TBR: Flat Water by Jeremy Broyles

TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe. 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

Flat Water is the story of siblings, surfing, and sharks and what happens when those things come together both in the water and out of it. The novel is one part road trip, three parts unresolved grief, and a dash of shark-headed hallucination monstrosities.

 

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

I most enjoyed writing Kay, the mother in the novel. She is modeled after my own late mother, René. It was wonderfully fulfilling starting with the base of this woman I had known for the first thirty-seven years of my life she had stuck around and then imagining how she could change in this fictitious world. And though I certainly recognize my mom in the character of Kay, I found such great fun in writing a line while saying to myself, “My mom would never say that.” I don’t know precisely why such moments delighted me so; I just know they did.

 

The character that gave me the gnarliest headache was Max, the older brother who—with the exception of a handful of flashbacks—is dead throughout the novel. He is the ghost that haunts this story. Because of the setup—beloved older brother dies tragically at the age of nineteen—I ended up turning Max into a faultless martyr of sorts in the novel’s earliest iteration. I needed his character to be craggier and flawed but never to the extent that Monty’s grief at losing him ever felt misplaced.

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

I believed in this book right from the jump. The publishing world around me, however, was less enthusiastic. Usually, rejection doesn’t faze me. It was the way the book was so roundly and thoroughly dismissed. As Stephen King articulated for us, getting personalized rejections means you’re getting close. I got nowhere. For months. Then Meagan Lucas, an author I very much admire—and who wrote Songbirds and Stray Dogs and recently released her collection Here in the Dark—got her hands on the book and reached out to me to say how much she enjoyed it. Knowing she thought I was on to something too helped propel me forward in finding a home for the book at Main Street Rag.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

As a grad student, I had this short story I liked, but I was concerned it was just another relationship story. My mentor, Jane Armstrong, chuckled and said, “Jeremy, they’re all relationship stories.” I have co-opted that advice ever since. We should, all of us, write relationship stories. They are fundamentally human and, therefore, matter most.

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

The off-roads I got to take in this novel which, at its core, is a very California story. Even so, the narrative visits a café in Flagstaff, a winery in Cottonwood, Arizona, a casino in Vegas. I remain shocked—and delighted—that a road trip found its way into the book.

 

How did you find the title of your book?

 

I knew my title very early on, and it’s an example of something I write primarily for myself. Though the final acts of the novel play out in California, this novel was also, at least in part, my love song to Nebraska. Nebraska is taken from an Oto word which translates to, perhaps unsurprisingly, flat water.

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

 

Absolutely. As a hungry hypoglycemic and food fan myself, I put food throughout this novel—one of the first scenes is set in a restaurant. My personal favorite, however, is when the protagonist and his wife visit a hot dog joint from his past. I’m vegan, so I indulged my previous meat-eating self in building out the menu they order from. That scene was the most fun I had while writing the novel. But as I come back to my vegan self, I like to think even the hot dog joint would approve of a dill potato salad I think would be right at home on that menu. (Scroll below for recipe!)

 ***** 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: https://www.jeremybroylesauthor.com

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS PUBLISHER:  https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/flat-water-jeremy-broyles/

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK:

https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/flat-water-jeremy-broyles/

 

READ AN EXCERPT OF THIS NOVEL (click on “samples”):

https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/flat-water-jeremy-broyles/ (the “Samples” button leads to the novel’s first chapter)

 

*****

 

Vegan Dill Potato Salad

 

*Ingredients

• Russet potatoes, five pounds (peeled and diced)
• Vegan Mayonnaise, approximately one cup (I almost always go with Follow Your Heart)
• Yellow mustard, two tablespoons
• Fresh dill, one package or approximately twenty sprigs (finely chopped)
• Dill pickles, two (cubed)
• Celery, approximately four stalks
• Salt (kosher works best)
• Pepper (freshly ground is my go-to)

 

*One of the advantages of this recipe is its adjustability. For example, upping the amount of mayo used makes for a creamier salad reminiscent of deviled egg varieties. The keys, and there are two, that will help push the dish beyond the reputation (sometimes earned) of bland vegan food are these: salt and acid. Salt the water before bringing it to a boil. Salt the potatoes once they are cooked. Don’t be shy with either the mustard or the pickles. That’s the acid that brightens this salad up. And it’s hard to put too much dill in there. Seriously. Kill it with dill.

