Nearly 30 years ago, Ron Benty created Solum, a fantasy world inhabited by anthropomorphic vegetables, wrote a story about their adventures and then… let it sit for 28 years.
His recently published novel, The Garden People, follows the adventures of carrots Clifford Rootabert and Humley Smallstock — along with pumpkins Roald and Woald, and the Hammericks, a cornstalk — as they search for the sacred Book trapped in the clutches of Solomon Growhard and his onion renegades, resulting a battle of good and evil.
For Benty, pastor of the Wynndel Community Church, the novel offered the opportunity to express his beliefs through allegory, offering younger readers an exciting romp while educating them spiritually.
“I felt I could talk about anything without being dry and moralistic,” he said. “What it was was not the idea of people neglecting the Bible, but the renegade guys were changing it. That, to me, is more dangerous. … The other vegetables aren’t perfect, but they’re representing it honestly.”
Benty was born on Vancouver Island, eventually moving with his parents to Golden. He moved back to the island, joining a church that held services in a rented rec centre room.
Seven years after finishing high school, Benty attended the University of Toronto, and graduated with a master of divinity degree. He became a Presbyterian minister in Prince Albert, Sask., and later Montreal, Que., for five years.
After that, he and his wife of 28 years, Gwen, and their three sons moved to Creston, where he became pastor of St. Stephen’s Presbyterian Church in Creston. He left the denomination in October 2007 to become pastor at the Wynndel Community Church.
At the urging of his middle son, Morgan, Benty finally self-published The Garden People this summer, giving it a “childlike spirit” by enlisting 15-year-old artist James Troughton to create the cover illustration, featuring Clifford and Humley, and several inside, including vicious blackberries and a pipe-smoking earthworm.
“I didn’t want someone professional because I didn’t want it to look professional,” he said. “I wanted it to resonate with kids.”
In creating the characters, Benty took inspiration from popular characters — beasts and animals — in Walt Disney animated films, which had a lasting impact. When it came to appreciating nature, he said, “Bambi did a lot more for me than environmental guys walking down the road with placards.”
And even more than animals, vegetables as characters come across as intensely vulnerable.
“They can go rotten,” he laughed. “They’re not as big as they think they are in perspective to the world.”
Even so, they’re resilient, whether climbing rock faces, exploring tunnels or taking on Growhard’s renegade forces in small skirmishes or a Bible-inspired pitched battle for the Book.
“To me, it represents spiritual warfare,” said Benty.
The project has been a family affair from the beginning, from Benty’s mother-in-law typing out the original manuscript in the 1980s to his son’s push for the book’s publication, and some family members might recognize themselves in its pages — his sister, Julia, for example, makes an appearance as a tomato.
And while he’s tossing around a few ideas for a sequel, Benty hopes that his book will offer readers a hint at the simplicity of biblical teachings.
“I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out what the Good Samaritan is,” he said. “I think God left us with enough that if we’re like the vegetables, we’ll make it.”
The Garden People is available at Amazon.ca, Amazon.com and FriesenPress.com.