The Song Reader (27 page)
Up Close and Personal
with Lisa Tucker
with the Author
1. SONG READING IS SUCH AN UNUSUAL IDEA. CAN YOU TELL US HOW YOU CAME UP WITH IT?
Like most writers, I’ve always been fascinated with words, but growing up, we didn’t have many books. We didn’t even have magazines, but we always had a record player. My earliest relationship with words was through songs, and I’ve found that’s true for a surprising number of people. The specific idea of song reading came to me about ten years ago, when I became very interested in psychology, especially how memory works. When it hit me that the songs people remember may say something about them, I decided to test the theory on my family and friends, just like Mary Beth does in the novel.
2. YOU’VE DONE SONG READING YOURSELF THEN?
Yes, but I’ve never made any money for it, or even received afghans and cakes like she does! Some of the charts in the book were developed from my experiences; most are invented. Of course now that I’ve written this novel, I’m always being asked questions about songs and I love that. When people tell me about their music—favorite songs, favorite bands, the songs they can’t forget—I feel very honored. I know they are entrusting me with a little piece of their heart.
3. WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO WRITE ABOUT TWO SISTERS? DO YOU HAVE A SISTER? IS THE NOVEL IN ANY SENSE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL?
I decided to write about two sisters because that’s what the narrator, Leeann, was interested in talking about. It sounds odd, but the voice really does control a lot more of the story than I understood before I became a writer. Once I heard Leeann speaking to me, I had to follow her around, see what she would show me next. That said, I’ve always been interested in sisters, because I think it’s such a complicated bond. The novel isn’t autobiographical except to the extent that I adore my own sister and am grateful to her for believing in me and helping me understand the meaning of family.
4.
THE SONG READER
IS VERY LYRICAL, BUT IT HAS ALSO BEEN CALLED A PAGE-TURNER. WAS HAVING A STRONG STORY LINE IMPORTANT TO YOU AS A WRITER?
Yes, definitely, because the novels I love most work on many levels: they have beautiful language and memorable characters, but they also have a great plot. In graduate school I studied nineteenth-century American writers like Hawthorne and Melville—and those writers told stories!
Moby Dick
isn’t just a treatise on language; it’s an adventure story about a whale hunt.
The Scarlet Letter
isn’t only about American history; it’s also a beautiful tale of forbidden love. Some writers claim the traditional story form is dead, but I couldn’t disagree more. I think we will always need new stories; they give shape and meaning to our lives.
5. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF “HOME” SEEMS TO BE A CENTRAL THEME IN
THE SONG READER
, AND YET MANY OF THE CHARACTERS’ CRUCIAL REVELATIONS TAKE PLACE AWAY FROM HOME, IN KANSAS CITY OR ST. LOUIS, IN THE HOSPITAL OR THE CEMETERY OR EVEN IN THE CAR. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT WHY THIS MIGHT BE AND WHAT IT MEANS IN UNDERSTANDING THE NOVEL?
It seems to be one of the themes of American culture—that you have to leave home to find it.
The Wizard of Oz
is probably the best example. I think most people do find it easier to think about their lives in a new way when they’re away from their familiar settings: on vacation, for example, or going off to college. Especially if the family is very fragile, as it is for Leeann and Mary Beth, the very act of asking certain kinds of questions might seem to put the home at risk. What I hope is that the end of the novel finds them with a chance at making a home that is more stable because they have faced up to their past. I certainly wanted to give them more family, and I think Juanita and Henry and Ben and Tommy can be that.
6. SPEAKING OF CARS, I NOTICED MANY SCENES IN
THE SONG READER
TAKE PLACE IN CARS. IS THIS BECAUSE CARS HAVE RADIOS, AND SONGS?