 

Preparation

1. Bring a large stock or soup pot to a boil. Aim for the pot to be approximately ¾ full, depending on the pot, as you need room for the potatoes. Salt the water with two heavy pinches of kosher salt.
2. Peel and dice the potatoes. At least two rinsings are suggested—once after they’re peeled and again after they’re diced.
3. Carefully place the potatoes into the boiling water. A large mixing spoon works well as a vehicle to place the potatoes in the water to avoid splashing.
4. As the potatoes boil, rinse and chop the celery. Dice the pickles. Finely chop the dill. Make sure to remove the leaves from the stem. We appreciate the stem’s contribution, but we’ll be eating only the tasty leaves.
5. Stir and check the potatoes regularly. To know when they are cooked, retrieve the large mixing spoon. Trap a single cube against the side of the pot using the spoon’s backside. If the potato just yields under gentle pressure, it is done. If you have to force the issue to get the potato to break, then it needs more time. If it squishes to mush when you press it, then you are on you way to making mashed potatoes.
6. Once the potatoes are cooked, drain thoroughly and place into a large mixing bowl. Add salt again (two healthy pinches of kosher). This is also a good time to grind pepper over the top to taste.
7. Add the previously prepared celery, pickles, and dill.
8. Add the mayo and mustard.
9. Stir to bring the ingredients together. If the mixture is looser than preferred, don’t hesitate to add more mayo. To give it even more punch, though, add a spoonful or two of the pickles’ brining liquid.
10. Serve immediately warm or chill overnight for the ideal picnic or cookout accompaniment. The salad kills at potlucks too.

 

TBR: Trick of the Porch Light: Stories by Jessica Barksdale Inclán

TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe. 

 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

Trick of the Porch Light is a story collection full of small, odd situations populated with people who really want to understand their lives. Of course, they go about trying to uncover truths in ways that cause them more pain and perhaps less clarity, though at the end of it all, there is the glimmer for them, hanging just out of reach.

 

Which story did you most enjoy writing? Why? And, which story gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

I’m not sure enjoy is the word I use when I am “into” writing something. It seems more like being embroiled or consumed or taken over by an idea or character or situation. I often come up with a character with a problem, and then I want to see how they can get out of it or recover in some way.

 

The story I feel so satisfied with is “I Would See Everything.” It’s a story I started a very long time ago, one that encompasses some of the issues I had as a younger mother, one with small children. My character, though, is recently widowed and trying to come to terms with the problems in her marriage (now forever unsolved) and the issues with her youngest child. She doesn’t know how she will figure anything out, but then, a glimmer.

 

The stories that caused me the most trouble were the titular story “Trick of the Porch Light” and “Murder House” because they are linked through setting and, fleetingly, characters. The larger story is in “Trick,” and “Murder” is actually a short story one of the characters in “Trick” is writing. It’s all very meta, but I wanted each story to stand on their own. I’m not prone to meta anything, so I spent a lot of time working on both.

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

For over twelve years, this collection of stories—in various states, with various stories, in certain and very different orders and with different titles—was a finalist, semi-finalist, and honorable mention (not to mention short and long-listed) fourteen times, and those were the contests I actually wrote down. All of these stories have been published, some very well, many have won prizes that have included money, a rare thing indeed. A couple were nominated for Pushcart prizes; another other academic awards.

 

And yet, I could not push this collection through to publication.

 

During this process, I received many lovely notes from editors. Some notes were not so lovely. One editor wrote me a very long letter about how my characters needed to get a grip! After all, he himself had lost an arm in Vietnam and still managed to have a good life. What is your issue, lady writer, he seemed to be saying.

