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- [00:00]
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- [01:08]
Holly Gattery
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- [02:04]
Jeff Dupree
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [02:09]
Holly Gattery
Hello everyone and welcome to nbn. I'm your host Holly Gattery and I am nerdily, if that's word, nerdily excited to be joined today by author Jeff Dupree to talk about his really fabulous book book book Roanoke Ridge, which is the first in the Creature X mystery. Welcome to the show, Jeff.
- [02:35]
Jeff Dupree
Thank you for having me, Holly. It's good to be here.
- [02:37]
Holly Gattery
Yeah, I was so excited I just tripped up on almost every word I said. But I refuse to. I refuse to relent. I refuse to relent. I will not relent. I am really excited about this, and I say nerdily because I'm big into the Creature X idea, the Bigfoot idea. And I mean, it's just. I think it's because I'm whimsical. And to me, this kind of creature brings whimsy and magic back into the world. And I really was looking forward to reading this book, and I loved it. So for our listeners, a little bit about this particular book. There has been a string of Bigfoot sightings in Roanoke Ridge. Do they have something to do with the body in the woods? When Bigfoot researcher Professor Burton Sorrell goes missing in the temperate forests of Roanoke Ridge, Oregon, help is summoned in the form of his former star pupil, Laura Reagan, online science populist, an avowed skeptic. But what begins as a simple search and rescue operation takes a drastic turn when a body is discovered. And it isn't. The professors, caught in the fallout of the suspicious death, perplexed by sudden wave of Bigfoot sightings and still desperately searching for Professor Sorrel, Riggin reluctantly admits two things. Her old mentor was right about there being secrets hidden in Rowan Oak Ridge, and it's up to her to uncover them. Jeff Dupree is the author of the Creature X mystery series. When not in front of a computer, he can be found haunting the river valleys of Toronto where he lives and works. And if you're lucky enough to follow Jeff on Instagram like I do, you can also see lots of pictures of birds and toads and really just lovely stuff. Every time I see your she, Jeff, I want to go out and touch grass. So thank you for your feed and thank you for this book and of course, thank you for joining me.
- [04:31]
Jeff Dupree
Well, you're very welcome. It's my pleasure.
- [04:33]
Holly Gattery
Yeah. Thank you. Well, my first question for you is to take us behind the scenes. Where did this particular. I'm going to call it an obsession start with you? Because, I mean, if it was one book, I might not call it an obsession or let's say a fixation, maybe lessen it a bit. But because there's three books in this series, it feels a bit more. It feels stickier than just a passing interest. So where did it start with you?
- [05:01]
Jeff Dupree
I think like any lifelong interest, and I can say it was an interest most of my life. It. It was. It's like an obsession. Like, this is like a lake that's fed by a few different tributaries, so there are a few strands in my history. I can look back on and think like, okay, this is how I became, you know, very interested in this subject. Um, first, the, the paranormal and weird phenomenon has kind of been a part of my family history. So my great grandparents on my mother's side helped found the first spiritualist church in the city of Toronto. And so my household was always one where you kind of believed in things outside of the normal. And my, my father had a re. Reader's digestion book of the unexplained in hardcover with like a torn up book jacket on his bookshelf. And I'd always take it down and flip through it. And so those things help lead me down this path. But also, I've always loved nature, as you mentioned. I've always been hiking from childhood and I've always loved dinosaurs like paleontology, vertebrate paleontology and archeology as well. And all of those things kind of come together and had built within me this interest for the idea of like, what if there are animals out there that we haven't discovered yet, that people are seeing that have formed the foundation of a lot of our myths and the stories we tell each other. And that is, is kind of where that came. And then as I got older and more into science, I also, and I guess more of a student of human nature as well. I. You also see the fascination in other people who believe in this phenomenon. And that really excites me when I meet believers and I understand their politics and what brought them to the topic. So all of that kind of swirled around and became this book or this book series, I should say.
- [06:59]
Holly Gattery
And still the book is told in large part from the perspective of a skeptic. Tell me about that decision.
- [07:07]
Jeff Dupree
Well, okay, so this series was basically dreamed up. I, if I recall correctly, it was around the 2016American election. And that period in time I was really diving into to skepticism because it seemed that it was becoming more and more common, most likely thanks to the Internet for really fringe ideas to become popular and to enter the mainstream. And I think of climate change denial being a big one. And it's just you look at any kind of denying of science or a belief in trying to like a belief in the fantastic. And a lot of them follow the same patterns. And so that was interesting too, to have to put this epic and that that's why it was also important for me to, to make that my protagonist a young woman is that you have this like highly qualified young woman in a very male dominated, very older culture. For the most part, a lot of people who, who really follow Bigfoot are older white men in the US at least. And therefore it. It just made sense to me that, like, okay, I want this to be a skeptic and I want it to be an example of that kind of a qualified, knowledgeable person going up against charisma and how fun it is to believe in. In something fantastic.
