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August 15, 2025 45 mins
Tonight on The Brian Crombie Hour, Brian interviews Terry Kirk about her novel: "Pitfall". 
Terry discusses her debut novel "Pitfall," which explores the financial catastrophe of 1929 through the story of Frank, a wheat futures trader who loses everything in a single day. She explained her decision to write about finance, noting its universal impact and the lack of fictional works centered on financial themes. Terry explains that people are drawn to these narratives because they resonate with universal financial insecurities and provide a way to explore what it would be like to face significant financial setbacks. 

Terry also shares her own experiences of early divorce and single motherhood, which informed her understanding of financial pressure and shame, themes reflected in her character Frank.
She discusses his career transition from trial lawyer to finance executive and author. Terry explains how she left law after 12 years due to the demanding nature of trial work and sought a less gritty path, eventually moving into technology through an executive position at Bell Canada. She notes that many lawyers struggle to make similar career changes, citing the 2-beer rule where lawyers initially enjoy their work but later express difficulties in leaving the profession due to financial security and market perceptions.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
Saga nine sixty am or its management.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
You leave me, everyone, and welcome to the Brian Crombie
Radio r I'm endlessly fascinated by and curious about this
world around us, about business, about politics, the arts, culture,
developments and social issues and the people that are shaping
our future. Every night I have the privilege of diving
into conversations with thought leaders, change makers, entrepreneurs, politicians, everyday heroes,

(00:38):
tonight authors to unpack the ideas and stories that matter.
What's the future of our economy, How do we build
stronger communities? What can we learn from music, theater or
sports to the arts? How does policy shape the real
decisions our real lives. What does leadership look like today?
If it's interesting and relevant worth talking about, you'll hear
about it here. These are real conversations, in depth conversations

(01:00):
which we don't have enough of in today's society. These
are ideas we're sharing. This is the Brian Crombie Radio
Hour tonned. I've got a really fascinating individual to introduce
you to. An author, a lawyer, finance expert, someone who
I followed through her career and was really frankly surprise
when she became a author. And now she's committed to

(01:21):
writing several books, very successful in the legal and financial
communities in the Toronto and now a Canadian author. And
you know, last weekend was a long weekend. This weekend
is a weekend. What I find is in the summertime,
I go to fiction and biographies and stop reading some
of that nonfiction, you know, you know, how to books
that I read during the balance of the year. So
it's kind of fun to have a Canadian author talk

(01:43):
about her book. Terry Kirk, welcome to the show.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Well, thank you so much, Brian, it's pleasure to be here,
and thanks for all the work you're doing around bringing
exciting issues forward for your listeners.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
I enjoy it and thank you for writing some interesting books.
So tell me what's your latest book.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
This book is called Pitfall, and it is my debut novel,
my first. I have three in the works. The second
is largely done and we're just kind of promoting sales
of book one and then and then moving forward with
book two. I'm hoping it'll be out in the spring,
and I have a book three in the works, Yes.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
And they're about financial catastrophe. Is that correct?

Speaker 3 (02:23):
Yeah? I felt that there aren't that many fictional books
that have finance at their center. I think in many
ways authors aren't that interested in finance. The big categories
are really romance and and today fantasy. But finance is
just one of those things that affects every one of

(02:43):
us and in many ways, and Pitfall raises some really
fundamental questions about what it would mean to lose it
all in a single day.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Lose it all in a single day. So tell me
who's your protagonist.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yeah, it's a guy named Frank. But some people ask
me why am I writing about a man at the
center of my story? But certainly for every move that
Frank makes, it affects his wife, Katrina too and his family.
So it's a story full of women and men. Frank
is a trader and he trades whek futures on the

(03:18):
Chicago Board of Trade Whek futures. At the time, it
was still an agricultural economy. The book is set in
nineteen twenty nine. It's kind of an exciting backdrop of
time of great riches. At the end of the Roaring
twenties and a time of great loss as we entered
into the dirty thirties. So the pivotabal moment from this

(03:39):
period of great access to a period of massive, unprecedented
loss was really this black Black Tuesday, and there was
a Black Friday as well, but really a period of
days in late October nineteen twenty nine. Frank's that's Frank's world.
He's enjoyed incredible success and his wife during the nineteen twenties.

