Sara Freeman, TIDES
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[0:42]Sarah Freeman is the author of Tides.
[0:44]She graduated from Columbia University with an MFA in fiction in 2013.
[0:49]At Columbia, she won the Henfield Prize for the best piece of short fiction by a graduate
[0:52]student.
[0:53]Her work has previously been published in a number of literary magazines, and she is a Montreal
[0:58]born writer, currently based out of Boston.
[1:01]Welcome, Sarah.
[1:02]Thanks so much for coming on Moms.
[1:03]Don't have time to read books to discuss Tides.
[1:06]Thank you.
[1:07]Thanks for having me.
[1:08]Of course, my pleasure.
[1:09]Would you mind telling listeners what your novel is about?
[1:12]Of course, so in many ways, just not to give too many of the plot points away, because
[1:18]I think some of the joy of the book is sort of the reveals as they come along, but it's
[1:24]the story of a woman in the aftermath of a kind of intimate loss.
[1:29]She leaves behind her family in order to start a kind of a new life in a seaside town,
[1:35]and we sort of see her slowly piecing together, not only what happened to her in her past
[1:42]life, but really trying to come to terms with those losses.
[1:46]I feel like you have a brother, like a sibling thing going on with your life, because obviously
[1:52]there's a strong relationship that's from the start with her and her brother, and knowing
[1:56]that he will always bail her out and all this, and that I read your article about your
[1:59]brother, and like the morning you went through, and he got married and all that, and I was
[2:03]just wondering if you could talk more about sibling relationships and the power of that
[2:09]and the place of that in your new novel.
[2:11]Yeah.
[2:12]So actually, the sort of germ of the novel really was to write about sibling relationships,
[2:18]and in particular, these siblings, a brother and a sister who have from childhood quite
[2:25]a kind of enmeshed relationship, and once they arrive at adulthood, really aren't quite
[2:31]able to sort of make a life without one another.
[2:35]And it's not autobiographical in the sense that I think my experience of kind of leaving
[2:41]my brother behind was quite, you know, how should I say a little more adjusted?
[2:45]Like I was sad when he moved on, you know, to have his own family, and we kind of
[2:52]were both, you know, became adults, and I had to say goodbye to a part of my childhood.
[2:56]But for Mara, for the protagonist of my novel, this is really unfathomable.
[3:01]She, she can't tolerate this loss.
[3:04]And so I wanted to sort of explore the extreme of that emotion, which maybe many of us have
[3:10]felt.
[3:11]And in the end, it kind of ends up being sort of the backdrop for the subtext of the
[3:15]novel rather than, you know, the central theme right at the right on, you know, at the surface
[3:21]of the page.
[3:22]But it was definitely there in the back of my mind as a driving force.
[3:26]I have a younger brother as well.
[3:28]He's like two and a half years younger.
[3:30]And it is like, it's like a fracturing, right, when you both get married, and I feel
[3:34]like he felt it when I first got married, and then him, and I think about my kids and
[3:38]like, how they're going to evolve, and what is a healthy sibling relationship, what
[3:42]is not, I don't know, just raises all sorts of questions.
[3:45]It really does.
[3:46]And I, you know, one of the things I noticed as I was writing about this was that there
[3:50]was actually very little in like the psychological literature about adult siblings.
[3:55]And I think we get really fixated on the nuclear family, on, you know, marriages.
[4:02]And then the sibling relationship, especially brother, sister, because I think there's
[4:06]this kind of, sort of built-in taboo that you can't really talk about the love that you
[4:11]feel towards your sibling.
[4:13]Right.
[4:14]So yeah, it's an interesting kind of area.
[4:16]Well, two of my siblings have decided they want to live together forever and the other
[4:20]two, like, never want to see each other again.
[4:22]Oh, wow.
[4:23]So we'll see what happens.
[4:24]No, I'm excited.
[4:25]I'm exaggerating.
[4:26]But kind of.
[4:27]Anyway.
[4:28]So tell me what it was like writing this book.
[4:32]And also, I know you won this big prize and everything.
[4:34]Did this was a book related to the prize that you won for the shorter fiction or is this
[4:39]the totally new story?
[4:40]Totally different.
[4:41]And in fact, I mean, I graduated my MFA nearly 10 years ago when I received that prize.
[4:47]And the, the 10 years since were, had been just a lot of trial and error.
[4:53]I wrote another novel that I had to kind of put into a drawer.
[4:58]And then once I had kind of mourned that because I think they're a warning process, I sort
[5:04]of sent myself this goal that I would write something quite constrained and urgent and really
[5:10]that followed this sort of single subjectivity.
[5:14]And that's how tithes came along really with like a much narrower focus.
[5:19]And in fact, when I first wrote it, I got a little carried away.
[5:23]You know, multiple storylines, it was set in Montreal rather than in the seaside town.
