Conversation with Jon Hassler: North of Hope

Our interview about North of Hope took place on October 30, 2000, at Jon and Gretchen's townhouse in Minneapolis, Minn. All page references in this interview are from the hardcover edition of North of Hope.

Q. Here we are on the 30th of October in your living room ready to discuss North of Hope. After rereading six of your novels, I believe that North of Hope is your masterpiece, thus far, anyway. I think it even edges out Simon's Night as of now. Ballantine published North of Hope in 1990. The dedication reads "For my son Michael," the oldest of your three children. Was there any special reason for this dedication? You had dedicated Four Miles to Pinecone to all three of your children, "For Mike, Liz, and Dave."

A. Well, it was time to dedicate each book individually to my kids, and I started with my oldest child.

Q. Your unpublished Book of Brendan from the early 1980s also dealt with a childhood similar to Frank's. Is North of Hope an outgrowth of that?

A. Yes, it is. The first 150 pages are the teenage love story of Frank and Libby, and a lot of it had been written as The Book of Brendan, so I used that to start this book.

Q. Would you explain the title of North of Hope? Of course, the Hope Unit at the Berrington Hospital serves as Verna's refuge. Also, Libby says: "It's like hope doesn't reach this far north" (498).

A. She says that while very depressed, of course, during the course of the book. I guess you've explained it, Joe; I think you've explained both meanings.

Q. Some Hassler geography: are Linden Falls and Basswood based on actual northern Minnesota towns?

A. I don't know where Linden Falls is exactly. It's near Red Lake, I guess. I kept seeing Red Lake when I'd see Sovereign Lake in the novel. Sovereign Lake is a huge body of water with the Basswood Indian Reservation next to it, so I would use that. And then I made up the town of Linden Falls. It's up around Bemidji, probably north of Bemidji somewhere. It's far north.

Q. And Basswood?

A. The basswood tree and the linden tree are the same, so the Basswood Reservation - Linden Falls has a sort of unifying effect, and that's all I can say about that.

Q. Also, is Aquinas College another name for the actual St. John's University [Collegeville, Minn.] or not? Both have seminaries, of course, on their campuses. And I realize that St. Andrew's College in Simon's Night roughly corresponds to St. John's, but I was wondering about Aquinas College.

A. Yes, that's true. I kept seeing the St. John's campus as I wrote the part about Frank and the seminary and playing basketball, so that's true - it's a rural campus.

Q. Also, pages 91-94 cover Frank's visit to the St. Thomas Aquinas campus:

After supper in the refectory (sausage and fried potatoes) the community filed into the church, where the evening sun falling through the great window behind the altar suffused everything in a rose-gold light, and where the prayers were chanted in Latin (94).

Is this your experience as an undergraduate at St. John's in the early 1950s?

A. Yes, it is. It's the magic of that sort of chant that draws Frank into the seminary.

Q. Would it be correct to infer that all of your Catholic colleges are somewhat based on St. John's?

A. It certainly would.

Q. Both you and Frank Healy were born in 1933. Part One (pages 3-104) deals with Frank's adolescence, from the age of sixteen to roughly twenty. Is at least some of this first section based on your life and experience?

A. Yes, of course. I think I was like Frank in that I was shy of girls - I didn't have any dates. I fell in love with a girl in high school and she became my obsession, and that was about as far as it went. Unlike Frank, my mother and father were both living. But there were a lot of similarities. I used to candle eggs for my dad in the grocery store the way Frank does in the egghouse. Things like that are similar.

Q. Frank's candling eggs is such a good passage that I would like to quote it. It's on pages 15 and 16, and you very convincingly describe Frank's work at the egghouse:

There was something comforting, almost mesmerizing, about holding dozens and dozens of eggs, one by one, up to the funneled light to make sure they weren't bloody, fertilized, or cracked; something sensually rewarding about the vague, floating shapes of their illumined yolks and their various shades of shell - white, cream, tan, brown. He fell into periods of deep reverie at the egg table, eggs triggering his fantasies the way the rosary triggered his prayers in those years. As one by one, like oversized beads, the eggs passed through his fingers, he entered into a lengthy daydream,the same daydream over and over . . .

Is the intent almost mystical?

A. Yes, it is.

Q. I almost see this as being symbolic, a foreshadowing of Frank's priestly life, candling souls up to the funneled light of the Holy Spirit. Is that too farfetched?

A. Not at all, Joe, I never thought of it, but it's wonderful. I like it a lot.

Q. I'm always glad to learn that you obviously liked movies as much as I did when young. Do you remember seeing A Portrait of Jennie? Its date, 1949, helps set the time period.