(04:00):
They live in the Hoidi Troity suburbs of Chicago, the
village of Glencoe, and have really achieved everything that people
think they're looking for in life. And then he loses
it all.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
And what happens, Ohnell.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
That I won't tell you everything except that it is
a cataclysmic event for Frank and his family. Not only
does he lose everything, he sort of loses more than everything,
because Frank has traded on margin, meaning that for every
trade he makes, he's borrowed from his trading account. So
not only does he he loses home and his fortune,

(04:42):
he goes deeply into debt at a time when you know,
the job market really disappeared and there were no clear
pass back to his fortune and his life at that time.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Sounds fascinating. Maybe we'll get you to reach something from
it till later on. But let's take a step by Terry,
if we could. How does one go from you know,
your academic background to being a lawyer? And I think
it was a trial lawyer and then entering the world
of finance to becoming an author. Tell me a little
bit about you and you're really trajectory.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
Good, good, good question, Thank you, Brian. And it does
sound a little jumping around ish, but I like to
think that writing was a common theme through that love
of the word and the love of stories. And there's
nothing better for those passions than practicing law. I found.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
So I told that a good trial lawyer is one
that can tell a good story to the judge of
the jury. Is that true?

Speaker 3 (05:40):
I think it is a lot about storytelling. You know,
that may sound a little facetious around the need to
bring forward facts, but I think it's about listening to
clients stories which are inevitably very gritty stories. People are
in front of lawyers and facing litigation unless unless there
are stories that betrayal or loss or fraud or you know,

(06:05):
some of these darker qualities in human life. So yeah,
but practicing law is significantly about hearing your client's stories
in their hardships and weaving them into compelling stories in
front of decision makers.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
And how long were your trial lawyer?

Speaker 3 (06:25):
I worked for twelve years as a lawyer and in litigation,
in general general litigation, general practice. I did find I
loved law, but was looking for maybe less gritty ways
of practicing law and thinking about the law. It's very
demanding to be a trial lawyer, especially when you're raising

(06:48):
a family. The hours are extremely erratic, very unpredictable. You
have matters going before the court that sometimes can take
weeks and weeks and weeks, and sometimes they collapse and
suddenly you sh is wide open, which is nice, but
it is a very demanding from a time point of view.
But also I think emotionally, as a good story does,
it weighs on you and you takes over your life

(07:13):
in many ways. So I moved from law into finance.
I worked to so.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Many lawyers can do that successfully. How'd you do it?

Speaker 3 (07:22):
It is a really difficult navigation, There's no doubt about it.
And in my experience I used to have what I
called the two beer rule, and you'd sit down with
somebody and have a beer with somebody, I mean a lawyer,
and generally in the first beer it would be yeah,
things are great, I'm loving it, loving my practice, having
a great time. You know, nothing better than practicing law.

(07:44):
And by the second beer beer, people would kind of
open up a little bit about how difficult it was
and how could you find a path out. The money
is good in law, so that becomes a bit of
an addiction, I think, to remaining really committed to earning
good money. Secondly, I think after a few years, the

(08:06):
market isn't that interested in lawyers. They find lawyers to
be conservative and putting on the brakes and cautious, and
businesses are looking for more risk tolerant executives. So it's
not an easy navigation. I know many many friends who
are still practicing law who would have liked to have

(08:26):
found a different path, and of course many just love
practicing law. But for me, I did decide that I
wanted to leverage into other areas, and the technology sector
was really exploding at the time, and I went back
to school and took a master's degree focusing on transformative

(08:47):
technologies and was hired as an executive at Bell Canada.
I worked as a vice president for Bell at a
time when Belle and Nortel were still glued at the
hip and they were really Canada's largest corporation by far,
so it was an accelerating time to be in that industry.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
After twelve years of being a trial lawyer, you went
back to school to do an MBA. Really, I didn't.

Speaker 3 (09:08):
Really go back to school, to be honest. I did
it on top of practicing law, and I took yes,
two years and did the executive program that was kind
of weekends and evenings, and that that worked out well.
I think that kind of, let's call it, disruptive change

(09:29):
is required if you're if you're committed to leveraging your
legal background into a new career, that you have to
do something to step outside of the traditional traditional law
firm environment. So that's what I did and it worked
worked really well, and I loved the learning period of
learning and going back to school at that stage and

(09:50):
was able to leverage into kind of corporate life and
very technology centric roles.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
And then you decided to write. Did you always think
you were going to end up being an author? I know,
you said that you wrote when you were a lawyer.
But but writing a book is very different than writing
an oral an oral address to a judge, or or
even you know, all the different things one has to
write in a litigation. How did you do that transition

(10:19):
to decide to become an author? You go back to
school and take a creative writing course or what?