 

What sustained me over the years were my readers, those people who helped me with various iterations and my faith in the individual stories. I also published novels and poems and individual short stories. But after a long while, I decided to give this collection one more serious push. For one, I considered all the comments from readers over the years, including the one from the man who lost an arm. I took out one story that he mentioned specifically, something I don’t regret. Then I gave the collection to two faithful readers for final comments, revised a bit more, retitled a few of the stories and the collection itself, and sent it out on its final voyage. This time, it all worked. Maria Maloney from Mouthfeel Press is giving Trick of the Porch light a home. Case closed.

 

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

My first fiction teacher was Anne Lamott, back in the day when she was teaching out of Book Passage in Corte Madera, California. I took two of her night classes and wrote the first draft of “I Would See Everything” for one of those classes (I still have the draft she read, and she wrote on the top “You are the real deal.” I should frame it).

 

One night when she was lecturing, she said, “Three hundred words a day, and in a year you have a novel.”

 

There is a math problem in there that works. She made sure to let us know that the first draft would be really horrible, but it would be a draft, something whole.

 

Three hundred words is doable, even during illness and upset and odd times. Also, often 300 words turns into more, sometimes many. But it can also just be 300. An obtainable goal that works. It wasn’t too many years after her class that I wrote my first novel Her Daughter’s Eyes, using her exact formula, this during a time when I was teaching five classes a semester, raising two small children, and trying to scratch out a writing life. And I think about her advice every day when getting ready to write.

 

How did you find the title of your book?

 

It wasn’t until I changed the title of “Trick of the Porch Light” from another, lesser title that I realized how the new title spoke to the entire collection. These stories are typically about home, a place that is familiar, and yet, look at the sleights of hand, the tricks, the mysteries right there in front of us in the places we call home.

 

I also loved the play on the old saying trick of the light. Adding porch in there really changed things. Maybe it’s a bit clever, too, which feels nice. But again, how many titles has this collection had? One was Tuna for the Apocalypse, but that short story no longer appears. Good title, though, right?

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

 

One story that once appeared in the collection is titled Starving, and it is really about food or sustenance: a woman stands in front of her fridge and thinks about meals and food. She also thinks about her baby that died. There were recipes in that story, but not too many in the stories that remain in the collection.

 

I am a vegetarian, and I have to adapt many, many recipes for my purposes. Here is a chili that I make topped with cornmeal biscuits that uses Impossible Burger—Beyond Burger works, too. My husband and I cook a lot, and he has most of our favorites on his recipe website. Here is the Cast Iron Chili and Cheddar Biscuit Recipe link but feel free to look around!

 

https://recipes.uptakeblue.com/detail/jessicas-cast-iron-chili-and-cheddar-biscuits

 

 

*****

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: https://www.jessicabarksdaleinclan.com/

 

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS PUBLISHER: https://www.mouthfeelbooks.com/

 

BUY THIS BOOK FOR YOUR TBR STACK: https://www.mouthfeelbooks.com/product/trick-of-the-porch-light/52?cp=true&sa=true&sbp=false&q=false

 

 

READ A SHORT STORY, “Monsters in the Agapanthus”: https://medium.com/the-coil/monsters-in-the-agapanthus-fiction-jessica-barksdale-d51239e3c1ad

 

 

TBR: Come with Me by Erin Flanagan

TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe. 

 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

COME WITH ME is about a newly widowed mother who falls under the sway of an old acquaintance whose friends have a history of disappearing.

 

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And, which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

There are two point-of-view characters in the book—Gwen Maner and Nicola Kimmel. Gwen is the protagonist and came pretty easily to me—she lacks self-confidence, an affliction I also suffer from—while Nicola was harder to figure out, and ultimately, more fun to write. Nicola is one of those friends who gets a little too close, a little too fast, and I had to write her three different ways before she really came together.

 

In the first version, her chapters were in the “now” of the story, and I really loved her snarky interior voice, but she wasn’t magnetic enough to have so much sway over Gwen. It occurred to me that the voice of hers that I loved was only in her head, so in the second version of her chapters, I wrote her saying all the snarky things she’d only been thinking and she became way more charismatic. The problem then was that, once she said everything she was thinking, her chapters just became a rehashing of what had already happened.

