James Kostelniuk from Oliver survived the tragedy that befell his family by writing his memoir, “Wolves Among Sheep.”
In a modest house, nestled in a peaceful Oliver retirement community, a critically acclaimed author with a fascinating and tragic story lives a quiet life.
James Kostelniuk is best known for his memoir Wolves Among Sheep, in which he revisits with gut-wrenching detail and reflection his ex-wife and children’s brutal murder.
Though rigorously researched—including a five-year correspondence with Jeffrey Anderson, the murderer himself—the book turned heads largely because of the honesty of Kostelniuk’s writing as he chronicled his own emotional struggle.
Kostelniuk is a soft spoken man who smiles more through his eyes than mouth. Sitting at his dining room table, he said he still thinks about his children every single day, but that he was never destroyed by their murder.
Wolves Among Sheep had a lot to do with that.
“I think I survive by reaching out, by continually going forward. Whether it was therapy—I spent four years in therapy with different therapists—or the 10 years I spent writing this book.
“[Wolves Among Sheep] was painful to write. But once it was published it was like this big load came off my chest,” he said.
In fact, Wolves Among Sheep did even more for Kostelniuk than help him heal; it was his first serious step into authorship, a lifelong passion that has continued with his first foray into fiction: Paris 1924.
The 69 year old’s latest work was published as an eBook by eXtasy Books Inc. on September 15. Set in the bawdy Paris of the 1920s, the book follows a writer navigating his way through a salacious series of relationships.
But hedonistic details and the market of its publisher aside, Kostelniuk says the book is more of an “old fashioned romance,” written in a literary style; an exploration of a time when people were experimenting with different types of relationships.
As he talks about his characters his eyes light up and he leans forward in his seat. He describes plot twists with earnest excitement, as if recounting a great movie he just watched and couldn’t wait to share.
Kostelniuk worked for decades as a bus driver in Winnipeg, but admitted that he always wanted to be a writer. Now retired, he and his wife Marge live in Oliver and he spends much of his time putting words to paper.
He explained that, although he always had a passion for writing, it’s only now that he’s older that he feels like he has enough worthwhile things to say.
“I don’t think that until I was in my 50s I could write anything worthwhile,” he said.
He said that he learned a lot from his decade writing Wolves Among Sheep—how to work with memory, how to research, how to portray characters compassionately—and he’s applied these lessons not only to his fiction, but his life.
Kostelniuk talked a lot about compassion. Compassion is what has allowed him to carve compelling characters from his life experience. It’s also what allowed him to reach out to Anderson and try to understand his motivation.
“Any good journalist tries to see both sides of the story. And a novelist especially: you have to understand the protagonist of course, but the antagonist too. You really have to maybe not agree with the antagonist because he’s a bad guy, but at least understand his motives and his conditions—the way he was raised or what’s causing his behaviour.
“I suppose I tried to have a certain amount of sympathy for Jeff Anderson, and after five years of correspondence with him I’ve learned something.”
Whatever Anderson taught him, Kostelniuk said he still thinks about his children every single day, and can’t be with them because of what Anderson did.
“I became the father of a murdered child, and I’ll always be the father of a murdered child,” he said, his voice becoming soft and husky, barely audible by the end of his sentence.
And while their deaths have shaded his life forever, Kostelniuk has worked hard to not let himself become destroyed by them. He is a victim, he said, but that fact doesn’t define his life.
More importantly, he’s a husband; a friend; a writer.
By Trevor Nichols