Speaker 3 (10:23):
That's a good question. No, I didn't. I was able
through my business career to frankly put myself in a
position where I could write full time, so you know
that that I didn't need to transition in that sense,
and I'm pleased to be able to write full time.
I look at friends who you know, work as whatever,

(10:45):
you know, nurses, doctors, in the tech sector and are
trying to write their novels and their spare time, and personally,
I can't really imagine navigating those two worlds at the
same time. So it has come at a stage, this
this writing career has coming a stage where I can
focus on it full time. And I absolutely do not
only full time, but occupying you you know, night and day.

(11:10):
I think it was it was Michael Lewis who said,
if you're not talking to your characters in the shower.
You're just not that into your book, So I think
that's true. But your question, you talked.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
To your characters in the shower.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
That's fun. Oh yes, In fact, I would say yeah,
the best Your best period to indulgent character development is
really when you step away from your from your writing
environment and you go for a walk, walking and musing
in the shower, kind of relaxing. It's it's a real

(11:47):
combination of left brain and right brain. Writing. Business people
think of it as creative, and some of it is.
I would say about ten percent of the task of
writing a novel is creative, dreaming up characters, thinking about
their plot and what happens next, and what does Katrina
say when she finds, you know, her family has lost

(12:10):
everything and is devastated, And especially at a time in
nineteen twenty nine when you know, women's roles were and
their powers and authority were so extremely limited. So those
thoughts tend to come to you. Yes, when you step
away from active writing in the shower, out for a walk,
sometimes talking it over with friends.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Did you have to do a lot of research of
nineteen twenty nine, nineteen thirty, you know, Black Monday et cetera.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yes, there are different ways of describing my book, and
I kind of saying books now because I've finished writing
book two, which is called Plunder by the way, So
book one is Pitfall and Book two is Plunder, and
a Pitfall takes place in the trading pit in nineteen
twenty nine and focuses on that kind of that crash,

(12:57):
which was a trading crash that disproportionately affected people in
financial services markets. Traders, bankers, financial advisors, investors, entrepreneurs, et cetera,
were really engaged in the market. Book two focuses on
the financing of World War two, so it's a very

(13:18):
different constituency. It's about you know, soldiers and young people
being drafted and the steel industry, et cetera. So it's
a different constituency. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
Anyway, returns why ca did cosmic financial issues as good
topic as the same.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
I feel like I didn't know quite as much as
I wanted to know about these things, and I have
quite a deep background and law and finance, and yet
I really didn't understand why did the market crash in
that way? Could it happen again? What was the difference
between nineteen twenty nine in today's economy, and we certainly

(14:02):
live in volatile times. Can these can kind of crash
like that happen again, So I had a quest to
understand more. I think it in part because of the
times we live in where there is great volatility, that
we also have a fraught border today at Canada US border,
which was also the case in nineteen twenty nine. Today

(14:23):
it's about tariffs. At that time it was about prohibition.
America was heavily invested in prohibition. Its army was engaged
in preventing the sale of liquor to place such high
value on that issue, and of course most of the
liquor supply was coming in from Canada across the border, across.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
The oh It sounds like the funnel crisis.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
Yes, it has a lot of parallels to today. And
you know, great resentment in America about the flow of
alcohol and the undermining of this important fundamental public policy.
Had this antagonism to liquor that was being undermined by

(15:06):
the shipment of whiskey into US markets, mostly in Chicago,
where where Frank's family lived in my story Pitfall.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
What a fascinating background you've had and sounds like an
interesting topic for some books. We're going to take a
break for some messages and come back with Terry Kirk
in just a few minutes. And Terry, do you have
a section from the book that you might like to
read for us? And it was as of your writing
and the story of Frank.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
I will I'll do that for you after the break
for him.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
We'll be back in two minutes with Terry Kirk by
Communian author. It's the weekend, so it's time to think
about what you want to pick up this weekend. See
what is everyone back in time?