- [08:40]
Holly Gattery
Thank you for that answer. So let's talk about research for this book. Because I'm, I'm feeling like if somebody said to me, you know, you have to write a book on Bigfoot, and I'm saying, have to by me, just because it's probably not something I would take to writing on my own. It's kind of out of my, out of my realm, of my personal, kind of repeat offending topics that I constantly keep going back to. But I love reading about it. But as soon as I had to read it, I'd be like, I'm going to spend like five years deep in research. Like, I'm going to infiltrate Bigfoot communities. I want to know everything. I think it'll be actually pretty fun. What was your research experience like for this?
- [09:24]
Jeff Dupree
So for the first book in the series focusing on Bigfoot, it was, yes, there was a lot of research, but a lot of it was already in my brain because Bigfoot being in my mind like the premier cryptid, like the premier mystery animal. It's one that I've watched so many documentaries on. I have a bookshelf, an entire shelf of books on the subject, A lot of podcasts I would give a shout out to. Monster Talk with Blake Smith is probably my. The best podcast on the subject of these creatures. And it was just that kind of deep dive. A lot of old newspaper articles that you can find online now, thankfully, because a lot of material on the subject is older. I mean, there's still plenty coming out now. But I tried to go back to the very early texts of what people were seeing in the 50s, 60s, 70s, when the term Bigfoot was coined, and just, yeah, like use that, the technology that we have now to read this old stuff, to find it, to dig it up easily and try to put myself back in that time period, because that was part of the research too, is even though it's set, the book Roanoke Ridge is set in present day, I was trying to capture the mystery that happened earlier in the history of big or when it was like my childhood, for example, it was one of these creatures that was so mysterious. Before, everybody had cameras on their phone because now that sort of kills the Allure, this idea that, you know, we only have one decent film of Bigfoot. I'm referencing the Patterson Gimlin film, but now it's like you'd expect that there'd be a lot more footage. So I wanted to take us back out of that. Even though it's a very skeptical book. I wanted to conjure up like the past, like my childhood impression of, of Bigfoot where, where the research was in the 60s, 70s and 80s. We'll say.
- [11:22]
Holly Gattery
I feel like one of the parts of your book, one of the forces in your book that helps reinforce that mystery and that helps to my mind, cast it back to a pre digital age where not every waking moment of our lives is documented is the landscape of Roanoke Ridge. And the way that you paint the landscape and create this world. It is beautiful and sinister and it can be kind and it's also menacing. And I would really love for you to talk about creating this world in the book because your descriptions of the land were some of my favorite that I've read for listeners. I'm the person who, when I get into big landscape descriptions will often just like skip pages. But I did not do that in Jeff's book. Partly because Jeff, you do not go on and on and on is. We don't have like two pages on rolling hills, which is a relief. But it's also because it's quite haunting and gorgeous and I'd love for you to talk about creating that world.
- [12:31]
Jeff Dupree
Yeah, that, that's one of the things I like doing the most. And one of the things I like reading the most is just beautiful nature writing and beautiful nature description. Because that is my happy place. That really relaxes me when I, you know, I, I live in the city. So I sit down, I'm in my chair, I want to read a book. I want to read a beautiful passage that, as you say, you don't want something that's too long but just to hit the right notes. So I do aspire to that now. Part of me with, with creating this series of books, I wanted to hearken back to the adventure stories that I love reading and I've loved reading for years. And I wanted to do that in a lens that wasn't this kind of colonial, like square jawed male adventure sort of story. But I also wanted to show that you can have places like the Pacific Northwest, like rural Newfoundland in, in the second book, Lake Crescent, that you can describe in a way that still shows you how remote and how wild and beautiful parts of North America are. And that you can conjure a feeling that is like opening up a book that's, you know, set in the Congo or set in the Amazon or set in the Himalayas, you can do that in North America and try to have that same sense of wonder. And that was one of my goals from the outset. Now, from a kind of factual research basis, I read a lot of surveys, so from the forestry departments of similar places. So Roanoke Ridge is a. Is a made up town. But I looked at various forestry surveys of the Cascade Mountains of parts of Oregon, and you try to find interesting details of the landscape and try to weave those in so you have a certain scientific accuracy. And I want my readers to walk away. Even if you walk away with thinking, oh, well, Bigfoot's not real, but it's like you're learning about the landscape and hopefully you're learning something about wilderness and wildlife biology that is useful to you. So I wanted there to be some science in there, but also you need the landscape to tell the story because the landscape is a character in books like this, and especially when you're dealing with Bigfoot, because any descriptions of Bigfoot. You ever read Eyewitness Encounters? They talk about how he just disappears or it, I should say just disappears into the woods as though they're one and the same. So I wanted to create a remote feeling. It's also, as you kind of point out, it's sort of not. Not anachronistic, but it's not contemporary in feel because you're in this remote wilderness that hasn't changed in a very long time. And so it was, it was like creating, especially with the mountains and the river valley in, in the book that I created, I also wanted to create sort of a boxed in feeling like you, you. The. The wilderness itself is not only a character, it's not only alive, but it's also an impediment. It. It in itself is part of the mystery that drives the book.