 

It wasn’t until the third round—when I started writing chapters from Nicola’s past—that things started to crystalize, not only from a narrative standpoint, but as a way for me to understand and empathize with Nicola and see what she really wanted and what her pain was. This resulted in a much more interesting character arc and moved her from just being an antagonist to, I hope, something more interesting.

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

This is the first time in my career that I wrote a book after it was under contract so I had a pretty strict deadline. It was exhilarating knowing someone wanted the book, but terrifying too. I had six months to write it, and three of those months were when I was teaching full time, so there were no days off. I had a sense the book would take me about 350 hours based on previous novels, so I broke it down and got to work. But I’m definitely a bit of a pantser, so it was a lot of cutting and writing more, cutting and writing more before I really figured out the story. So for this novel, it was mainly “highs” not lows, but there were a lot of nights I just laid awake running the story through my head, hoping I could make it work.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

I know most people offer the best advice they’ve been given and not their own advice, but I’ve found a secret that’s so transformed my writing that I’m going to break protocol and share my own favorite hack. As I said, I often lack self-confidence, so the fact I’m giving my own advice rather than someone else’s should give you a sense how much I believe in it.

 

That said, it’s probably not the sexiest answer you’ll ever get, but my favorite piece of writing advice is to track your writing, both time and task: what you are working on, and for how long each day. After a while, you’ll start to see patterns—how long things take you, where you tend to procrastinate, how you can become more efficient, even how you can ward off despair.

 

For instance, when I wrote the novel Blackout, the first draft took 88 hours, but I wrote that over 13 or so months. The entire book, through beta-readers, research, and edits was 497 hours over 21 months. In other words, only 18% of the writing time took over well over half the months of writing. What did I learn? That I hate writing first drafts and will procrastinate like hell.

 

So when I started Come with Me, which I mentioned was under deadline, I decided I’d write 1k words a day during the semester, and as soon as summer hit, I’d raise it to 2k. I finished that first draft in two and half months, and it clocked in at 91 hours. So I shaved off months and months but spent about the same amount of time with my ass in the chair.

 

I also know now that a big edit takes me about 60 hours and I usually have to do a few rounds of that, but again, now that I know how long it takes, I can chip away as needed. When I start to despair how a project is going I think, lady, you’re only 150 hours in! Of course it’s rough! You’ve got 200 hours to go to make it better!

 

I honestly feel like knowing this about my writing habits has become a secret weapon that I use only against myself.

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

I love this! It’s such great advice. I love love love being surprised by a story. I think in this book, the thing that surprised me the most was how empathetic I felt toward the antagonist. I knew I didn’t want to demonize her, and I was well-prepared to be charmed by her, but I didn’t think I’d end up feeling her desperate need for love on such a visceral level. I wrote this book partly to explore how smart women end up in these less-than-healthy friendships, but what I discovered was why some people want to control others. It was eye opening to say the least.

 

Who is your ideal reader?

 

My sister, Kelly Hansen. She’s a smart-ass woman who reads constantly and widely, but most deeply in crime fiction and thrillers. She is ready to be delighted by a book and has little to no interest in being a fiction writer, so while she’s willing to be wowed by a great sentence, she’s reading mainly for story. Also, since she’s been in my life since day one, she gets every Easter egg I put in my books—those little details that probably don’t really make a difference to most readers beyond rounding out the believability of the story, but that she knows intimately.

 

For instance when Clyle Costagen drinks a Lord Calvert and Sprite in Deer Season, she knows that’s our dad’s drink. Or when Nicola wants to have “matchies” in Come with Me, that’s because I’m always delighted when Kelly and I have the same purse or notebook. Or when Gwen says salmon has the “wow factor” that’s me talking about how every road-trip lunch needs a surprise. These little things delight us both to no end.

