Away From Everywhere Page 28

  THE STORY STARTED TO WRITE ITSELF, REALLY...

  The first chapter of Away from Everywhere has never changed. I knew it was the right first chapter for a novel because I was four chapters into another novel, titled Your Crooked Smile , but found myself more and more fixated on this opening chapter, and eventually abandoned Your Crooked Smile to write this novel. Incidentally, somewhere between thinking about this first chapter and sitting to write it, I had a near-death hydroplaning experience myself. I remember thinking,Great, now I can accurately describe the feeling of losing control of a car!

  I thought the exposed affair was a great way to get an already shaky character shunned and shipped out of his family’s life to a small town in Newfoundland. Originally, Owen was to be an alienated and depressed English professor on sabbatical, going to spend the summer at his father’s old cabin, to sort of come to terms with Hannah’s death and a few other troubles in his life. That was supposed to be chapter two, but in the final draft,Owen doesn’t head back to Newfoundland until the novel is nearly over, because I had to ask myself,Why is there a family cabin he can go use, and do I want to explore the brothers’childhoods, just a little? I did, and that just a little turned into “part two” of this novel, the longest part. I’d turn on some music and just string sentences together, and the next thing I knew I was writing about a mentally ill father and a dead mother, and alcoholism, and the brothers coming out of it all as two very different men. For a while, I found myself purposefully trying to have the brothers represent two different and costly approaches to modern life. I played that notion up originally, but then toned it way down. I think an element of that has remained in the novel.

  WHERE THE SCHIZOPHRENIA CAME IN...

  I needed a reason why there was an abandoned family cabin for Owen to run off to in part three of the novel. I thought dead parents would explain the abandoned cabin, but then I thought that wasn’t original enough, so I had the family succumb to dealing with schizophrenia. I can’t imagine the exhaustion and pain of losing someone this way, because, as with the Collins family, there’s no real closure: a schizophrenic can get better and worse and better again. But then life’s never the same. I think some of the most potent scenes in the book are the ones with Owen watching his family fall apart, and the toll it took on his mother. Owen and his father had a real bond too, so Owen lost a really valuable connection with his father: a man who saw and lived life the same way. Initially, this notion was the origin of the title, as in the two of them talking of getting away from that world they perceived as having no meaning, only to ironically disappear to wherever it is a schizophrenic goes. The title later took on a multitude of meanings.

  I researched the disease, of course, but relied more heavily on ten specific case studies I read online, because I feel like individuals are better to study than sweeping, textbook generalizations about a mental disorder. I didn’t want it sounding like I was cutting and pasting symptoms into a character, and I tried to avoid “teaching” readers about schizophrenia and bogging them down with terms they’d need a glossary for, because my intention was to show the effect of schizophrenia on the Collins family, not to prove I did my homework.

  THE ORIGINS OF HANNAH'S "JOURNAL CHAPTERS"...

  Once the childhood was explored and I got to writing part three, the “return to Newfoundland”bit became a smaller portion of the book and I ditched the cast of eccentric characters I had planned, because the tone of the novel had gotten too grim for them. I also ditched the lonely art teacher who was to be Owen’s salvation and the one writing the journal entries.

  I decided the “journal chapters” would be a good way to tell the story of the affair through Hannah’s eyes, so she could be kept alive in the book, and so she could also provide insight into who Owen and Alex are, and to bring up what I see as one of the solid motifs in this novel: the flipside of love. The complexities of it. The blows and lows a relationship can take and the conundrum of denying yourself what could be a truer love. I started making Hannah a more and more complicated character to add more layers to this conceptual element of the book. In doing so, Hannah also became what I consider the saddest character in the novel, and from what I gather, her journal entries get the biggest reaction from readers: they love her or hate her, or both. They identify with parts of what she says, or they think she is naïve; they get uncomfortable with some of the truth in what she has to say, or think her opinions are unfounded. I guess a reader’s reaction depends on that reader’s life experiences and who they are? That’s an ideal character, in my mind.

  I think most people shy away from acknowledging the wavering nature of love and buy into the Hollywood portrayal of the happily ever after. I always joke that if the movie kept going, half those couples would end up divorced. Sounds bitter, yes, but I’m a romantic as well, and that’s no better, we expect too much from a relationship. Relationships are naturally volatile things with highs and lows, and the people sharing them change over time, and sometimes outgrow each other. I mean, ultimately, relationships give life meaning, but inevitably, they get tested by time. So I wanted to write a book that cast a light on that. It didn’t come out as I planned though, through Owen and Abbie. Instead it came out through the mind of a complicated married woman. I found myself, as a writer, having fun with this notion, and her character, and next thing I knew she was the voice of ten chapters and, later, almost dictating where the story was going, not only thematically, but plotwise as well, when Owen starts reacting to what he reads.

  I’m sure as a male writer I’ll take flak for embodying an unhappily married woman too. But I didn’t. I embodied Hannah Collins, a very complicated woman. I had her character endure much, and I hope it didn’t seem like me exploiting serious tragedies for gripping writing. The miscarriage, for instance, was only there because she and Alex never really dealt with it, and sadly, psychologically, a miscarriage can affect intimacy and interpersonal relations for a couple who go through one. I didn’t want to scream stuff like that at readers though. I wanted it to be true to life. Hannah, in the end, wasn’t sure what her and Alex’s biggest problems were. Most couples on the rocks don’t. She struggled to understand the “why” of the affair herself. In the end she chose Alex, or did she just settle? I don’t know.