- [15:40]
Holly Gattery
Yeah, I was there for it. I loved it. I thought it was so great. And it's one of those. I mean, it's actually been a couple years since I read your book and I can still remember how it made me feel, which was lonely and just awe struck at the same time. And it was humbling. The landscape was humbling, which I think is something that a lot of us could use right now, is to be humbled on a cosmic level. And I think that being in some of these older forests could do that for us. And I really enjoyed that aspect of your book. So, Jeff, my next question is actually, a request. I was going to ask if you would read to us from the book Roanoke Ridge.
- [16:28]
Jeff Dupree
The first one, certainly. It's been a few years, so this is kind of an experience for me. On the way back to the motel, we drive past the pole and notice a crowd gathered in the parking lot. A man in jeans, white sweater can hear his voice but not his words. Should we pull in? Saad asks. I was just thinking that last time we joined a crowd like this, we caught a glimpse of Sasquatch. The man is red faced and his voice is starting to break. Sweat is visible on his brow and Matt's hair. We both get out of the car and close our doors quietly, not to interrupt him. I saw it with my own eyes, he says. The government folks picked up the stakes and left. The sheriff is in there now. That don't make it murder. A voice in front of us calls out. Sure means it was no accident, the man replies. I recognize the man in the truck from the other night. He was the leader of the trio, the one inquiring about Rick Driver. How he found out about the departure of the Sait people is a mystery, but it's no surprise he's here now. He reaches down into the crowd and pulls up a man we saw earlier who filmed Sasquatch while searching for Professor Sorel. We know there's something out there. This man took a video of it. The crowd looks expectantly toward the man, but he says nothing, just scratches his elbow while seeming to count every face in the crowd. Go on, the man in the vest says. Tell him. Tell him what you saw. Well, we were coming back from searching a valley behind Roanoke Ridge on the far side of the mountain. The sun was setting and we had to get back to the ranger station. Then we heard it. Whatever it was, it wasn't a big noise, just a little clicking noise. I was last in my group and kept looking over my shoulder. That's when I saw it move. It was huge, camouflaged in all that bush. We locked eyes for just a second, then it took off westward through a thick patch. Man, could this thing move. It left over rocks and logs like an Olympic athlete. We're going to find this creature, the man in the vest says. And we're going to find it tonight. The meeting will be at 10 at the end of Burnt Creek Road. The crowd cheers like this is a stump speech. It seemed a little too orchestrated, too convenient. Sod and I walk back to the car. Back in our motel room, we eat pizza for dinner and watch the movie Double Indemnity on sod's laptop. I text Ted, thinking he'll back out of the Bigfoot hunt. To my surprise, he replies with a thumbs up emoji followed by see you at 9:45. There's no relaxing. I count the minutes and feel my pulse rise. I look out the window and find a police cruiser in the motel parking lot. The windows are down and there's someone behind the wheel. Someone comes out of the door of the manager's office. The deputy who interviewed me at the station two days ago. She is scribbling something in her notepad. Who floodlight above the parking lot shining on her dark hair tied back in a bun. She glances up at my window and I wave. She nods at me, scribbles some more and a look of recognition comes over her face.
- [19:27]
Holly Gattery
Thank you so much. Ah, that takes me back. So while we have this story in our brains fresh, I'd love for you to tell our listeners a little bit about the other books in this series in order, if possible.