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

 

It’s surprising how little food there is in this book considering how much I ate at my computer trying to figure out plot problems. But Nicola eats a chicken Caesar salad for lunch every day at work, and Gwen begins to do this too. It’s a throwaway detail, but one I thought spoke to the character. There’s something sad about someone eating the same thing every day. It says something about the level of control she has over her food intake and shows she takes no real pleasure in eating, which strikes me as pretty sad. In the book, Nicola orders this salad from a deli, but here’s my cheat recipe for a super quick and tasty chicken Caesar:

 

Romaine hearts – cut don’t tear to save time

Store-bought Caesar dressing (Marzetti is my favorite)

Store-bought croutons (which you should eat as you’re assembling)

Pre-shredded Parmesan (not grated)

Meat from a rotisserie chicken (preferably Costco)

Boom, that’s it. Gwen would probably recommend you open the rotisserie chicken in the Costco parking lot and eat at least one leg while crying in your car.

 

*****

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: https://erinflanagan.net/

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK:

Amazon

 

READ AN EXCERPT OF THIS BOOK: excerpt of book [click on "read sample"]

 

TBR: The Curious Lives of Nonprofit Martyrs by George Singleton

TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe.  

 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

It’s a collection of stories. Most of the characters work in some kind of made-up non-profit. Some of the characters appear and re-appear in subsequent stories, so it’s thinly linked.

 

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why?

 

I invented this guy named Julian Walker—whose father calls him Cock Walker (as in “cock of the walk”). Julian’s father makes the family go to polo events. He introduces himself to wealthy polo-goers as a painter—they assume he’s a visual artist, but indeed he’s a housepainter.  Julian’s mom get a little too drunk, his father disappears, and Julian has to drive the family car some 40 miles home.

 

I like to write dad-and-lad stories, with an adult narrator looking back at a time when his parents acted curiously, or questionable in terms of ethics.

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

A slew of these stories were written at the beginning of the pandemic. I was on a real tear there for a short while.  I didn’t really have any low points.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

From Shannon Ravenel: “A great story’s ending kisses the beginning.”

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

I didn’t know how difficult it would be to come up with viable, mostly-believable nonprofits.

 

Who is your ideal reader?

 

I think my ideal reader is a college-educated, slightly liberal, person with a sense of humor. It might be important to own that “willing suspension of disbelief.”

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

 

No real recipes, but one story is narrated by a chef/restauranteur who runs a place called Periodic Farm-to-Table and Chairs. He’s big into gumbo and étouffée, plus makes kimchi out behind the restaurant.

 

*****

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS PUBLISHER: https://www.dzancbooks.org/

  

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK:

https://bookshop.org/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIofDKp9bA_wIVwZ9MCh0EwwvAEAAYASAAEgIEHPD_BwE

 

READ A STORY FROM THIS BOOK, “What a Dime Costs”:  

https://www.storymagazine.org/what-a-dime-costs/

 

 

 

TBR: Liveability by Claire Orchard

TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe. 

 

We don’t expect an elevator pitch from a poet, but can you tell us about your work in 2-3 sentences?

 

An ode to the eccentricities and occasional sorrows of the everyday, Liveability is also a joyous and witty celebration of the otherworldly.

 

Which poem/s did you most enjoy writing? Why? And, which poem/s gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

Given its subject matter, “When I bring up advance care planning” was surprisingly entertaining to write. I enjoyed capturing the voice of the older woman, having to deal with being badgered about what she wants or doesn’t want for her end-of-life experience. The increasing exasperation of the adult child was fun to write too. The poem was inspired by multiple conversations I’ve had with my mother. Who, I might add, despite my best efforts, has an advance care plan that remains too sketchy by far!

 

A number of the poems had their challenging moments, but the one I worried about most when publication rolled around was “Unravelling things.” It’s a bit of a rambler of a poem, with long lines I wasn’t sure were going to fit across the page. In the end, we managed to shoehorn it in!

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

With my first book, I spent a lot of time obsessing over organizing the poems so they worked together as a coherent whole.  Liveability, in contrast, came together much more organically. I think with the passage of time I’ve become more confident to just keep on with the writing and not concern myself so much with how poems will sit alongside each other. I can honestly say I haven’t had any lows with this collection, which has been refreshing!

