Live From the Gillers 2012: Rosie MacLennan Introduces Alix Ohlin’s Inside.

Olympic gold-medal trampoline gymnast Rosie MacLennan says Inside by Alix Ohlin carefully scrutinizes the need to be there for others when they are most in need.

In a light moment in in author video, Ohlin says an editor wanted the title to be Witness, but she felt it would bring to mind the 1980’s Mennonite film with Harrison Ford.

Inside follows a decade in the lives of it’s four intersecting characters: Grace, a psychologist living in Montreal; her psychologist ex-husband, Mitch, who travels to the Arctic to help the community of Iqaluit: Grace’s teenage patient Annie, a runaway with aspirations of an acting career; and Tug, the survivor of a suicide attempt that Grace stumbles on while skiing. 

In its citation the jury says that Inside “is full of surprises and things to admire, but the writing is genuinely clever because it always serves the characters. Inside is a novel about people. It is beautifully crafted and beautifully told.”

ZOOMER APPEAL: Ultimately about the responsibility of helping others, Inside will resonate with readers in the sandwich generation.