[5:30]And again, I had to kind of, you know, murder my darlings and find this slightly more condensed
[5:37]form, which this, this book really is as, you know, these shards of language that feel
[5:42]more compressed.
[5:43]So it's been, you know, just a lot of, a lot of failure and then a lot of like looking
[5:49]at the failure and trying to see what I can salvage from that, which is a pretty good metaphor
[5:54]for relationships.
[5:56]That's true.
[5:58]Yeah.
[5:59]So it's been a long, a bit of a long journey to get to this quite small book.
[6:04]I love that expression, shards of language.
[6:07]Is the language, it's, it's, you're such a literary beautiful writer.
[6:11]And the sentences themselves are like these little like packages, right?
[6:16]They're all like very, I want to say manicured.
[6:18]But that's probably the wrong word.
[6:20]But just like very, they're, for there are like great sentences on the sentence level
[6:23]this book is, is absolutely beautiful.
[6:25]And even something like describing the community and even the main character, what's her name,
[6:32]I always forget the names of Mara, Mara, even Mara's entry into the town and realizing
[6:38]that like, even though she's so close to the sea, because of all the giant homes, she
[6:43]can't even see it.
[6:44]And how it's almost like the privilege of the select few who get the benefit and everybody
[6:50]else in the town just gets to roam around and not even, you can feel it, but you can't
[6:54]necessarily see it, which is such a, you know, you can, and as the reader, you're like
[6:59]feeling the breeze and like you can, you know exactly what you mean by that, which I thought
[7:04]was so interesting.
[7:05]I'm, I'm glad you think so.
[7:06]I mean, that's an interesting example of truly that is something I've noticed a lot
[7:11]in New England seaside towns that the privatization of the beaches is like, it's, it's
[7:17]actually so devastating because there are places where the coast is a public protected
[7:23]place so that you can always access it.
[7:25]And there's something about, you know, always needing the sticker and always needing to have
[7:31]the proof that you are allowed to be, you know, at the ocean.
[7:35]So on the one hand, it was sort of like, you know, actually kind of realism.
[7:39]And then on the other hand, I think it's the way that she feels, which is that she's
[7:43]shut out, you know, from family, shut out from other people's lives basically and, and
[7:49]really looking at it from the outside.
[7:52]It's also a very like stirring description of loneliness, right?
[7:56]I feel like it's just, it's loneliness personified.
[8:00]What does that look like and feel like and smell like and taste like?
[8:03]And I feel like you have us right there in the moment with her.
[8:07]Yeah.
[8:08]That's, I, I'm glad you say that because in many ways, you know, it started as a novel
[8:14]of relationships, her relationship with her brother, her relationship with her spouse and
[8:19]then with her mother with her father.
[8:22]And then I realized that I was actually more interested in her being kind of ripped apart
[8:26]from those relationships and what happens when we aren't with the people who have kind
[8:31]of shaped our, our sense of ourselves and, and that's really lonely and also liberating,
[8:37]you know, at the same time.
[8:39]So it's, yeah, I certainly felt very, very alone with her while I was writing it, you
[8:46]know, and this, it was quite claustrophobic to be so alone with her for better or so.
[8:53]So when you were writing the book, tell me about your process for, I know you've whittled
[8:58]it down and, you know, no shame in that, by the way, I'm all for shorter books.
[9:01]I mean, I guess you can get, you're reading a lot of them, so I'm like, thank you, this
[9:05]is nice.
[9:06]Like when I get like the slim poetry book, I'm like, oh, great, but the impact isn't,
[9:12]is not correlated with the length.
[9:14]So anyway, so what was, like, what's your schedule like when you're working on a book
[9:18]and what else do you have going on while you're doing that?
[9:21]Well, at that time, I mean, I, I, I would love to say that I'm one of these like really
[9:27]sort of really rigid, disciplined people who has a very clear writing schedule.
[9:34]At the time I was teaching and I was also beginning my studies, I'm a, I'm a counseling
[9:41]school dropout.
[9:43]So I was, I was starting these studies and so I was a student and I was teaching and I
[9:48]was really fitting in these slots of writing whenever I could.
[9:53]And I did write in this most beautiful library in Boston called the Boston Athenaeum,
[9:59]which just has like,
[10:00]like a really wonderful, quiet,
[10:02]and incredible kind of just atmosphere of study.
[10:07]So that was great.
[10:09]But yeah, that was for the first draft.
[10:11]And then the second draft, I quit my jobs
[10:14]and I gave myself four months a semester
[10:18]to really write this new draft,
[10:20]which is the shape that it took on.
[10:22]So I tend to be quite extreme.
[10:24]I like to have lots of time to do the more intensive work
[10:29]and then I'll work maybe five or six hours a day,
[10:32]very, very intensely interesting.
[10:35]And I couldn't put it to sleep.