Of course the songs are part of it, but the other part is that a car allows people to say things to each other without having to be face to face. It’s part of the meaning of the book, this difficulty so many people have talking about their deepest selves. If the songs give the characters a language for what they can’t say otherwise, then the car gives them the ideal place. Plus, I love my car. Someday I’d like to write an entire novel set in a car…
7. I’M FASCINATED BY THE CHARACTER HENRY. THE FIRST SCENE IN HIS APARTMENT IN KANSAS CITY HAS BEEN CALLED ONE OF THE MOST MEMORABLE IN THE BOOK. WAS IT HARD TO WRITE ABOUT SOMEONE WITH THE PROBLEMS HE HAS? DID YOU DO ANY RESEARCH ON MENTAL ILLNESS?
In some ways it was difficult to write Henry because I was determined to make him a fully rounded character rather than a stereotype of the mentally ill. I did do a lot of research on mental disorders, but in the end, I wanted Henry’s condition to be a mystery to the reader so the reader would be in the same position as the people in the novel. We don’t
know
what is wrong with Henry. Even if we had a label to attach we still wouldn’t really
know
why he is the way he is. Today we would probably look for a biochemical explanation, but I’m still fond of Juanita’s favorite reason for Henry’s troubles: that he hasn’t been loved enough to get him over all the hard parts.
8. THE MOTHER IS ARGUABLY THE MOST DIFFICULT CHARACTER IN THE BOOK. HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT HER? WAS IT HARD TO WRITE HER?
I suppose it must have been hard because I avoided writing about her until late in the revision process, when I realized Leeann had said almost nothing about her mother. It’s funny, I really don’t like novels that blame mothers for everything, and I certainly hope
The Song Reader
isn’t interpreted that way. I feel very sorry for Helen. The harm she does to her daughters—and I think she harmed Mary Beth much more than Leeann, because Mary Beth didn’t have an older sister to serve as a buffer—is due to her own terrible unhappiness with what her life has become. Some of this is her fault I guess, but fault doesn’t interest me. I’m interested in compassion, and I think this is the saddest part of Helen Norris: she has no compassion for herself, and so she can’t really sympathize with her daughters.
9. ONE OF YOUR REVIEWERS HAS SAID THAT EVERY PAGE OF
THE SONG READER
INSPIRES COURAGE. WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS MEANS?
Oh, I think it’s such a lovely idea that my book could inspire courage in my readers. Courage is so important to me personally, and I remember when I was writing the novel, thinking about the things Leeann and Mary Beth had to deal with, and wondering if I could do as well as they did in the face of tremendous loss. I’m sure it sounds odd, but I really admire my characters for their willingness to work so hard at their lives and especially at their relationships. I suppose it’s obvious by now that I have the utmost respect for the people in
The Song Reader
. I don’t feel like I made them up as much as they came to me out of nowhere. For me, the writing process feels like the gift of seeing into another world.
10. CAN YOU TELL US WHAT YOUR NEXT NOVEL IS ABOUT?
It’s about music again—one of my passions—but this time from the viewpoint of the performer rather than the listener. I’ve done some singing myself and my husband is a jazz pianist. We spent almost a year on the road playing little clubs, and the new book reflects some of those experiences. Patty Taylor, my main character, is a troubled person and a talented singer with a two-year-old boy she adores. Her child will be the motive for her success in the same way that Tommy is the motive for Mary Beth coming back to herself at the end of
The Song Reader
. Obviously, I’m not quite through with the themes of music and motherhood…
S
o many people helped me along the way. Thanks are due to my brilliant agent, Marly Rusoff, who redeemed my faith in publishing, and to my wonderful editor, Amy Pierpont, and her assistant, Deirdre Dore. To all my teachers and buddies at Sewanee, Squaw Valley, and the Santa Fe Writers Conference. To the friends and fellow writers who read part or all of the manuscript: Pat Redmond, Jon Hoffman, Cheryl Nicchitta, Sara Gordon, Elly Williams, Marty Levine, Kevin Howell, Gretchen Laskas, Anne Ursu, Melisse Shapiro, and Michaela Spampinato. To family who cheered me on: Ann Cahall, Howard Tucker and the rest of the Tucker clan; Laurie’s crew: Jim, Jeff and Jamie Crottinger, and my dearest girl in the world, Emily Ward. To my husband Scott, best critic and most loyal defender. To Miles, my sweet, smart, sensitive little boy, who gave me back everything. And finally for my mother-in-law, Minnie Tucker, who knew this would be published and did not live to see it. I still hear you giggling like a girl. You will always be missed.