- [19:41]
Jeff Dupree
Okay, so I followed Roanoke Ridge with a book called Lake Crescent, which is set in remote Newfoundland up on the Atlantic coast. And it's about a lake monster known as Cressy, which is a giant eel. And when I say giant I don't mean like remark, like it's a, it's a remarkable specimen but, but it's not monstrous in, in the sense of this isn't like a Godzilla kind of giant, giant monster. But eyewitness accounts place at about 20ft long so you know, twice as long as the longest kind of ocean going eel that, that we have seen. And it, it takes place in a town called Robert's Arm, which is just down the highway I guess you could say from where my, my dad was living for a while. So I wanted to write about a landscape that I had spent some time in and I wanted to do a monster that in my mind is the most kind of scientifically credible monster. And I also wanted to study something that was very different because you know, Sasquatch is kind of a giant bipedal ape man and so doing a monster that not only is a giant eel, so kind of the exact opposite, but also one that isn't as well known. And now obviously I had people in the publishing community tell me you should stick to the, to the most famous monsters. But I wanted to do something that I'd be introducing people to and that is kind of part of our rich heritage in Canada of lake monsters because Canada has so many reported lake monsters, as I think you would expect that anytime you have a body of water, people see things in that body of water. And since we have so many lakes, it just makes sense that we're kind of a world capital for lake monsters. So I wanted to. To create one that I thought would be the most scientifically credible Cryptid. I shouldn't say create. I wanted to create a story around a monster that people have been seeing there for at least a hundred years. But the legend in Robert's arm says maybe it's more than a hundred, because they think that perhaps indigenous people had seen this creature too. Which, I mean, that's always kind of an asterisk, because white settler people tend to always usurp indigenous legend and try to make that fit their own conception of what is in, you know, a forest or in a lake. But anyway, so that. That's the second book going out there to. To look at this, to look for this creature, because by the end of the first book, and this is probably important for me to get to, Laura is now hosting a documentary series about Cryptids. So she and another scientist and some other people have. Have been hired on to basically do. Do a series similar to In Search of or Monster Quest, and that's the whole. And the series is called Creature X. And that is what. What they're doing now. So after leaving Roanoke Ridge and having some time off, the mission is to go to Roberts r, Newfoundland in Lake Crescent and try to use camera technology like submersibles, and try to see if they could find more creatures using scientific. The scientific method, scientific skepticism, while also still cutting together the kind of documentary series that would be interesting to a History Channel or Discovery Channel audience. So that's the second book. And then for the third book, I kind of did the opposite again. So where I think Cressy and Lake Crescent might be one of the more credible creatures that might actually be out there. We decided to go to Boy island in Papua New guinea and talk about, or try to investigate and do a program about the Ropen. And the Ropen is a creature that is essentially a pterodactyl that glows in the dark, that has a certain bioluminescence that people have been seeing there for. Again, there have been accounts for a hundred or so years and then some oral history that says people have been seeing it before that. And I wanted to go as remote as I could. After doing the first two books in North America, I wanted to go to other side of the world and again try to create landscapes that are both beautiful and foreboding. Because I think we are so used to those of us who, who live in cities or near cities. We are so used to convenience now, to never having to worry about food, to never getting lost, to not have to worry about the wilderness or anything that can go wrong. I mean, yes, things do go wrong in cities, but we have so much more agency and I want to take that away from the characters. And so I thought as remote as the most remote kind of interesting cryptid I could think of. I mean, you might say the yeti is more remote because he's on a mountaintop. But I didn't want to just repeat Roanoke Ridge again. So I did the Ropen in Papua New guinea, which is just a remarkable legend of a. Basically a bioluminescent pterosaur that legend has it will eat the dead if you don't bury the dead fast enough. And that was a problem when they didn't used to use wooden coffins. So yeah, it was just something that's always fascinated me. So that, that was where book three went because I wanted to keep raising the stakes.
- [25:27]
Holly Gattery
Did you go to New guinea to research?
- [25:30]
Jeff Dupree
No, that was the hardest research because I had to start kind of with, with the exception of knowing about the rope in itself, everything else was starting from scratch. So that was travel guides, any non fiction I could read about the area and traveling to the area and existing within the area. Any documentaries I could find, again, wilderness surveys, because I find that's the best research to figure out what lives on the island. How does it live on the island? What is the overall like. Yeah. What is the kind of biosphere that you're entering? What is the like, ecological niche that you're, you're entering to try to create a real grounded sense. Because like getting the, the nature details right is, is so important to me because even if somebody's not going to test you on it, it's just a nice detail if, if you get, okay, what kind of bird might you see in the tree? What kind of sounds might you hear at sun up or sundown? So that's, that's a good detail. But also if, you know, if you have a general idea of what things are like in certain regions, it's like just get that right detail just sets the stage. So therefore you're not creating as, as you kind of referenced earlier pages and pages about rolling fields. You're just trying to get the right flavor right off the bat. So the stage is set.
