Anna Quon’s third novel, Where the Silver River Ends, was published in spring 2022 by Invisible Publishing. In this book, Joan, a half-Chinese English conversation teacher unmoored in Europe, flees Budapest for a fresh start. Stepping off the train in Bratislava, she meets Milan, a proud Roma teenager, and they strike up a friendship. Milan helps Joan settle into the city, and in turn, Joan introduces him to Adriana, who has travelled to lay the memory of her dead mother to rest. They form an unlikely trio, bound by love and luck into something like family.

At the crossroads of youthful hope and the startling magic of coincidence, Where the Silver River Ends delves deep into mixed-race identity, systemic oppression, family reconciliation, and what happens when we gather the courage to slip out of the current and make our own way in the world.

What was your inspiration to write this novel? You mention in your acknowledgements that you were an English teacher in Slovakia three decades ago—did something about that experience call to you?

There were a number of inspirations for this story, which makes a trilogy of my first two unrelated novels. At the end of the first, Migration Songs, I left the narrator Joan preparing to go to Hungary. My second, Low, concluded with the main character Adriana in a hopeful place after leaving the psych hospital. I wasn't finished with either of my characters and thought it would be interesting to have them meet, to intertwine the stories of these two half -Chinese women who both grew up in Dartmouth, NS. It also made sense that they should connect in Slovakia, a neighbour to Hungary and the country of origin of Adriana's mother, who died when she was a girl.

Actually maybe these are more motivations rather than inspirations. Inspiration is a funny word. Maybe you could say I was inspired to write this book by the " what next" questions a few people asked me—what happens next to Joan, to Adriana—and I felt motivated to answer them.

I also wanted to pay homage to my time in Slovakia, where I taught conversational English in 1990, shortly after the Velvet Revolution, which saw the Communist government of Czechoslovakia fall. I lived and worked in a town called Nitra, mostly teaching in a high school where I made some very dear friends and had a magical summer I will never forget. Outside of Halifax-Dartmouth, Nitra is a place I felt most at home and loved. Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia where my latest novel is mostly set, was the big city closest to Nitra, and it seemed like the place Joan would land after fleeing by train from a bad roommate situation in Budapest and where Adriana would logically begin her journey to lay her mother's memory to rest. 

I've been drawn to Slavic culture since reading Russian literature and the Czech writer Milan Kundera in university. I think it's the melancholic streak in me that responds to the same in Slavic folk music and sensibility. 

You deal a lot with a sense of self and how that relates to and changes with place in this novel, for instance, “In Canada, she had felt like a misfit, a failure even; here, if she was a misfit, there was good reason for it—her foreignness was a given, not a source of mystification.” Can you elaborate a bit more on that sense of self and how it changes when one is at home, abroad, and when one is searching for one’s roots? 

When I went to Slovakia after university, I went to change my life. I went to become the person I felt I was meant to be.  I felt stifled and masked and trapped in Canada, as a result of the persona I'd adopted to cope with depression, stress and social awkwardness. I felt I could be freer in a country where no one knew me. 

Joan never felt comfortable in herself in Canada— in my first novel Migration Songs, she lived with her parents, had quit jobs and drifted, without a sense of purpose or home. She didn't belong, in a place where the people around her seemed to feel they did. In Europe, at least, the pressure was released. She didn't have to try to fit in because she never would, and no one expected it of her. At the same time, she learned to be more independent, as well as how to depend on others, strangely enough, which seem to me hallmarks of a well-individuated self. I would like to note, though, that she is privileged because she is an almost white, English-speaking North American. If she'd come from the Congo or Syria, she might not have had the same freedom or acceptance to be what she was. 

Adriana—who spent time in the psych hospital in my second novel, Low—comes to Slovakia in Where the Silver River Ends not so much to "find her roots" as she does to find closure for her relationship with her dead mother, to free herself from the past. A friend of mine noted that she is a different character than in Low—more vivacious, more adventurous, and freer, perhaps. I do not explain this in this book, and neither does Adriana, but she is as young as I was when I went to Slovakia after struggling with depression for my teenage years, and I see her as still in a time where her identity is shifting and blossoming. 

