Hello everyone!! This is a really special post! If you want to know more about this amazing author, check out this Q&A :)
The River at
Night
By Erica Ferencik
Q&A
1) What intrigued you about writing about female friendship?
Everything intrigues me about female
friendship. Its very intensity can turn things inside out very quickly.
I especially
love stories of female friendship gone wrong, such as in the 1992 film, Single White Female.
The stakes in
female friendship are just as high or higher than in romantic ones. We trust
our women friends with so much intimate knowledge – why is that? Our hairdressers know for sure….isn’t
that the truth. Why do I still share things with my women friends that I don’t
with my husband of twenty-two years?
The stakes are
even higher for long term friendships. It’s such a delicate balance to keep
these relationships alive, as well as intensely difficult to determine when or
whether it may be time to end them, or to come to grips with the fact that –
since everything changes – these cherished friendships must change as well.
2) The ending of this book leaves readers feeling unsettled. How did you come up with the ending? Did it change as you went through the writing process?
I’m glad to hear
it makes readers feel unsettled!
I had maybe three
different endings over time. I didn’t want to sew it up too neatly, but there
had to be some ominous things lurking, as well as some light at the end of the
tunnel. Even though it’s a pretty wild tale, it’s plausible as well, which is
one reason I think it’s so scary.
In terms of how I
came up with the ending – without giving it away – I wanted to play with
aspects of bringing the “wild” world back into so-called civilization.
One hard part
about writing novels – and there are lots of hard parts! – is knowing when you’re
done. Where does a story really end? Why there and not someplace else? What is
enough for the reader, leaving them satisfied but perhaps wondering a bit,
keeping them in the spell of your story – but not in a frustrating way – and
what is just too much sewing up or sweeping up for them? It can be a fine line,
a really delicate balance.
3
3) What part was the most fun for you to write?
Let me say it
this way: writing is like childbirth: in the end you fall so in l
love with your baby you forget all the pain that came
before…
But honestly, I
had a blast with the whole thing, from first word to last.
I especially loved
writing about white water rafting. For me, it’s this combination of
exhilarating and terrifying, like a roller coaster only worse because it’s nature, and (most of us) know better
than to mess with that. For me, the moment-to-moment experience of white water
rafting can tip from ecstatic joy to oh-my-God
I’m going to die.
I loved doing the
research, both online and especially in person, interviewing rafting guides and
all the off-the-gridders I was fortunate enough to interview.
4) Do you have a favorite character, or one that you identify with the most?
There is the old
(writing) saw that every character we create comes from some aspect of
ourselves, and I think there’s a lot to that.
I think I am one
part Pia – because I’m quite physical and love adventure and used to be very idealistic
and clueless like her – now I’m just clueless – and one part Wini, because I’m
full of terror and shame. But then I like to think I have a tough Rachel side as
well as a sweet Sandra side. Basically I’m nuts.
5 5) Any tips for people interested in white
water rafting?
Don’t.
No, seriously, I
would say just make sure the company is legit, the guides actually have some
training and experience, and – this depends on your level of risk tolerance for
sure – aim for nothing higher than Class 3 rapids, especially if it’s your
first time out. Talk to someone who has gone out with the company you’re
thinking of using, learn about the river you intend to raft.
As part of my research
I had a look at all the accidents resulting in death since records were kept.
Man, that will curl your hair. Who died, when, on what river. One out 250,000
rafters, on average, die each year. In 2006, ten died on commercial rafting
trips, but the number skews higher if you include people who go it alone.
6) What other research went into writing this book?
I needed to actually visit the place I intended to write
about. The farthest north in Maine I had ever been was Portland, so it was time
to plan a trip up into the hinterlands – the storied Allagash Wilderness, over
5,000 square miles of rivers, lakes, and forest.
My goal – one of them – was to
interview people who live off the grid.
But I didn’t know a soul up there.
I called the chambers of commerce in towns from Orono to
Fort Kent, as far north and west you can go until the road ends and the forest
begins, which is just past a little town called Dickey.
Everyone I spoke to on the phone
said: well, these folks don’t want to be
contacted. That’s why they live off the grid…but I do know someone who knows
someone…soon I was able to line up half a dozen interviews with people who
had decided to disappear.
I left my house with a backpack
filled with power bars, warm clothes and mace, with plans to interview five
individuals and one family who had decided to cut themselves off from
civilization.