- [26:57]
Holly Gattery
Yeah, I mean my most popular travel essay I never, I wrote during COVID and I couldn't go to the place, but it's the, you know, I mean, I think if you do enough research, you can, you can pull. You can definitely pull it off. And I mean, when you're talking about, you know, living in cities, I mean, I live in rural Ontario, but I'd still say not as I'm, I'm. I'm rural, I'm not remote. There's a. There's a difference. But, you know, you hear stories of people who are lost in remote places after just, you know, stepping off a path. And then when they're eventually found, not always with us anymore, sometimes they're really like maybe 500 meters from the path, but it has swallowed them so entirely, and they've lost their bearing to that extent. They didn't realize how close they were to where they started. And that's definitely something I thought about with Roanoke Ridge quite frequently is humankind's audacity to go into these places and assume we have any kind of mastery over any of it. And as I said, I mean, one of the parts that I loved is that I'm such a whimsical person and this feeds into my whimsy quite nicely, but also with that hint of a threat, which makes for a very exciting read. So that's one of my final questions for you, is about. Yeah, we're talking a lot about crypto, cryptids and cryptozoology, which are two terms I should probably get you to define for our listeners, come to think of it. But I wanted to also talk about this book also standing as a mystery thriller in that genre because it is quite propulsive in pacing, in cadence, like there is not a dull moment. But you do give us time to, to stop and breathe. So I'm going to do, you know, have a big no, no here in interview etiquette, I'm going to ask you to first define cryptid, slash, crypto, zoology, cryptozoology, and then answer that question about pacing and cadence in this mystery slash thriller.
- [29:12]
Jeff Dupree
Okay, well, I'll start with cryptozoology is the study of mystery animals. So crypto, like cryptic, like mysterious. And then zoology, just the study of animals. And so a cryptid is the subject of that, that study. So these are animals that are not formally, formally known to science and they may not exist at all, or they may in certain cases. Cryptozoology also covers animals that are thought to be extinct, but people are still seeing them anyway. And, and that can be as far afield as people thinking that they're seeing A sauropod dinosaur in Africa, Mekelema membe is what it's called, or it can be something that is quite believable like the ivory billed woodpecker in the southern U.S. that people, that is, as far as science understands it is extinct. But people still think it might be out there. The thylacine, the Tasmanian wolf, also known as the Tasmanian tiger, is also one of these creatures that even though it's considered extinct science, there are still eyewitnesses that come forward and say, oh, I saw that creature in the, you know, in the far like dense brush, underbrush of, of Tasmania. It's still out there. So, so cryptozoology is the study of that kind of phenomenon. So either creatures that there's no scientific record of, such as Bigfoot, or the Loch Ness Monster, or creatures that could still be out there but are widely accepted as being extinct.
- [30:52]
Holly Gattery
Thank you.