Lyrical, wise, and witty, The Winters in Bloom is an enchanting, life-affirming story that will surprise readers and leave them full of wonder at the stubborn strength of the human heart.
Kyra and David Winter are happier than they ever expected to be. They have a comfortable home, stable careers, and a young son, Michael, whom they adore. Though everyone who knows the Winters considers them extremely overprotective parents, both Kyra and David believe they have good reasons for fearing that something will happen to their little boy. And then, on a perfectly average summer day, it does, when Michael disappears from his own backyard. The only question is whose past has finally caught up with them: David feels sure that Michael was taken by his troubled ex-wife, while Kyra believes the kidnapper must be someone from her estranged family, someone she betrayed years ago.
Read on for a first look at Lisa Tucker’s dazzling new novel
The Winters in Bloom
Coming in September 2011 from Atria Books
H
e was the only child in a house full of doubt. In bed each night, though it wasn’t dark—the floor lights his father had installed—and it wasn’t entirely private—the nursery monitor both parents refused to give up—he rehearsed the things he was certain of, using his fingers to number them. He was just a little boy, but he wouldn’t allow himself to sleep until he’d gone through both hands twice. Twenty was a good number, he thought, though of course it paled in comparison with the number of doubts, partly because his parents had had so many years to discover them, but mainly because the doubt list was always growing, towering above him like the giant boy at his old school, the one his father had called a bully. The giant boy, whose name was Paul, had never done anything to Michael, but his parents
doubted
that Michael could learn in such an environment and took him out of that school. The three schools that followed had led to three other doubts, and now Michael was finishing first grade in home school, even though homeschooling had its doubts, too.
I doubt he’ll get the socialization he needs
, his mother said.
I doubt we can teach him laboratory science
, his father said,
but we’ll have to deal with that when the time comes.
And then the words his parents didn’t have to say—
if the time comes
—because the future was always the biggest doubt of all.
“I will get bigger.” Michael whispered it every night, holding up his thumb. Then he said, touching his index finger, “I will not die before I get to drive a car.” He would force himself not to think of all the ways he could die, the hundreds of things his parents had told him all his life. He would also force himself not to daydream about what his first car would be like, because then he would fall asleep before he finished his counting and dream about rows and rows of shiny cars, all with headlights that looked like eyes and grills that looked like mouths.
In the morning, he was often very tired. When he slumped down for breakfast, his mother would put her hand on his forehead and ask if he was feeling okay. He hardly ever got sick, except when he was two years old and then he was so sick he had to spend weeks in the hospital, though all he remembered about that now was the pattern of elephants and monkeys on the nurses’ clothes. His mother always made him touch his chin to his chest, even if he told her his neck didn’t hurt. Sometimes she would take his temperature and inspect his throat and ears with a flashlight and push on his belly to make sure his appendix wasn’t about to burst. Only after she was satisfied that he wasn’t coming down with something would she ask, “Did you have any nightmares?”
He used to tell her, but he’d stopped when he realized that she and his father discussed his dreams the same way they discussed all the books they were reading about Raising Your Gifted Child. So he didn’t tell her about the dream he kept having where the ocean came up to his bedroom window and he jumped in a boat and floated off. He only thought of it as a nightmare because he knew it should have been scary—if he was alone in the boat, this meant his parents must have drowned. In real life, he would have cried and cried for his parents: their love for him was one of the things he was most certain of; it was always somewhere in the first five things he counted every night. But in the dream, it never occurred to him to wonder where they were. He was sitting on a flat wooden seat in the middle of the boat, listening to the sound of the water lapping against the sides, blinking at the sun hanging so low in the sky it looked like he could row right to it. He felt like the biggest, scariest parts of the world were all gone, washed away by something that was winking at him in the soft fat cloud that floated overhead.