Lori Lansens on emotional journey writing ‘The Mountain Story’

By Victoria Ahearn, The Canadian Press

TORONTO – Bestselling author Lori Lansens tears up when discussing the hopelessness felt by the suicidal teenage protagonist of her new novel, “The Mountain Story.”

“Sorry, it’s a little hard for me to talk about,” said the Chatham, Ont.-raised writer, getting choked up in a recent interview.

“I try not to do this in public when I’m reading because it’s very emotional.”

In “The Mountain Story,” teen Wolf Truly goes to the top of a mountain near Palm Springs, Calif., to kill himself on his 18th birthday.

During the tram ride up, he sees three women who eventually ask him for directions.

All four wind up lost on the mountain for five days, battling injury and the elements in a twist-filled page-turner. It marks a departure for Lansens, who had never written from a male perspective and with such suspense before.

Lansens said Wolf’s story is an emotional one for her because “there were a cluster of teenage suicides” near her current home in a small community in the Santa Monica Mountains.

It happened when she was in the final stages of writing her last novel, 2009’s “The Wife’s Tale,” which is in development as a feature film.

“I only knew one of the children, only briefly, they’d briefly been our neighbour. But going back into my own sort of dark days and remembering just the pain of existence…,” she said, before stopping herself.

Lansens said the tragedies left her preoccupied with thoughts about the teens, and her 12-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son.

“None of us are safe from mental illness,” she said. “None of us are safe from depression. And particularly, as we know, in high school, children are so susceptible and so vulnerable.”

In the case of Wolf, his hopelessness started in childhood.

Growing up in poverty in Michigan, his mother died in an accident when he was young and his father was an alcoholic. When his dad moves them to a trailer park community in a desert town in California, he meets more adversity, including the imprisonment of his father.

Wolf’s mindset changes when he meets the three women on the mountain. The eldest, Nola, says she’s marking the anniversary of her wedding to her recently deceased husband.

Ironically, Wolf finds himself trying to help Nola celebrate life while he plans to end his.

“That’s the other thing — that you can be turned on a dime,” said Lansens.

“I read something about someone saying they were walking in San Francisco to the Golden Gate Bridge to jump and they were playing this little game with themselves: ‘If someone smiles at me, I won’t jump.’ … So these three women gave him a purpose and spoke to that really strong part of his character that said, ‘What would mom say if I didn’t help these women find their way?'”

Lansens was a screenwriter before making a splash on the literary scene with 2002’s “Rush Home Road” and then 2005’s “The Girls.”

She moved to California with her husband and two children nine years ago.

To get to know Mount San Jacinto, the setting of the new book, Lansens visited it every couple of months. She was sometimes accompanied by Matt Jordan, a local guide and adviser.

“Accuracy and believability were the most important thing before I started,” said Lansens.

“When I sent the manuscript to Matt, I was more nervous than when I sent it to the publisher … because the veracity was so important.”

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