Canadian poet and Guerneville resident Boschka Layton's first book, The Prodigal Sun, by Mosaic Press, Toronto, Canada, has been released in Canada, the US, and abroad. A poetry reading and book party will be held at Copperfield's Books in Sebastopol on January 10 at 8 PM.
The book, a collection of poems, stories, and drawings, all by the author, reflect the style as diversified as the life of Boschka Layton. She has managed to fit in a full-time career as a painter, an editor, graphic designer, mother, and writer all within a 62-year period.
Winner of the Santa Rosa Junior College Fred Minelli Award for creative writing, recipient of an Ontario Arts Council grant, and a Canada Council grant applicant, Layton claims she wrote her first novel at the age of six, and at seven, her second novel, which apparently contained controversial material.
Her second novel was a how-to book for South Sea Islanders in need of instruction on the assembly of codpieces—which was promptly confiscated and burned by her grandmother. She gave up writing for the next 40 years, became an artist and established herself in Montréal, and later, in California.
Born in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, Boschka Layton, then Betty Sutherland, spent the next 12 years traveling across Canada with her family before her mother died. Her father remarried, and added three more brothers and sisters to the Sutherland clan.
Escaping her wicked stepmother, Betty studied art at a vocational school at St. John's, in New Brunswick. Layton remembers when she first became interested in art. Her brother John was sitting at the kitchen table trying to draw an apple. She helped them and in the process, became hooked. John gave up art and took up writing, and she became the artist.
Her brother John, founded an avant garde literary magazine, First Statement, which eventually merged with another periodical to become the illustrious Northern Review.
Betty who was in charge of layout and book design of First Statement, was also a member of the editorial board. In 1941, she met an unknown writer who wanted to publish his work, and three days later they were madly in love.
The tempestuous relationship lasted nearly 20 years and produced two children. Betty later married Irving Layton after the birth of their son, Max. Irving became a well-known poet, who was later "discovered" by the Black Mountain School poet Robert Creeley. But Betty and her brother "discovered" Irving first.
Irving eventually became Canada's premier poet and received numerous awards and grants. Betty continued designing his books, and she painted. She said, "I painted all my life. I didn't stop painting—even when I had my kids."
Betty finally had had enough of Irving's philandering ways, and left him for good, smuggling her small daughter Naomi out of Canada with an underground passport. But she had to leave her son Max behind. In Canada, a child can't obtain a passport without both parents' signatures—and Irving wouldn't sign.
Betty arrived in San Francisco expecting to find work in the publishing business but was unable to find work. She reverted to menial jobs, working at department stores, restaurants, and provided domestic services. Layton remembers, "Working as a char woman, scrubbing floors for an old lady, was rock-bottom."
Betty took up an itinerant life with a man named Price, and the three of them traveled all over the US, living a few weeks in one town or another, while Price looked for work. Layton, fed up with Price's unsuccessful search for work, sold her house in Big Sur, and left for India with her daughter in tow.
Living abroad for two years, Layton said, "India change my whole life. It cleared all the shit out, and it centered me. For the first time, I began to write again. Obviously, I couldn't write while I was with Irving. He was the writer and I was the painter."
Layton compares her India journals to that of DH Lawrence. Layton said, "After India I never lived with a man again. I'm not saying a woman can't paint or write and live with the man at the same time, but for me, that's when the change occurred."
She added, "I began to concentrate more on my own work. At the age of 50, it was about time. "After India, Layton settled in Sonoma County, in 1971, but continued to make yearly sojourns back to Nova Scotia to visit her father. She said, "I started young traveling across the continent. In my work I'm always trying to bring the two coasts together."
When asked why she didn't revert back to her maiden name of Sutherland after her divorce from Layton—she still signs all are her paintings as Sutherland—Boschka commented "my half-brother Donny was becoming well known as an actor then and I didn't want to be smothered by the association."
Actor Donald Sutherland made his first big break in The Dirty Dozen, and started movies such as Luke, Day of the Locust, and the Academy award-winning movie Ordinary People.
Layton, reminisced about her famous half-brother, and said, "Donny was the most extraordinary kid. There was nothing ordinary about him, even though he starred in the movie Ordinary People. I remember when he was three years old and a beautiful woman came to visit. He came running out across the lawn without a stitch on, and presented himself to her at her feet."
Writing under the nom de plume of Boschka Layton, Layton draws heavily upon her life experiences. She has one semi-autobiographical novel finished, and another novel three quarters completed.
She explained the origin of her name. When Betty married Irving, she converted to Judaism and took the name, Bashka, which in Russian Jewish, is a diminutive of Betty. But when she left Irving, she took on the name Bosch from the painter Hieronymus Bosch. The diminutive -ka ending means "little Bosch."
Boschka's poems and short stories have appeared in several local publications including First Leaves, Sonoma Mandala, Sonoma County Stump, and The Red Book.
As far as future prospects go, Layton said, "I'd like to get a novel out, some poems out, a book of short stories out, so I can go on writing." She concluded, "sending stuff out is the worst part of writing. It takes up too much time. I think I need an agent."
Layton's book,
The Prodigal Sun, will be available at Book and Brush, Copperfield's Books, and Eeyore's Books. Reading with Boschka at Copperfield's book party will be Ina Scrocco. The reading will begin at 8 PM, with one dollar admission at the door.
NO TEARSHEET
A shorter version of this story appeared in Rural Arts Services' ARC, a monthly periodical serving rural California.
Boschka Layton, ARC article (tearsheet)
Boschka Layton (Betty Sutherland) 1921 - 1984
