
“I don’t really want to say a whole pile because every time I do, I end up giving the ending away,” she smiled.
While she has published poems before, usually anonymously or under a pseudonym, Gallinger said this is the first novel she’s written.
But it won’t be her last, though—Gallinger is set to have the sequel to “Justified” published in three months.
“It was definitely difficult,” she said about the writing process.
“I had the idea to write this particular book for 10 years,” she noted. “And through health considerations I wasn’t able to, and something always seemed to come up.
“Then finally just around Christmas, I gave it some serious thought, and I picked up a pen and a whole load of notebooks and started writing,” Gallinger recalled.
“And I wrote and wrote day and night until the point of exhaustion, and then I had to step back and relax a little bit because it was burning me up.
“It was just steady writing and reaching, and I don’t know where the words come from, I don’t, they just come,” she stressed.
“Even with this new book, as I’m typing it, it’s, ‘Where is this coming from?’
“I have an excellent imagination, my husband will attest to that,” Gallinger laughed. “I have a very overactive imagination.
“My children do, too,” she added. “I think maybe they learned along the way it’s okay to think outside the box.”
Not wanting others to make money off of her own work, Gallinger said she went with the option of self-publishing the novel.
And while the words are her own, she credited friends and other locals with help and support with the project.
Miranda Carmody, originally from Nestor Falls but who now lives in British Columbia, volunteered to design the book’s cover, Gallinger noted, while Ellie Caul has been a “sounding board” and “source of strength” throughout the process.
As well, she said local retired teacher Frank Maraj, who penned his own memoirs last year, was a “wonderful source of information” when it came with choosing a company to print her book.
“It’s very exciting to take a piece of you and put it in a paperback, and people want to read it, people want to know,” she remarked, encouraging others to “not be afraid to try this kind of stuff” and “don’t be afraid to dream.”
“And it’s nice to write about fiction, something that isn’t true,” she added.
“I would hate to write about murders and drugs on a regular basis, but this works for me.
With the release of her novel, Gallinger will be holding a book-signing on Wednesday, May 5 from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. at Northwoods Gallery & Gifts here.
She also has set up a book-signing at the McNally Robinson bookstore in Winnipeg on May 15 from noon-4 p.m. and at Books & More in Thunder Bay on May 30 from 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
The book also is available for $15 a copy at Tompkins Hardware, Emo Drugs, and Village Variety in Emo.