Speaker 1 (15:49):
Stream us live at SAGA nine am dot C.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
A welcome back everyone to the Brian Crimey Radio. I've
bet a Canadian author, Terry Kirk with us tonight. She's
got a really interesting background. She's been a trial lawyer
for about twelve years and then she entered the world

(16:13):
of finance as an executive and did an executive MBA
and then she decided to become an authoress and an
author a book that is about financial catastrophes and the
first one is set in nineteen twenty nine. What's the book, Terry?
What's it called?

Speaker 3 (16:29):
The book is called Pitfall and it's a gritty story,
and my publisher tells me grave it a gritty cover.
So just to match the match, the story and Pitfall
examines the nineteen twenty nine market crash, the biggest economic
crash ever and my biggest, I mean more money's loss
in a relative sense, and global, a global economic crisis.

(16:56):
So the story takes place in what was commonly known
the pit, the trading pit. The pits were not like
today's modern trading environments, which are electronic and kind of
clean and quite sterile places. So I'll read you a little.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
Section about we appreciate that.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
Yet, when the Chicago Board of Trade opened its nine
story tower in eighteen eighty three, it was dubbed America's
boldest building. Decades later, the trading pit in the Great
Hall still took Frank's breath away. Its stained glass skylights

(17:37):
soared eighty feet above the floor and filled the room
with dimpled light. There were granite columns, a frescoed ceiling,
majestic windows, and full length curtains that kept sunlight and
peering eyes off the board. In the center was the Amphitheater,
which gave the pit its telltale name. Only those who

(18:00):
paid handsomely for a seat on the board of Trade
were allowed in. Frank stood at the back of the pit,
waiting for the opening gong. Across the front of the
room ran the board, the giant slab of slate covering
the entire height and width of that towering wall. A
labyrinth of metal scaffolding stood between the traders and the board,

(18:21):
and a dozen clerks scurried around the catwalks, scaling the ladders,
scribbling the bids and answer prices, and sending chalk debris
falling like fairy dust from the sky. The room was
awash with brawny, athletic men wearing the white, unstructured jackets
worn by traders in the pit. Many had wrestled their
way through college, and some sported noses that looked like

(18:43):
they had been reshaped by an illegal right hook. When
prices rose, half the room roared in victory and the
other half wailed in pain. Almost no one lasted more
than a few months. The few who succeeded knew how
to out yell their colleagues and elbow their ways to
the front of the room. The stench of their sweat

(19:04):
and adrenaline filled the pit during trading hours and lingered
long after markets.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
Closed fantastic, and this is about the nineteen twenty nine crash.
How long do you follow Frank and his family?

Speaker 3 (19:19):
It's the story takes place over a few months. It's
kind of Frank's Winter of discontent that starts with the
October twenty nine crash and follows his reaction to that crash.
We do know through that some traders threw themselves out
windows and in the case of Chicago, off the Clark
Street Bridge. What was it that caused him to do that?

(19:43):
My sense is shame that men were motivated by this,
just absolutely intense shame. And Frank was felt very full
of shame too. And I think this is something we
can all relate to. When we've experienced an unexpected and
disastrous loss in our life is at and sometimes it's

(20:08):
through a divorce, sometimes it's through an economic loss. Maybe
it's a loss of a job, a loss of your status.
But yeah, it's an tremendous sense of shame and how
does one cope with that sense of failure? Now that
sounds pretty dark, but Pitfall is ultimately a story of
redemption and a man's search to redefine himself without some

(20:33):
of the trappings that he thought did find his life.
He thought it was all about wealth and being the
biggest trader in town and having the biggest and best
house Frank Lloyd Wright kind of house by the way
in Chicago in nineteen twenty nine, and when he was
stripped of it all, and really it was a matter

(20:54):
of about an hour, hour and a half. Trading opened
at ten am and it was the biggest sell off
in the world. By eleven fifteen, Frank had lost everything.
So you know, how did he redefine himself as a
man and as a provider. So Frank was on a journey.
It's a physical journey. It's an adventure searching for a

(21:17):
way back to his life, way back to his fortune,
a way back to who he thought he was. And
it's metaphorical journey as well. It's full of adventure, full
of some very challenging and frightening moments for him. It's
full of poignant and sad moments and reflection as well.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Are there lessons for all of us in Frank's journey
and redemption?

