Vernon author, educator and musician John Lent, an instructor at Nelson’s former Notre Dame University, will launch his new novel, The Path to Ardroe, at Nelson’s Oxygen Art Centre, 320 Vernon St. (alley entrance), on Friday, June 15 at 7:30 p.m.

The launch, part of Oxygen Art Centre’s Presentation Series, is free and open to the public.

The novel follows four characters who grew up in, or who were influenced by, post-World War II Edmonton, and at the time of the story are variously living in Scotland, France and the Okanagan Valley. The book focuses on turning points in the characters’ lives and relationships with each other, and incorporates a unique mirror-image structure offering two chapters centred on each character.

“I can think of no Canadian writer,” wrote Canadian literature icon Robert Kroetsch about Lent, “who so thoroughly positions in front of us the mirror that might offer us at once both reality and the imagined. It is to Lent that I turn when I need to be reminded…how the writer works in the daily world of place while aspiring to what endures.”

Following Lent’s stint at Notre Dame in Nelson, he taught English and writing for many years at Okanagan College, including five years as North Okanagan Regional Dean. His other poetry and fiction publications include the novel So It Won’t Go Away, shortlisted for the 2005 B.C. Book Prizes. A parallel career as a musician began in Nelson when he performed as a folksinger under the name Johnny Fargo. Currently he performs as part of the Vernon-based jazz and roots group, the Lent/Fraser/Wall Trio.