Although it’s now a ghost town with nothing left but a few streets, sidewalks and building foundations, the town of Creighton Mine (also known simply as Creighton) west of Sudbury once had a population of around 2,200 people.
It’s the Inco company mining town where Sudbury author Kim Fahner’s great-grandfather James Cornelius Kelly settled in 1908, opening a general store and becoming the town’s first recorded merchant.
The town, established in 1900, was closed down in 1986, the homes torn down or moved to the nearby community of Lively.
Fahner has used Creighton as the backdrop of her first novel, “The Donoghue Girl,” which is being released by local publisher Latitude 46 this month.
Having never visited Creighton as a youth when it was still a standing town, Fahner has recreated it in her fiction as an “imagined town” based on research and family stories lovingly told by her grandmother and great aunts.
“The Donoghue Girl,” set just before the Second World War, is the story of Lizzie Donoghue, the spirited daughter of Irish immigrants who desperately wants to not only escape Creighton — the Northern Ontario mining town where her family runs a general store — but also the oppressive confines of 20th century patriarchy.
She believes her escape can be found in Michael Power, the handsome young mine manager recently arrived in Creighton from the Ottawa Valley.
Caught up in a complex familial love triangle, Michael first courts Lizzie’s older sister, Ann, but then finds himself more and more drawn to Lizzie. Their lives twist and turn as they are all forced to face the harsh reality of the broken expectations of marriage and family just before the onset of the Second World War in Europe.
Besides the family connection to Creighton, Fahner said the love triangle story is also inspired by a true story.
“It's based on the family story that my grandfather courted my great aunt and then married my grandma, her sister,” Fahner said. “Some people in the family might say, I've never heard that story, but I had two great aunts tell me it in my late twenties.”
One of Greater Sudbury’s former poet laureates, Fahner has already published five books of poetry, and plans to put out a sixth next year.
But this is her first prose novel. She said she first tried to use the story as the basis for play as a participant in the Playwright’s Junction playwriting group around a decade ago, but Sudbury dramaturg and author Matthew Heiti encouraged her to write it as a novel.
That novel ended up taking her four or five years to write, and after she finished her first draft, she did major revisions repeatedly, so the book has “morphed probably three more times since then,” she said.
Then came the process of sending “The Donoghue Girl” out to publishers, and being disappointed when it was rejected.
“They all were really positive, but they weren't sure where they could house it, and I think it's because it's a Northern story,” Fahner said. “So when I approached (Latitude 46 owner Heather Campbell) she said, ‘This is a really wonderful book, and it's a Northern story. It's unique to this area.’ So that's why I'm so grateful that Latitude has it now.”
Having many literary friends, Fahner has gotten encouragement and help along the way, including from Canadian authors Marnie Woodrow and Lawrence HIll. The book’s final edit through Latitude 46 came from author Natalie Morrill.
Fahner said she’s excited to have her first novel out there in the world.
“I want to be true to the area, so I think I've done my best,” Fahner said.
The launch for “The Donoghue Girl” takes place at Knox Hall at 73 Larch St. starting at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 19. Fahner will discuss her book with Sudburian Judi Straughan. The event is also being livestreamed. You can watch it here.
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s assistant editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.