Speaker 3 (21:40):
Yes, I think that there are. I think it is
his story about how he coped with tragedy. But it's
I think that people can relate to Frank's journey. There
are some things he did that I think were very
bad behavior and hopefully others wouldn't do. But I think
it is a time when when perhaps bad behavior was

(22:04):
called upon, or he he just felt the need to
kind of not do what he should have done. Perhaps,
And it's not just Frank's journey, of course, Frank's loss
triggers a great sense of upheaval in the lives of
people around him, his partners, his colleagues, his wife of course,

(22:27):
and children who are financially.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
Tell us, tell us a little bit about her, if
you could, and how did she deal with it all?

Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yeah, I really like Katrina. Katrina's Polish by background. I'm
not Polish, but I kind of enjoyed exploring that story
for her. She was a woman whose family had fled
Poland and the hunger there and resettled and had had
a great rise up herself from the South side of

(22:53):
Chicago into into wealthy suburban life with her husband. So
one day Frank doesn't come home and he just simply
disappears after the market crash, So this sends her life
into chaos. Financially, the bank account is frozen and gone,

(23:16):
and and so just the ability to stay in their
home and continue their children's schooling and so on. That
she suffers great loss at that front. But I think
again not to minimize that, but again it's kind of
the emotional upheaval that she struggles with most. What has

(23:40):
her husband killed himself? Has he been murdered? Has he disappeared?
Why would he disappear? What has she done wrong as
a wife to you know, trigger that kind of those
kinds of responses. And and as time passes, you know
she has severe from anger to but pray all to

(24:01):
sadness and loss, excuse me, and and misbehaves in her
own ways as well.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
Does she stand by your man? Kind of a gal or.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
I would say briefly no. I think that women didn't
have a lot of choices to be financially independent. They
weren't able to take out credit in their own name.
It's she couldn't get a meeting with a banker and
certainly couldn't renegotiate the mortgage. So there was a financial
and psychological dependence on her partner. But she's a smart woman.

(24:41):
She studied philosophy at university at a time when women
were not really uh, studying. She brings a kind of
you know, deep and complex capacity to her trying to
solve these problems that are thrust upon her. So yeah,
I think it's a she finds her in a new world.
They both do.

Speaker 2 (25:02):
And does she have a redemption story as well or
or is it mainly Frank.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
I think it's really about Frank's journey and one that's
cast upon her, which I think is how women's lives
were in that sense, their ability to have big journeys
of their own were more limited, and we see that
in literature at the time. The big stories of journeys
were you know, Dorothy getting hit by the storm and

(25:30):
ending up in the wizard in the Land of Oz
for example, or Alice down the wishing Well. You know,
stories of economic loss and loss of one's profession and
so on. We're not We're not well, they're really just
coming into literature today as women's lives have changed.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Why the focus on financial kind of cosmic events both
you know, the big crash at Black Monday and then
you know World War two? Why why is that your
focus you personal experience or litigation experience, or like, why
is that the interest that you've got.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yeah, I think I think it's an excellent question. I
guess in my years of professional life spanning as you say,
the adventures I've had as a lawyer and working with
clients and then more in tech and markets and so on,
has mean that you know, finance plays an unbelievable role
on our people's in our lives that you know, it's

(26:27):
quite secretive. Often it's really a little below the radar,
other than a subset of people, very small subset who
you know, really work as bankers and so on, talk
about finance quite openly. For the vast majority of people,
it's it's a constant in their life. How do I
pay my mortgage this month? What if I lose my job?
How will I put food on my table during this

(26:48):
COVID crisis? And what if I lose my job at
Canada Posts. You know, these are the day to day
concerns to animate all of our lives, and yet they're
kind of bound up with a lot of shame and
privacy and secrecy. And so that was my decision, is
that I felt I'd learned a lot about finance over

(27:11):
the years and wanted to share about share it and
explore what it meant in people's lives and give perhaps
a new generation of people some insights into these events
that shaped, you know, broadly speaking, their family's life, who
didn't have a grandparent, who you know, maybe came from
England or Poland or Scotland and now increasingly from India

(27:35):
or China, and you know, go through unbelievable financial difficulties
associated with that, leaving their finances behind and being stripped
of their finances because of war, having to start over
in a new country. So yeah, I feel their universal
experiences and not often the subject of literature, And that

(27:57):
was just my commitment to use my background experience. It's
an understanding of financial events to open those up to readers.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
What's the topic of the third book? The first one
is Black Monday, the second one World War two. The
topic of the third.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
Is Yeah, the topic of the third looks at the
financing of the space race. So these are I think
the big kind of three events of the last generation
that shaped us, and I do have plans I hope
to go beyond that. Ironically, they take place every kind
of ten or twenty years, we see these cataclysmic events.
So nineteen twenty nine, the crash emanating into the thirties.