  THE TWO ABANDONED ALTERNATE ENDINGS ...

  Originally, I toyed with the idea of having Alex become schizophrenic. I thought, How gripping would it be to have the girls calling Owen about their father muttering to himself and “acting scary,” and Owen knowing but unable to help because he can’t go near them, and everyone else telling him to back off, “Alex is just grieving,” until one of the girls get hurt by his schizophrenia-induced negligence or delusions. Can you imagine the salt in the wound of Owen taking custody of the girls? A trustworthy source felt that would have schizophrenia overwhelming the story, and I decided some warped version of this could be material for another book. I tackled a lot in this novel, and needed to save something for future ones!

  I moved on to this idea: Emily was initially “real,” and she killed herself, as in the final draft, but Owen accidentally drank that glass of water while waiting for the paramedics. Accidentally , and then everyone assumed it was a double suicide. I had Owen have a redemptive epiphany about life while holding her dead body, which insinuated he’d be okay now. But that ending felt like it simplified all the complexities of the novel. It was too preachy, my own thoughts on the world came through too obviously, and I would rather make a reader think than listen. That ending interfered with letting the reader judge Owen,Alex, and Hannah, and all of their actions, for themselves.

  SETTLING ON THE ENDING ...

  I never planned on having Owen share the same fate as his father, but in the end it seemed appropriate on many levels. I went back through the story and laced it with clues – obvious ones, like the hints Emily was a delusion, and subtle ones, like his being so socially reclusive. The whole depersonalization disorder bit was a misdiagnosis; I wond
er how many readers will realize that? I also foreshadowed the suicide attempt ten different ways too, like his train of thought on the ferry back home, so it wouldn’t come out of nowhere.

  This schizophrenic, delusion-assisted suicide ending I settled on seemed fitting. So fitting it sort of wrote itself out, and I like when a final chapter has a reader flipping the pages, but it feels genre-defiant. I am worried having a “spoiler ending” of “he goes mad”might overwhelm the rest of the story and make this a novel about a man who went insane. That is not what the novel is about. I’d let a reader muse on whether or not his losing himself was symbolic and fitting. On many levels. It was certainly not just a gimmicky ending, and now I am worried a reader might hear how the story ends and think there is no point reading the book, knowing the ending. This is a multilayered novel with a handful of “themes,”but I will leave “what it’s about”up to the reader, because it will hopefully strike a different chord in everyone who reads it. That’s what a good book does: raises questions instead of preaching an author’s opinions. It took me years of writing to embrace that.

  I do know what my “intentions”were with this novel, but that shouldn’t affect what questions Away from Everywhere raises about life for any given reader. I like that, so far, everyone seems to react to a different element of this book. I like that there are different elements to like, or dislike, for that matter. It’s like this book reads differently for everyone who reads it. I let myself stop worrying that some audiences might like one chapter and hate the next. It’s that kind of book. It’s like life that way.

  BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS

  1. What was this novel really about?What questions did it raise for you as you read it?

  2. Now that you are finished the novel, what do you think about when you reflect on Away from Everywhere ?

  3. Why might the author haven chosen to end the novel this way? Did the ending overwhelm the rest of the story? Is it what lingers for you?

  4. What does the title mean to you?

  5. The author contends that this novel, in part, explores “the flipside of love and the complexities of relationships.”Did this really strike your as a major element of this book?

  6. Consider Hannah’s line, “Love makes us weak so we will succumb to it, give into it.”Is this “weakening effect”of Owen on Hannah a test of the strength of her relationship, her own will, or was it nature’s way of telling her that Alex was no longer the right man for who she’d become in her thirties?

  7. Are there any indications that Hannah’s affections for Owen are moreso a result of her and Alex’s troubles than her feelings for Owen? Is it a mix of the two? Is she even sure herself? Is this true to life?

  8. Consider Clyde’s sentiment,“We are an ever-changing product of yesterdays, not rigid, static people.”Is there any truth to this? In what ways is this a novel about the plasticity or instability of identity?

  9. Was Owen justified in claiming Hannah’s journal to “spare” Alex from having to read about the affair? Ultimately, which brother would have benefitted the most from reading it? Been crushed the most by it?

  10. Is Alex villainized in the first half of this novel? Are Owen’s and Hannah’s opinions on him a fair assessment of his character?Where in the novel is his character most redeemed? Most flawed?

  11. On page 149,Hannah says “I feel trapped in the world before now. Fenced in by it. Caged in.”How much of life are we not in control of?To what degree are we to be held accountable for our actions?

  12. What is similar about how each section starts on pages 19, 22, 59, and 258. What might be the intention here?

  13. Which parts of the book were the most compelling? What was the biggest lull in the book that lost your attention?

  14. What part of the novel turned you off from a character the most?What action redeemed a character the most?

  15. Who did you find your opinion of shifting the most?Which of the characters did you like the most, dislike the most, and what would you like to ask one of them?