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

I like Grace Paley’s characterisation of the writer as “nothing but a questioner”. It serves as a useful reminder that it’s not my job to neatly tie up every loose end.

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

The way a pile of poems written, in some cases, several years apart came together to function as a collection without extensive scheming on my part. I’m a planner from way back, and was startled when this book quietly managed to arrange itself.

 

How did you find the title of your book?

 

My original title was The Great Outdoors, a smug in-joke about my loathing of the enforced hiking and camping trips I endured as a child. No doubt it would have led potential readers to expect a book about the joys of hiking and/or mountaineering. They would have been sadly disappointed. Ashleigh Young, an extraordinary writer I was lucky enough to have on my editorial team, gently suggested Liveability, which is a far better choice.

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

 

I mention gingernuts in the first poem in the book, which I think may be similar to ginger snaps in the US? They are a small, super hard biscuit you need to dunk in a cup of hot tea to soften, or risk breaking teeth! I grew up not far from the local Griffins biscuit factory and the advertising tagline went “There’s no gingernuts taste quite the same, ask for Griffin’s Gingernuts by name!” I tried this recipe, and it comes pretty close:

 https://thisnzlife.co.nz/recipe-topp-secret-gingernut-recipe/

 

*****

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS WRITER: www.claireorchardpoet.com

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK:

https://teherengawakapress.co.nz/liveability/

 

 READ A POEM FROM THIS BOOK, “Shooting Rats”:

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/readingroom/school-holidays-with-gun

 

 

TBR: Off to Join the Circus by Deborah Kalb

TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe.  

 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

OFF TO JOIN THE CIRCUS is about an overly enmeshed, neurotic Jewish family in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, and what happens when a legendary relative returns after 64 years. Adele Pinsky ran away at 16 from her home in West Orange, New Jersey, perhaps to join a circus, and she reappears when her younger brother, Howard, is turning 75. The book features Howard’s family—wife Marilyn, daughters Sarah, Diana, and Lucy, and grandsons Max and Will—as they prepare for a bar mitzvah and the birth of a baby, and deal with Adele’s (re)entry into their midst.

 

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And, which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

I’d like to say that I most enjoyed creating Adele. She’s a woman of mystery, and for that reason I never tell any of the story from her perspective. The seven other family members, who are all point-of-view characters, are absorbing her arrival and what it means for them—they’ve created an entire mythology given her lengthy absence--and finding that she’s shifted their perspectives about family and what really matters.

 

Howard and Marilyn’s oldest daughter, Sarah, perhaps gave me the most trouble because her worried state of mind reminded me too much of myself. It was harder to make the chapters from her point of view as funny as the others.

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

The highs: finding a publisher, Apprentice House, based at Loyola University in Maryland. I was absolutely delighted when they agreed to publish it, and have enjoyed working with them. The lows probably center around sending the novel to dozens of agents who all rejected it.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

Keep on trying! I know it can be discouraging to get rejections from agents or publishers, but I believe persistence will pay off in the end. Something I’m still telling myself about a mystery novel I’ve been working on for literally decades now! 

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

Great question! My character Lucy, the youngest of the three daughters, is recovering from a divorce. I thought Lucy and ex-husband Jeff’s marriage ended for one reason, and then Lucy and I discovered together that actually it was another reason entirely! I won’t give anything away here, but it was one of those moments when you shake your head and wonder why that hadn’t occurred to either of you before!

 

How did you find the title of your book?

 

I’m not usually great at coming up with titles (and when I was a journalist, I wasn’t great at coming up with headlines). But this title made sense to me immediately. When Adele first leaves, 11-year-old Howie asks his dad where she went, and the dad waves his hands in the air and says, “Off to join the circus, Howie.” Being 11, Howie takes it literally, and even when he’s older, he wonders if perhaps the missing Adele could have joined the circus. The circus, and the idea of being someone who even possibly could join a circus, becomes part of Pinsky family folklore.

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book?