(28:36):
By nineteen thirty nine forty, we're facing World War two,
another massively disruptive event in terms of obviously death and
famine and loss, but also economic transformation. The space race
is a third story, and I'm following a family, so

(28:58):
it becomes a multi generation saga, one could say, through
these events. Yeah, Frank and his wife Katrina. In book one,
he's thirty two at the time when he loses everything
in the crash. By nineteen thirty nine forty, Frank is
front and center again in the financing of World War Two,

(29:20):
and the book becomes set in London, which was so
much the nexus of the war at that time. But
by nineteen fifty seven, when Russia launches Spotnik, Frank's daughter
Frannie is now front and center. In the book, Frank
is into his sixties and has had an early retirement
from his firm. His son. I won't talk about that,

(29:43):
but his daughter basically has a fallout, stepped into her
father's big footsteps and is running the firm from New
York and becomes very engaged in the financing of America's
response to the Russian Spotnik.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
And have you got a title? For the third one yet, yes,
it's going to be Probe. Uh.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
So I have Pitfall. Uh, you know, I wrestled with Weather.
It's a little bit corny. But I talked to my
publisher and an agent and people who know more about
these things than me, and they, well, it seems like
a lot of p words for me in terms of
the you know, the broad book market. Having something that's
kind of identified with with you as an author is

(30:23):
helpful to readers. So, yes, my three books are Pitfall
and Plunder and then Probe fantastic.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
If people want to buy it, where can I get it?

Speaker 3 (30:35):
Yeah, So pitt Pills, you know, in full swing right now.
I was really pleased to say that that the first
edition of the book sold out in about three weeks.
The second edition is is now available. So it's online
at your big platforms in Canada. People tend to be
shopping Canadians. So that's Indigo dot Ca a others belong

(30:59):
to you know, support Amazon, so Amazon dot Ca and
Amazon dot dot com for international readers, and it's really
doing well in the independent bookstores. It's in Canada. Well,
let's just say there's fabulous books like take Cover and Yeah,
in most cities across Canada and in the big bookstores

(31:21):
like Indigo.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
Have you done the audio book version yet?

Speaker 3 (31:25):
No, we're just doing those now. The book will come
out in Kindle and Cobo. You may know that Indigo
uses the Cobo platform and Amazon uses Kindle, So those
two versions are coming out in August, so in the
next number of weeks. I'm excited by that. And then
an audio version is in the works. I'm really thrilled.
My publisher is using real actors and I've been kind

(31:48):
of imagining the voice of Frank and Katrina.

Speaker 2 (31:51):
And yeah, sounds exciting. We're going to take a break
for some messages and we're going to come back with
Terry Kirk, Canadian author, in just two minutes.

Speaker 4 (32:01):
Stay with us, everybody, No Radio, No Problem. Stream is
live on Sagay nine sixty am dot CA.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
We'll come back everyone to the Brian Cromby Radio. I've
got an author, a Canadian book author, Terry Kirk, with
us tonight. She's written a book called Pitfall, which is
about nineteen twenty nine, the Black Monday and an individual
that goes through financial devastation and redemption. And her second
book is about the financing of World War Two, and

(32:44):
her third book is about the financing of the Space Age,
and so it sounds like an interesting series of books.
Terry wonder if I could take a step back for
a second. You know, I've gone through a divorce, I've
had some financial challenges in my career. You know, we've
all seen and you know people that have had these
challenges in life. Do you think one of the reasons

(33:04):
why people want to read stories like what you've written
is because they're interested because it's sort of for the
grace of God there go I kind of attitude of
and they want to hear the redemption story. They want
to hear about how people got through it. I think
people feel sort of personally connected with some of these

(33:26):
stories that you've been talking about.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
What do you think, Yes, I think that's that is
absolutely the attraction to a story of financial loss. It's
kind of a secret part of most people's lives. We're
not out We might be bragging about our children openly,
we might be bragging about our success in sports in school,
but our financial insecurities we tend to be very very

(33:49):
private about. And so is a way to kind of
quietly explore what would that feel like to lose everything,
to lose your home, to lose your you lose your
all of your savings, you know, at a vulnerable time
when you're raising children and so on. What does that
feel like? How would I cope with that kind of loss?

