Grant Lawrence

“Our dorky family stood together at the top of the gangplank, looking down at the hive of activity on the dock. Boats of all shapes and sizes were lashed onto the floating “T”: dirty wooden tugs, aluminum oyster barges that resembled giant bathtubs, customized sailboats and half-sunken dinghies. The foot traffic was a mixture of loggers, oyster farmers, fishermen and end-of-the-road hippies that looked like a cross between the cast of The Beachcombers and the Manson Family. There was also a light sprinkling of summer tourists – everyone awkwardly united by an early summer’s worth of weathered relaxation". 

And so begins a chapter in Grant Lawrence’s first book Adventures In Solitude. A memoir of his time spent at his family cabin in Desolation Sound on the wild west coast of BC, CBC Radio 3 host Grant Lawrence chronicles the sea change he undergoes from his childhood, when he wanted to be anywhere but Desolation Sound, to his rediscovery of the Sound as an adult after a long career as lead singer of The Smugglers. Surprisingly, it was in Desolation Sound where Grant’s love of music was born. “I received my first real rock 'n' roll tutorial from a bearded hermit in Desolation Sound named Russell, who was at one time a Bay Street stockbroker until something snapped and he ended up squatting in a tent in a tiny cove near our cabin here on the West Coast” says Lawrence. “I formed a band shortly after all of the music he introduced me too. Ironically it was because of the band that I didn't return to Desolation Sound for well over a decade".

Ultimately falling in love with the adventure, mystery, and dangers of this rugged place, Grant has written a funny and bittersweet narrative about this weird and dangerous end of the road Canadian location. "Desolation Sound is about as polar opposite as you can get from the places where I usually work: office buildings, big cities, downtown centres, and music festivals filled with thousands of people” explains Lawrence. “In the Sound, I can go for days on end without speaking to another human being, without seeing another human being. When I was a kid that freaked me out, when I was a teenager it repulsed me, and now as an adult I truly savour it – I just have to be wary of being attacked by a cougar, or an octopus, depending on where I am".

The title is from one of Grant’s favourite songs by Vancouver band The New Pornographers.

Early praise for Adventures in Solitude:

“By turns hilarious, terrifying, profound and strange, Adventures in Solitude is the great lost Canadian adventure story; Swiss Family Robinson as if rendered by Ken Kesey in his youth, a kind of Lord of the Flies through a fog of BC chronic."
- Dave Bidini, author of On A Cold Road, and Tropic of Hockey.

“Grant Lawrence is a raconteur extraordinaire. With Adventures in Solitude, he reinvents his rock’n’roll persona to become part Bruno Gerussi, part Stuart McLean, part David Cross… A harrowing and hilarious tale of how a zit-ridden nerd survived hippie orgies, family feuds, and a rugged Canadian coastline that defeated one of history’s greatest explorers.”
- Michael Barclay, writer, Maclean’s Magazine

“Smart, wry, self-deprecating, irreverent: it turns out that Grant Lawrence on the page is just like Grant Lawrence on CBC Radio. Adventures in Solitude is his wonderfully told story about his deepening connection to a remote, coastal place, to its rich history and its ample stock of outlandish characters, of which he is now one. It’s also a story about family and selfhood and love and music and occasional rowdiness.”
- Bill Richardson, CBC Radio host, author

“Wow! The details are different but the story is very similar to my own: Being dragged kicking and screaming to a remote location with the family as a child, later rejecting it and refusing to go for 15 years or so and then going back and trying to figure out what my problem was. Of course, I was on the east coast of Canada, I never allowed my parents’ house to be destroyed by teenage hooligans and my band was actually pretty good, but the themes are universal.”
- Chris Murphy, bassist, Sloan