Why did you decide to set the book in Montauk?
I grew up spending summers on the East End and surfing out in Montauk. It’s such a beautiful place and has this interesting quality of being at once rugged and soft. There are these stark, ragged cliffs that hang out over gentle beaches and this odd combination of craggy fishermen and old-school surfers mixed with young hipsters and wealthy city people. I felt like it was a town that perfectly mirrored the past-present aspect of the story because of the transformations it’s gone through over the years. Each summer I go back, the restaurants get a little fancier, the beaches more crowded, but just as one of the characters says in the book, “the bones of the place are the same.” And that’s exactly what old friends are like—they grow and change in ways that are both good and bad—but the essence of who they are remains steadfast and that’s what keeps the bond intact.
Why did you choose characters who were all self-described orphans in one way or another?
We tend to say as a society that “family is everything” but not everyone has a loving family or one with whom they connect, so I wanted to write a story about the family we choose. These girls had far from perfect lives growing up, but what mattered was that their lives were perfect when they were together, especially when they had these idyllic times every July at the Montauk house. I loved the idea of these lonely, lost girls finding one another and having this cocoon of friendship where they raise one another and stand in for the families they each don’t have. And of course, this gets more complicated as they get older because things happen, difficult experiences alter them and they start to bump up against each other. But still they recognize that they need one another, that they have agreed to be passengers on one another’s life ride, through good and bad. So I wanted to write about how they traverse that and just in general about the saving grace of friendship. At the end of the day, this is my love letter to the friends in my life who have been my own chosen family.
The characters go through a traumatic experience together that changes them all in profound but different ways. Why did you decide to make that part of their history?
One thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is how by a certain age we’ve all been traumatized in one way or another, and the methods, largely unconscious, we each use to cope can interfere with our attachments and cause a lot of unintended pain. I made the characters experience the same traumatic event to illustrate how even when the pain is shared, we don’t always see or recognize the wound that’s driving someone else’s behavior; how, for instance, someone turning away from us may be doing so because they feel shame and not because they don’t love us. We’re all interpreting other people through our own very limited and distorted lenses and it causes a lot of misunderstanding and strife. So part of this book, for me, was about exploring how that happens, how we can fail to see even those closest to us and then learning to find grace for our flawed humanity, our flawed methods of coping. At the end of the day, we’re all just doing our best to get through an unpredictable world, and nobody gets it right even when there’s love. I feel like that’s an important thing to hold, especially in today’s culture where people’s humanity can be flattened to a single moment, and one mistake, even sometimes a small one, can define a life.
What was your favorite part of writing this book?
The girls having fun. I love the parts where the bond is really visible, whether in the past or present, and they’re riffing on one another or simply happy to be together—all of that was a blast to write. It gave me the same warm, happy feeling that being with my real-life friends gives me.
And, too, I loved working with my editor. It’s magical when someone sees exactly where your blind spots have been in the book, the parts you missed or didn’t develop well enough, and as you’re fixing it, you can feel the book coming to life in a new way. That was really exciting for me. Editing is always my favorite part but it’s especially fun when that happens.
What did you find most challenging about writing this book?
It took me a long time to really understand Renee—in part because I wasn’t writing her inner thoughts as with the others and also because I think she’s the least like me. Draft after draft she kept eluding me until I finally realized she was eluding me by design—that she was unknowable to me because she was largely unknown to herself. She’s been running from everything for so long, seeking herself in external things—her appearance, an engagement ring, the trappings of what society tells us is a desirable life—that her true self has atrophied to a certain extent by being denied air. Once I realized that—how Renee’s entire personality is shaped around self-protection and trying to escape the one thing she can’t, which is herself and her fear of being unlovable—I finally understood her and liked her and saw that glimmer of a person who wants connection and repair and realness and who could move toward it if she could find a way back into the group.
What kind of research went into writing this story?
One of my primary interests is the subject of trauma—how it affects our brains, behavior and attachments, so I’m always studying that and incorporating what I learn into my work. And of course, I researched Henry’s condition but sadly was also able to draw on lived experience. Someone I knew was in a minimally conscious state for many years, and I watched someone I love, who was very close to that person, struggle with that very difficult reality.
Is there a character in the story that you identify with most? Or a favorite character among the four main women?
Oh, I think that would just depend on the day. Sometimes I can be anxious like Hannah—I’m definitely a bit of a germophobe and I really don’t like uncertainty. My sense of humor and love of fun is pretty in line with Maya’s. I have been known to cover hurt and vulnerability by shutting down at times like Blue, or even running away like Renee. So I see myself in all of them. As far as favorites, I think Maya edges the others out just a bit. I love her for being so unapologetically herself and I think she is always primarily motivated by love—not just the desire to be loved but to love other people, to share life with loved ones. She just wants everyone to be happy.
Can you describe your writing process?
So, as I said, I always start with a question I’m grappling with in my own life. Once I have the question, I simply start writing. At that point I have no idea what will pop up. If I just sit down and put my hands on the keyboard, a character with a problem inevitably appears. I let my subconscious rule until it runs out of steam—my hope is always that it will produce a fully formed book but, alas, the burst of creativity peters out by around chapter two. Then I have to stop and think about what I have and where it might lead and try to develop a loose outline of a story. The rest is just winging it until I have a draft. Then, because that first draft is terrible, I rewrite, replot over and over until finally it clicks and I hit a flow where I know what the story is, who the characters are and what I’m trying to say. I dream of the day I nail it on the first try—but until that miraculous day appears, I am very grateful to have early readers and an editor to help me out. In writing as in life, we make mistakes, take wrong turns, and if we’re lucky, we have people who gently, honestly set us back on track. I think it’s what I love the most about it. It’s a great reminder that you can always rewrite your story—if something’s not working, you can make another choice. As the characters learn that in their lives, so, too, does the writer in her own.
ISBN: 9781488055485
East Coast Girls
Copyright © 2020 by Kerry Kletter
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, liv
ing or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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