Author's book set in Sault in 1920s prohibition era

This weekend will be a special one for Shawna Diane Partridge.

The Sault Ste. Marie native will be signing copies of her first book, Rule of Seconds, at Mill Market.

The book is set in Sault Ste. Marie and mentions specific areas and streets in the city's west end, from the 1920s to the present day.

"I think readers will find that interesting," Partridge said.

Partridge attended Sault College and Algoma University before earning a Master of Arts in English Language and Literature from Queen's University and a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Windsor.

She currently works in Sudbury in the non-profit sector.

Book signings will be from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 4 and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. June 5, with a reading at 12 p.m. June 5.

"I knew when I wanted to write my first book that it was going to be set in Sault Ste. Marie because I love the Sault and it's a huge part of my personality," Partridge told SooToday Tuesday.

The book is being described as a work of fiction with what Partridge describes as "flashes of truth." 

It is written through the eyes of Sheila, the book's 26-year-old present-day narrator, who suffers from epilepsy and looks into her family's history, as far back as the prohibition era of the 1920s, to find a cause for her illness.

"She wants to learn why she's epileptic, and she wants to find out if someone else in her family had it and then she starts uncovering all these secrets about the women in her family," Partridge said. 

"I was living in Windsor at the time but I did several trips back to the Sault to look through the archives at the main branch of the public library (while doing research for the book), and I was looking specifically through the prohibition era."

"For what I couldn't find in the archives, I interviewed my family about what it was like to live in different eras, what the people were like, what it felt like, so I interviewed my grandparents, my great aunts and uncles to tell me about the Sault, then I took all that information and wrote the book."

"Some of the historical material that comes out in the book was inspired by my own great-grandmother who lived in Sault Ste. Marie, she came from Ukraine and she ran a boarding house and an illegal bar, a speakeasy in the Sault in the 1920s," Partridge said.

It took Partridge two and a half years to complete the book, from the start of her research to publication.

"A lot of people will pick up a book from the shelf and read the first line and the last line to see if they want to read it, so I don't know  how many times I rewrote the last sentence just to get it right, to make it memorable," Partridge laughed.

"I'm proud that it's about Sault Ste. Marie and Northern Ontario because there's not a lot of literature about the area, so I'm proud to add a voice, to tell other people about the Sault."

Rule of Seconds was officially released at a launch party held May 14 at Speakeasy, a Sudbury club.

Partridge said she doesn't have any jitters about signing books for the hometown crowd at Mill Market.

"I've talked to quite a few people who said they're going to come out and visit, it's going to be really great, I'm really quite excited."

Partridge said she plans to write sequels to Rule of Seconds, each taking a closer look at the major female characters in the book.

Rule of Seconds is published by Sudbury-based Latitude 46 Publishing.

Rule of Seconds is on sale across Canada through Amazon, at Chapters/Indigo stores, both local Coles outlets, as well as some independent bookstores.