Perhaps the decline of noble life in the early years of the 20th century seems an unusual setting to turn to for answers about our place in the current world, yet this unlikely territory is exactly where Laisha Rosnau’s second novel Little Fortress draws insight from. The historical fiction is based on the true story of the Caetani’s, a family of Italian nobility, and their journey from Rome to Vernon, B.C.  Through the storied lives of a mother, daughter and their enigmatic companion, Miss Juul, Little Fortress explores the ways that our understanding of the world is shaped by the power of our imaginations.

Hailing from Vernon herself, Rosnau will be at two Vancouver Writers Fest events this year. While in the city, she sat down with SAD to talk about Little Fortress, and the people who inspired it.

SAD: You mention that the inspiration for the novel comes from very close to home. How did your experience living in the same place as the three women featured in Little Fortress influence your writing process?

Rosnau: I grew up just up the hill from the house in which the women secluded themselves for 25 years. I walked by countless times as a girl and teen, and I would imagine who lived in that large house, set back from the street, surrounded by trees. I began to hear rumours that women had locked themselves up in the house. That they were possibly witches, artists, lesbians, or all three. The Okanagan was a more conservative place in the 80’s and 90’s than now. 

I left Vernon the day after high school graduation, swearing I’d never move back. Nearly two decades later, I did—with a husband, a newborn, and a toddler in tow. Because I was back in the place I had wanted to escape, I thought it would be the perfect time to research the Caetani family to learn more about where they had come from, and how they ended up in Vernon. It was a way not only to find out more about the story, but to emerge out of the very small world of raising young children. Through them, I was able to travel to a lighthouse in Northern Denmark, Cairo during the First World War, Italian palaces, Havana in the 1920s, New York for Broadway shows—only to end up back in Vernon, also with the women, as they went into seclusion.

However unconventional theirs may be, the novel’s central characters are all living an immigrant experience. How do you think Little Fortress fits into literature about immigration, or the broader conversation about immigration and displacement?

The women in this novel all immigrate (or relocate, at any rate) to Canada because of the whim of one man, Duke Leone Caetani. Ofelia feels as though she doesn’t have much choice but to follow his wishes, Sveva is a little girl of four, and Miss Juul would have been considered an old maid, with few other employment prospects. 

I thought about the realities of not only immigration but travel, employment and independence for women during that era. One could not book low-cost flights or Eurorail passes as a woman and go off traveling on one’s own very easily, if at all. Immigration for the women was only made possible by being with the duke’s household. Theirs was a privileged sense of cultural displacement, perhaps. They didn’t feel they belonged in either the world they immigrated to, or the one they left behind. 

To me, “little fortress” evokes the way that power—whether physical, intellectual, or spiritual—often creates its own limitations; it can strengthen and defend us, but also constrain and make targets of us. Can you speak to how you understand power in the novel? 

In the novel, Miss Juul refers to her own body as a little fortress. She is a very petite woman, but also the kind of power she holds is limited by her gender, her class and her agency, or lack thereof. Miss Juul comes of age before and as women’s suffrage is being realized. Women don’t have the right to vote in her home country, Denmark, until 1915, the year she leaves. In Canada, while women were able to vote in most provinces by 1918, it isn’t until 1951 that they were in every province and territory. So, while the women held a certain amount of personal power – physical, sexual, relational – they held very little power in the wider world. 

I believe Sveva’s artistic and intellectual power challenged and frightened her mother, and Ofelia created a little fortress around her daughter, to “protect” Sveva, but also to shield herself from the threat of her daughter’s power. Later in the novel, Miss Juul refers to the women as creating fortresses of their past lives and memories, which I think we all do, to a certain extent, in order to keep them somewhat intact and protected in our minds. 

I felt very drawn to Sveva Caetani, who was obviously an extremely bright woman of great personal force. Could you talk about how Sveva’s written and visual work influenced your own writing? 

Yes, she was a great personal and artistic force! She passed away in 1994 and, while that meant we lived in the same area at the same time, I never met her personally. I did consult and talk with several people who did, including her best friend and closest companion, Joan Heriot, who lived to 101 years, as well as another woman who became a friend of mine, Kay Bartholomew (who passed away just last year). I met with former students of hers, as well as artists in our community. Almost all describe her presence as “larger than life”. Not only was she over six foot tall, she had a very imposing and imperious presence about her. But this was combined with a great empathy for those on the margins. 

I was most influenced by her visual artwork, her poetry, and her letters. Joan Heriot also donated her letters to the Vernon Museum and Archives, so one can actually read both of their letters, back and forth, as they carry on conversations by post on art and philosophy. There is such affection between the women, and such an obvious love of sharing big ideas about how to be in the world.

The family’s movement to small-town Vernon is a culture shock for Italian nobles accustomed to palazzo living and big city society. Can you speak to the effect that the Caetanis had on Vernon, or vice versa, and what the cultural scene looks like today?

I’ve spoken to several people who were children when the Caetanis were in Vernon, and it seems as though their presence added a quality of intrigue, mystery and even a kind of status— that Roman royalty should choose to live in our town. 

It was Sveva’s emergence from the house that really affected arts and cultural communities in Vernon. Not only did she eventually adjust to life after 25 years of seclusion, in a very different world than the one from which she retreated. In the next 34 years of her life, she built up an artistic and cultural community around her.

When Sveva passed away, she bequeathed her house to be a cultural centre for artists of all kinds. When I’ve been on the grounds and there are visual artists, photographers, film makers, textile artists, sculptors, and writers all working there, I think of how delighted Sveva would be.

Little Fortress is now available in paperback from Wolsak and Wynn. Laisha Rosnau will be featured at The Lives of Girls and Women and Prose Under Pressure at this year’s Vancouver Writers Fest, which runs from October 21 to 27, 2019. She can also be found online at laisharosnau.com .