 

One of my characters, Diana’s husband, Philippe, is a chef. He’s from Belgium, and runs a restaurant called Diana’s that serves various Belgian specialties. Knowing very little about chefs, Belgian food, and how to run a restaurant, I consulted a chef friend. All errors in this regard are my own. Philippe turned out to be one of my favorite characters. Marilyn, who is a retired English professor rather than a chef, also seems to spend a great deal of time cooking for huge groups of relatives who descend on her. She makes an impromptu vegan stir-fry that she finds quite delicious.

 

*****

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: http://www.deborahkalb.com/

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR TBR STACK:

https://www.amazon.com/Off-Join-Circus-Deborah-Kalb/dp/1627204490/ref=sr_1_2?crid=20W5AOS8I2VHT&keywords=deborah+kalb&qid=1683736289&sprefix=deborah+kalb%2Caps%2C85&sr=8-2

 

 

 

TBR: Half-Life of a Stolen Sister by Rachel Cantor

TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe. 

  

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

Half-Life of a Stolen Sister is an imaginative retelling of the life of the Brontë siblings in a time and place much like our own. Half-Life is about siblings—their bonds and how they collectively and individually understand their lives; it is also about the creative impulse and how we manage terrible loss.

 

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And, which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

I didn’t have to create my characters, really, because they’re based on real people. My task (self-imposed) was instead to imagine and understand them. It was probably easier to imagine Charlotte than it was Emily because Charlotte left so many personal writings and met so many more people (who then remembered her) while Emily left almost no writings and had no interest in meeting anyone ever!

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

The book took ten years for me to write—lots of time for highs and lows! At one point, my former agent told me she would only go out with the book if I cut it by more than one-third; she offered no roadmap, however, for how I might do so! That was definitely a low! Highs included writing every piece in the book, and also finding an editor who truly appreciated what I was trying to do.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

Alice McDermott and Jim Crace both offered similar advice at different points which I now, with Half-Life, possibly follow to an extreme! Alice read a story about young people traversing Asia in a Magic Bus in 1960 and told me to keep those kids, and their drama, on the bus! Jim read an early version of the opening of my first novel, Good on Paper, and said that the love interest’s bookstore should not be many blocks away, but visible from the narrator’s window. Spatial unity! I like it! My Brontës are homebodies: in my imagining, virtually all their drama takes place in their much too small, rent-controlled apartment!

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

I had intended to write four realistic long stories, each from the point of view of a different Brontë sibling; collectively, these long stories would comprise a novel, telling us something more or less comprehensive about their lives. Imagine my surprise when before I’d written even five pages, the Brontë children were jumping on and off subways, and running from their doorman. This was not going to be a realistic version of their lives!

 

How did you find the title of your book?

 

The title of the book came out of that first piece, which by some crazy miracle already contained so much that would be important in the book. The stolen sisters refer, at first, to the two oldest Brontë girls, Maria and Elizabeth, who die at age 11 and 10, respectively (when Charlotte, the oldest of the remaining children, is barely nine); later it could be said that Emily and Anne, who die at age 30 and 29, respectively, are also “stolen.” In my imagining, these deaths haunt Charlotte. What is the half-life of this kind of haunting? Does it diminish over time? What are its effects? These are (some of) the questions this book explores.

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

 

Emily, it seems, is constantly making stew. By all accounts her stew is excellent, though it is in no way exceptional. Definitely it wasn’t made with wine because Emily wouldn’t want alcohol of any kind in the house to tempt her brother; also, she can’t be using a crockpot or pressure cooker, because she seems to always be stirring … I haven’t tried this recipe, so can’t vouch for it, but this is very much like the stew Emily might have made: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/25678/beef-stew-vi/. Hearty, ordinary cut of beef, plenty of veg to make the beef go further!

 

*****

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: www.rachelcantor.com

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR TBR STACK:

https://www.greenlightbookstore.com/book/9781641294645

 

READ “Dead Dresses,” AN EXCERPT FROM THIS BOOK:

https://kenyonreview.org/wp-content/uploads/KenyonArchive/2015/37/1/i24240425/24242260/24242260.pdf