(34:12):
You know? So I think we can all. Very few
live a full life and don't have some kind of
experience with that trepidation. Most will lose a job at
some point, UH suffer a great setback in their savings
in the market, for example. Certainly I relate to that.

(34:33):
These they stand out when you look back in your life,
these periods of economic or huge upheaval. I had a
divorce early in my in my my life as became
a single mom for seven years. I did not have
the same kind of hardships that some otherwise I would have.

(34:54):
I I was a lawyer, and uh I was able to,
you know, continue to build my career. But it happened
at an early stage, and there there was a tremendous
sense of financial insecurity. Financial loneliness maybe is a word
of and responsibility on your shoulder that informs my character. Frank,

(35:17):
who you know, did feel this great, great weight on
his shoulders of supporting his family in a great sense
of shame when his ability to do so was really
ripped away from him. So yeah, I think that is
partly why I've written the story to allow people to
address that, and ultimately it is a positive story. And

(35:40):
in my experience, these losses can work out very well
for people. That people who lose their jobs and feel
devastated do find a way back and they often emerge
as more thoughtful people, more contemplative people. They learn new skills,
they learn empathy, and they grow. Oh it's not to

(36:02):
minimize the despair that they feel for a period of time,
but I think when people have had those crisises and
you run into them two or three years later, you
do see a deeper, more profound, more interesting person has
has emerged. And that is the story too. It's a
story of loss, but it's a story of of growth

(36:24):
and change, profound growth. Yeah, it's it's a positive story.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
This maybe trite, I'm not sure, but there's this saying
that is what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Do
you think that's true that what doesn't kill you makes
you stronger?

Speaker 3 (36:42):
Yeah? No, I think that's true that easy lives don't
allow for that much growth or contemplation. That the periods
of growth do come from periods of hardship, when you're
kind of forced into doing some pretty deep thinking about
who you are and what mistakes you made. Some people
gloss over that I did feel, you know, I was

(37:04):
seven years single after my divorce. Even though I was
a young woman and could have jumped right into something
else quite quickly, I did really feel that I wanted
to do the hard work of thinking about what went wrong,
what did I bring to the table. It's easy. It's
easy to say my partner did this, or my partner
did all these things wrong, And that's an initial reaction,
I think. But the growth comes from we're looking inward

(37:27):
and thinking, what did I do wrong? How can I grow?
What can I do to make sure that this I
don't find myself in this situation again pretty quickly.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
So much of our identity is built into, you know,
what we do for a job and who we're married to.
As you think about your own personal life as well
as the development of Frank's character and the writing of
your books, are there lessons about how you get through
job loss, divorce, death, You know, losing of a job,

(37:58):
major problems that we all we all face. Are there
lessons that you've learned?

Speaker 3 (38:03):
What I learned and what I try to imbue in
pitfall is an imagination is probably the fundamental quality that
people need to succeed after a big loss. It seems
like an odd character. There's other words that come to mind, persistence,
you know, drive, optimism. Those things are true, you need

(38:24):
those things as kind of foundations. But what allows you
to reimagine yourself? If you'd always thought that you would
be Missus Jones and suddenly you're not, or that you
always thought you'd live in a big house and with
a big bank account, and suddenly those things are gone,
what really allows you to come out the other end

(38:45):
is I think imagination. It's the ability to ye be
open to thinking about who you might be if you're not,
you know, the president of Bell Canada, or if you're
not if you'd be stripped of your law license or
whatever it is. It takes an ability to reimagine, and

(39:06):
that is Frank was not an imaginary man. He did
not have a strong imagination. Was a finance guy. Liked
his ledgers, He liked things lined up, his numbers lined
up on the left and the right side of his page.
He used ledgers to solve complex problems in his life.
He'd draw a line down the middle and line up
the arguments on one sign, lineup with the arguments and

(39:27):
the other. It was a fact based, numeric kind of
rational guy. And suddenly none of those tools worked for him.
There was no ledger, there was no job to apply for.
So he needed to find other tools. And it was
really his ability to reimagine himself. What were the things

(39:48):
that what were the opportunities in sight at that time? Well,
there was really only one, which was about selling Canadian
whiskey to the US mob. That was the economic activity
at the time. Capital markets weren't hiring people, that's for sure.
Brokerages were not taking people on. The banks were not hiring.
One third of banks collapsed in the two years after

(40:12):
the market crash. There were none of those traditional jobs.
Frank hat to step outside himself and learned to have
skills he never thought he had.