People commonly say that travel is good for a person, that it widens your knowledge of the world and broadens your perspective. I think it is also true that people often travel to "find themselves", and sometimes that involves finding out more about the homelands of their ancestors. For me, living in another country is a way to reset myself, to reconsider myself and what's important to me; to be bombarded with environmental stimuli, language, cultural norms, beliefs, values can force a re-evaluation of the sense of self we take for granted. 

I am more at home than ever in Halifax now, where I was born and across the harbour from where I grew up. My sense of self has more or less solidified, I think, although bouts of mental unwellness challenged the integrity of that sense of self well into my 40s. I have no desire to travel anymore, although I may yet, out a sense of duty. 

This novel deals with the Roma people, and the mistreatment they receive in Eastern Europe, for example, “there’s a myth that they kidnap the children of good white folk.” Can you describe a bit more what you learned about the history of the Roma people in Europe and how they are treated? Is anything changing? 

Most of what I learned about the history of the Roma people, who originally migrated from the Indian subcontinent maybe 1500 years ago, was that they have long been a reviled and marginalized people in Europe and have done well to survive the various laws and persecutions and the racism that they have faced, including being targeted for extermination by the Nazis during WWII. I am not sure what is changing at this moment, except that the rise of right-wing nationalism and white supremacy in Europe have not been kind to Roma or any people of colour. Under communism in Slovakia, Roma people had more financial and perhaps other supports and protections because the official line was around the “brotherhood of man” kind of idea, but in practice I think the long standing and historic prejudices against the Roma still translate into individual and systemic discrimination in areas such as education, employment, and housing, etc. 

Adriana is the main character, Joan’s, sort-of sister and comes to Bratislava to share in Joan’s journey. I’m curious to know why you chose to tell her chapters in the first-person, whereas Joan—who was definitely the main character of this novel—was distanced from the reader a bit more with her limited third-person POV.  

I am not sure either, except that when my editor suggested I tell parts of the story from Adriana’s point of view, first-person felt like the way to go for me emotionally, as well as to differentiate her voice from Joan’s. I think because Adriana had a smaller role in this novel I wanted what she had to say to be highlighted by putting it in the first person. Also I guess I know Joan better ... putting Adriana in the first person was a way to help me hear what she had to say more clearly. 

When I look back I also think ... Joan is the main character in the novel but in some ways not as immediate to us in the third person as Adriana, who narrates some short sections. I wasn’t so much conscious of it at the time but am now that in my first novel Joan was the narrator and in my second Adriana was delivered to us in the third person, so now they have switched positions.

Finally, can you tell me a bit about what you’re working on now?

Well, the idea of a fourth novel is hovering my mind, but I’m working sporadically on poetry and a memoir (which seems like it will take a very long time). I also facilitate a regular writing workshop for a local mental health not-for-profit, and for another, I host a zoom guest speaker series around arts and culture. Lately, I’ve had a number of interviews and readings on my plate. In the near future, I am also hoping to learn more about documentary film-making!

Thanks so much for this, Anna! And now, here is a Where the Silver River Ends playlist that Anna has selected for us!

“Mad Rush” by Philip Glass

“The Ship Song” by Martha Wainwright (song by Nick Cave)

“Treat People With Kindness” by Harry Styles

“Tightrope” by Janelle Monae

“Cost of Living” by Russell Louder

“Bird on the Wire” by Leonard Cohen

“Radiant Heart” by Shadi Toloui-Wallace and Shidan Toloui-Wallace

“River” by Joni Mitchell

Kjipuktuk (Halifax) novelist  and poet Anna Quon likes to create paintings and short animated films of her original poetry. Middle-aged, mixed race, and Mad, Anna is also a Baha'i, a writing workshop facilitator and host of an arts and culture guest speaker series on zoom for a local mental health organization. Self-employed, Anna has worked in the not-for-profit sector for more than two decades, except for several years as a freelance writer. Her chapbook, Body Parts was published in 2021 by Gaspereau Press. She has released three novels with Invisible Publishing—Migration Songs (2009), Low (2013) and Where the Silver River Ends (2022), which make a trilogy. Where the Silver River Ends was listed by CBC Books as one of “20 books we can't wait to read in March 2022”.