Love, music and culture collide in new novel set in Vancouver

Rajinderpal S. Pal was sitting on a bench in Vancouver’s Kitsilano neighbourhood on a June afternoon in 2005 as he watched a man who looked just like him run by. 

Pal, a poet, was instantly struck. He wondered what the man might be running from — or toward.

“I came home and I actually wrote seven pages of prose and that opening scene of Devinder running alongside the ocean was written on that afternoon,” he told CBC’s North by Northwest host Margaret Gallagher.

Almost 20 years later, those seven pages are part of Pal’s novel, However Far Away, released earlier this week.

The book focuses on Devinder, a character Pal says he modelled after himself. 

“I wanted a character who was Sikh Canadian but very much identified with the culture of Canada — the type of music Devinder listens to, the films he would watch, the way he dresses, they would be very much Canadian,” he said. 

Devinder is married with two children, and living in Vancouver.

He’s also had a secret affair with his first love, an Irish-Canadian woman named Emily. 

Through the perspectives of several characters situated at various times in Vancouver’s history, Pal weaves a tale of love, family, culture and compromise. 

Music

Emily and Devinder first meet at a concert and bond over their love of music. 

Music becomes a key theme throughout the novel, with Pal even creating a playlist to accompany the book, featuring The Cure, 10,000 Maniacs and Joy Division. Most of the songs are mentioned in the book, Pal said.

“The song Love Will Tear Us Apart is very meaningful song in the book,” he said. 

“They are the songs that I imagined would be the soundtrack of these characters’ lives.” 

The title, However Far Away, comes from a song by The Cure. 

Pal said those lyrics are significant because the book deals with love that transcends distance and time.

“I see Devinder as a character who has perhaps been shy and kind of out of the picture as far as finding a way to fit in,” Pal said. “When he meets Emily, something clicks, like he finds a partner that he really relates to, not just on attraction but also their interests. I think they see each other as kind of soul mates and they want to be together no matter what.”

Culture 

Pal said he’s always been fascinated with Irish culture, which is why he created Emily as an Irish character. While he loves Ireland’s music and literature, he said there are also political similarities between Ireland and his home country of India. 

“When Indians talk about partition, we mostly think about 1947,” he said.

“But partition has also had impacts all across the world in different places, Ireland being one where really a country was taken and split into two by the colonizers.”

Present day scenes of the story are set at Devinder’s nephew’s wedding, which both his wife and Emily attend. 

Using a wedding as the backdrop for revisiting love over time was important, Pal said, because in many cultures weddings are considered a critical point in life.

But it’s also given him a chance to share his own heritage with readers. 

“I wanted to give a voice to immigrant families, particularly Sikh families,” he said. “I’m not speaking for all Sikh Canadians in this book, but it is a story that I think a lot of Sikh Canadians will relate to.”

He said non-Sikh readers have told him they’ve learned about Sikh weddings and the significance of tying a turban by reading his novel.

Ultimately, he said, the story revolves around two people who come from different places, experiencing love regardless of their heritage.

“Despite the different backgrounds, they’re both really discovering what it means to love deeply.”

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