Speaker 2 (40:22):
Fascinating, fastinate service. We've followed the steps of the Seagrams
and the Brafmans, and yes, became became a smuggler of alcohol.
That's fun. I followed you both personally in your career
for I don't know, forty years, and I've always been
impressed with you. I got to ask you, you know,
can a single mom? Can a female have it all?

(40:45):
Can they have a family life? Can they have a
good marriage? Can they have a career? What's your sense?
You've gone through divorce? You said, you've been a lawyer,
you've been a business person, you're now an author, you've
been a single mom, you've been a mom, you've been
a wife. Can a woman have it all today?

Speaker 3 (41:06):
Yes? I would say yes, such some conditions. It depends
upon you, know, how you define it all. I think
you can. I think you can. Let's say mine in
the two great rich fault lines of life, which I
think are, you know, love and really a sense of

(41:30):
pride and a sense of success and achievement in your life.
So I found, as in those early years that I
could have those two things. I had a young child
that I loved intensely and was the center of my life.
And I had a really, you know, a rich career.

(41:52):
My career was not as rich as as I might
have liked it if I wasn't trying to be a mom.
And uh, there might have been other things I could
have done career wise, for sure, But could I have
been a mom without a career. Absolutely not. I needed
to support myself and my child, and I think just

(42:14):
because of who I am, I needed that set of
outside challenges and rewards. So yes, it's a short answer.
I think people can. I would add one caveat, and
that's good health. It's very hard for people who have
health challenges, whether it's just energy levels or physicality, etc.

(42:36):
To really meet the twin demands of parenting and career
at the same time. I was lucky. I've always had very,
very robust health. People tease me that I've partly really
never had a sick day in my life. I just
am healthy, and that flows I think from a really
positive attitude and doing some basic commitments to good health. Yeah,

(42:58):
but otherwise, great time to be a woman. It is
where you can. I can't imagine Katrina's life. That's why
when I look back and people ask me, you know,
am I Katrina? Am I Frank? I'm much more Frank.
I relate to Frank. Frank is a career guy with
responsibilities to his firm on his shoulder, and I need

(43:19):
to show up at that office every day and go
into the pit and with his gladiator outfit and make
money and bring home the bacon. And so that's who
I relate to, and that sense of loss if you
lost all that Katrina's life. You know, women had just
got the vote. It's nineteen twenty nine. Women had just
been fighting for the vote around the world in America

(43:40):
and England and Canada. I think it was nineteen twenty
five when women got the vote four years earlier. So yeah,
life was different. You couldn't hold mortgages in your own name.
That's a harder set of circumstances. When I created her
as a character, her voice was challenging for me because
you tried to think about her work how you might

(44:01):
respond as a woman today, and those options really weren't
open to her.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
Well, you've certainly reinvented yourself as a lawyer and as
a business person and now an author, And so I
thank you for joining us tonight and sharing with us
the topics of your books. Remind us all the title
of the book and where we can all go out
and buy it.

Speaker 3 (44:22):
Yeah, Pitfall, and it's Pitfall by Terry Kirk. If you
google it. There are other books and issues called Pitfall.
So it's Pitfall by Terry Kirk. My name Terry is
short for Teresa. I used to spell it with an I,
and now I'm spelling it with a Y, just a
bit more neutral, kind of gender neutral approach as an author.

(44:42):
So it's Pitfall by Terry Kirk. And you'll quickly find
it at your local bookstore, at your Indigo or buy
it online and they'll deliver it to your house within
twenty four hours.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
Terry Kirk, thank you so much for join us. I
really appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
Good. Thank you so much, Brian.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
That's our show for tanday. Everybody, thank you for joining us.
I remind you I'm on every Monday through Friday at
six o'clock on nine sixty am. You can stream you
online at Triple W Saga nine sixty am dot C.
Thanks everyone, Good night.

Speaker 1 (45:14):
Stream us live at Saga nine sixty am dot CA
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