- [30:52]
Jeff Dupree
Yeah, you're welcome. Now to talk about pacing. Yes. So the Creature X books were a challenge in so much as they straddle several genres in my mind while not being too far out or wacky that you can't identify that. So it's not the kind of juxtaposition of, you know, a film noir with all of a sudden you have, you know, a unicorn kind of thing. No, they, they, but they, they kind of tick different boxes in the sense of I wanted it to be action, I wanted it. These books to be adventure. But they are mysteries and they are thrillers and they're mysteries on, on several levels. So for this first book, part of it, of course you have the aura of mystery around the wilderness itself and the danger that we've kind of talked about of just, yeah, you just wander off a trail and then nightfall hits and you're a little dizzy and dehydrated and suddenly you find yourself completely lost. So there's that looming over the story and then this idea of is there something out there in the woods? And so I think just that as a foundation creates tension because I mean I've spent a lot of time out in woods and there's always a little bit like always a few hairs on the back of the neck standing up because as the sun starts to kind of drift downward, it is very easy to see like an upright, branchless dead tree. Is that a person? Is that a bear? There's a lot that the mind kind of plays tricks because it's, it's trying to make patterns out of what it sees. And so there's that kind of tension from the beginning in the book. And then you have a missing professor who is not in great health. So there's a ticking clock of trying to find Professor Sorel before he winds up exposed to the elements and, and passes on. So I created like, you know, you want the atmosphere of tension, but then you also have that ticking clock idea, which by default sets a certain pace. And then moving further into the story, it's like you have. Part of creating tension for me, was showing everybody else's reactions to what is happening. So from the scene I just read, you have a group of people outside of the, you know, bar slash restaurant of this town, and they're saying you have an eyewitness who says he saw something. It talks about how, like, the government search and rescue team are, are leaving. They found a body. At this point, that creates a lot of fear within people that don't know what they're dealing with. And so you have that driving the action. You have. I mean, it's very, very basic in creative writing, but you create tension on a page when you have two different people who want two different things, and then they kind of get in each other's way or they fight each other or something happens. So you. In a story like this, it's like I'm starting several balls rolling and you don't know where they're going to collide because you have the townsfolk getting more and more paranoid about what is in the forest surrounding their town. You have the police who are investigating a death and therefore, you know, they're trying to get to the bottom of things and they're digging into people's histories. And then you have Laura and her team. I, I suppose they're not quite a team yet in this book. It forms and coalesces more into a team in the later books, but you have them trying to, like, find this professor and try to figure out what is going on. And are these two things connected? And that, I think, is just like a roller coaster. You can't avoid the tension and the, the, the nature of a thriller at that point.
- [34:49]
Holly Gattery
Yeah, I, like I said I really loved him. What I loved about it the most is it had the thrills of the thriller without the anxiety of some thrillers for me. And I think that's because, you know, this isn't about the end of our existence as we know it because of climate change. It's about something that takes me out of this reality a little bit, you know, you know, not to poo poo, the idea that Bigfoot actually exists, for instance, maybe it is in Our reality? I don't know. I'm. Whatever. That's not the question. The question for me is that I could. I could slip the noose of anxiety around what's happening right now in the world and get the thrills without the panic that I can sometimes feel when I'm reading a book that's hitting a little too close to home right now. And I really enjoyed that about the book. So my question for you is about what are you working on now? Is there more, or are you working on something completely different?
- [35:49]
Jeff Dupree
So I've been working on a novel that is pretty much ready to go to my agent that is nothing like the Creature X books whatsoever. So one of the things about the Creature X Books is, as you were kind of pointing out, about how they're sort of an escape from the real world. That was part of the joy of writing them is to escape from, like, my own kind of existence. But now I've. I've worked on a book and again, I've had it, you know, read and edited, and I'm about to send it to my agent. That is very much about the. The, like, the part of the city that I grew up in, Scarborough, which gets a bad rap, but I think is a great place and about the kind of guys that I grew up around. And it deals with, you know, a lot of themes that you hear talk. Talked about now, so ideas of, like, a male loneliness epidemic and toxic masculinity, as well as unconventional views on. On marriage. And, like, there's an open marriage that is kind of a prominent plot driver. And it's just a kind of an examination of. Of my friends and the people I know now and the people I grew up with and trying to deal, I guess, with this kind of period of transition that we're in.
- [37:08]
Holly Gattery
Well, I'm looking forward to that. And shout out to Scarborough, Ontario. It's a great place. I have enjoyed all my Scarborough experiences, even though I know it has a complicated rap with a lot of people.
- [37:22]
Jeff Dupree
Yeah, it is a part of the city that everybody else likes to kind of look down on. But it is a very beautiful place. I don't live there now, but I live, like, kind of right on the border because so many of my friends and people I grew up with are either still there or we all meet there at, you know, the few restaurants that have been open since our childhoods that are still open. And it is just such a wondrous place. And there's so many cool things just tucked away there. Scarborough Bluffs for example is probably one of our more famous the Toronto Zoo, Morningside Park, Rouge Valley. There's just so much there that is beautiful to enjoy that I would like people to kind of think about, think about how, how beautiful a place it is. But granted my book doesn't get too deep into that because the book also like deals with like the seedy pool halls that we used to hang out at in our youth.
- [38:15]
Holly Gattery
Yeah. I mean that, that's part of the charm in my opinion. That's part of the Scarborough I remember and I, I quite enjoyed it. Well, thank you so much for joining me today to to talk about the Creature X series. Jeff, you can get the Creature X series, all three of the books, whatever books are bought or borrowed, published by Dud and Duran. Jeff, thank you so much for joining me again and I hope to have you back to talk about this next book.
- [38:42]
Jeff Dupree
Thank you, Holly. I would love to come back. It has been a genuine pleasure.