Even though I made hotel
reservations for nine nights, I only needed them for the first and last,
because everyone I met offered me a place to stay.
I crashed in two cabins, a teepee, a yurt, a rehabbed
bus, and a boat (in a field, not on water.)
In December.
Sometimes a good mile from anything resembling a road.
7) What inspired you
to write this book?
I think there were two major inspirations: a book, and an ill-fated
hiking trip I took in the summer of 2012.
One:
I read and fell in love with James Dickey’s 1970 novel Deliverance. Most people have seen the movie – cue the banjos! – but I’m not
sure the book has gotten the love it deserves.
Dickey was a poet, but he also wrote this fabulous, propulsive, first
person novel about four male friends who go white-water rafting in the Georgia
wilderness. The story was utterly terrifying to me; I was struck by this series
of bad decisions that led to disaster.
Two:
The summer before I started the book I was hiking in the White Mountains
with a few friends and we got lost. We had all depended Lucy to map out the
day; she was the one who had the most experience, the one we were convinced
knew what she was doing. Turned out, Lucy had done some did pretty shabby
planning.
The idea was to get to the hut – maybe it was Carter Notch or Zealand –
by around five to get cleaned up and grab a bunk before they serve dinner at
5:30. But we were still hiking at 7:30; thank God it was summer so it was still
light, but we had some older people with us, specifically a very tall, teetery
gentleman in his seventies lugging this ginormous pack, and I thought we are going to have to carry this guy…we
ran out of water and food, and one of the women had such bad cramps in her
calves and hamstrings we had to stop and massage her muscles just so she could
unbend her legs. The wind had picked up and the temperature dropped like a
stone, and we were up past the tree line scrambling over huge boulders,
completely exhausted and scared…anyway we made it to the hut barely able to see
our hands in front of us to discover that they had been organizing a search
party there. They were all suited up. I’ll never forget the looks on their
faces when we stumbled in the door…talk about food tasting good, talk about a
cot feeling like the Four Seasons…we had been so close to spending the night on
the mountain, alone.
8) According to you, what are the key factors in writing
a compelling thriller?
You need a great story, first of
all, with complex characters who actually want something, and – cliché I know –
but they must undergo some change at the end of the book.
I think dread is super important. You need to create a
sense of unease that doesn’t let up. Leave enough questions unanswered to keep
the suspense going, but not so many that the reader gets annoyed or confused.
For me, most important is that I need to be emotionally
involved with SOMEBODY in the story, usually the protagonist, in order for me
to care enough to keep reading. I enjoy being intellectually engaged, but I
don’t care about solving some sort of puzzle – that’s where I think some
thrillers really are mysteries in disguise.
I like short chapters – both reading and writing them.
Cliffhangers at the ends of chapters are a great idea, they don’t have to be
something crazy each time like will she
fall off the cliff or not, they can be much more subtle, but still impel the
reader to say to herself: okay, I’ll read just one more chapter before I go to
sleep…
That’s what you want: a reader who wants to read your
next sentence, paragraph, page, chapter, and ultimately your next book.
9) Who is your literary inspiration?
There are literally hundreds of
authors who inspire me. Most recently, though, I’d have to say Peter
Matthiessen, who wrote, among other things, the mind-blowing At Play in the Fields of the Lord, Lily
King’s Euphoria, Claire Messud’s The Woman Upstairs, James Dickey’s Deliverance (0f course) and Stoner, by John Williams.
10) Which books have you enjoyed reading recently?
The North Water, by Ian McGuire: absolutely riveting and brilliant
In the Cut, by
Susanna Moore: terrifying, sexy, an underappreciated gem
A Carnivore’s Inquiry, by Sabina Murray: talk about dread! Another under-loved
treasure
Contrary Motion, by Andy Mozina: heartbreaking, funny, unputdownable
The Financial Life of Poets, by Jess Waller: hilarious: a very rare and
difficult thing to accomplish on the
page.
11) What are you working on next?
My next novel is a survival thriller set
in the Peruvian Amazon about a young American woman who falls for a local man
and goes to live in his jungle village. There she experiences the joys of
family for the first time, only to be threatened by a mysterious illness as
well as the warring tribe that holds the cure.
This
means I am planning a trip to the Peruvian Amazon this July to do research. I’m
terrified and excited at the same time.