[10:37]I was just so obsessed.
[10:39]I think you need that, though, to get through anything, right?
[10:42]Yeah.
[10:43]I mean, there's like eight million reasons
[10:44]not to finish a novel.
[10:46]Oh, I mean, it's why it's also wide
[10:49]to have took me so long, yeah.
[10:51]So what do you like to read?
[10:52]Who are some of your favorite books?
[10:54]Or what are you reading now or both?
[10:55]Well, you know, when I'm thinking of the sort of like,
[11:00]the genealogy of this book,
[11:02]I definitely think of Elena Ferrante,
[11:04]specifically Days of Abandonment,
[11:07]Natalia Ginsburg, The Dry Heart.
[11:10]Even Joan Diddy and play it as it lays,
[11:12]you know, just these condensed books
[11:14]where women either unravel or come back together.
[11:19]I was actually just speaking yesterday to Jamie Quattro.
[11:23]I don't know if you've read her book, Fire Sermon,
[11:25]has that same kind of intensity.
[11:27]And what am I reading these days?
[11:29]You know, I'm actually, I'm moving away
[11:32]from these more condensed books of feeling
[11:36]and have been really enjoying some like good old social realism.
[11:40]I'm actually just starting the corrections.
[11:42]I'm like 15, 20 years late on that.
[11:47]I've read some of his other work,
[11:48]but I'm really enjoying that.
[11:50]And yeah, just kind of trying to be back
[11:52]in the world of sort of the family drama.
[11:55]I'm sensing myself moving in that direction
[11:59]at the moment.
[12:00]So interesting.
[12:01]So is that what your next book will be about?
[12:03]I have a feeling I want it to be.
[12:06]I'm like, okay, did this one character now maybe?
[12:09]Maybe I can like invite some more people to the party.
[12:12]You know, have a few more consciousnesses on the page.
[12:16]And yeah, I think that would be a nice challenge for me.
[12:19]This was such a sort of pointed project.
[12:23]So yeah.
[12:24]And where, like, where did you grow up?
[12:25]How did you know you wanted to be a writer?
[12:27]Like what was your earlier life like?
[12:29]So I'm originally from Canada.
[12:31]I was born in Montreal.
[12:32]And my dad was a foreign correspondent
[12:35]for a Canadian newspaper.
[12:37]So we kind of moved around quite a bit as kids
[12:39]and ended up in Berlin and London.
[12:42]And I think the travel and the sort of being an ex-pat
[12:47]and an outsider really probably shaped the way
[12:50]I thought of myself.
[12:52]And I still don't think I have like such a solid sense
[12:57]of home, which I think as a writer is quite useful
[13:00]because you're always sort of, you know,
[13:02]looking in a little bit from the outside,
[13:06]which helps for observation, I guess.
[13:09]Yeah, interesting then that your character
[13:10]was essentially homeless at the beginning.
[13:12]Yeah, I wondered about that a little bit.
[13:16]That's my favorite.
[13:17]I'll be your cycle analyst for the day, you know.
[13:19]Oh, bring it on.
[13:21]I know certainly I think this kind of dislocation
[13:25]and feeling out of place and figuring a place out
[13:29]is something I just, I've done all my life
[13:32]and I imagine I will always do.
[13:34]Interesting.
[13:35]Wow.
[13:35]Well, if you could give an aspiring author some advice,
[13:38]what would it be?
[13:39]You know, I think obviously read a lot
[13:41]and that's not, it's more that I think
[13:44]once you just, you get in the rhythms
[13:47]of other people's language, then you start
[13:50]to kind of figure out your own rhythms.
[13:51]And also to like stay away, stay away
[13:57]from other people's advice to a certain extent.
[13:59]Cause I've gone down the road of like really listening
[14:02]so closely to my favorite writer's advice
[14:05]and realizing, hmm, maybe this wasn't quite advice
[14:08]for me, this was for them.
[14:10]So I think just really sort of thinking of your own
[14:14]intuitions around language narrative,
[14:16]like what's alive to you?
[14:18]What's interesting to you and following that
[14:20]without thinking too much about the external world
[14:23]even though that's very difficult.
[14:25]So what advice led you astray?
[14:27]What was advice that didn't work for you?
[14:31]I'm trying to think, you know,
[14:34]I think I have this obsession with reading
[14:36]all of these Paris review interviews
[14:38]and then I'd hear, you know, writers writing, for instance,
[14:43]every day at a certain time
[14:44]and that was the thing that like made them
[14:47]and realizing that like I actually,
[14:49]I couldn't do that, it didn't work for me.
[14:51]In fact, when I sat down every single day,
[14:53]it was kind of crap and I, it was better for me
[14:56]to just wait until I had like something
[14:59]that really moved me to write.
[15:02]So I think it's just kind of like parsing out
[15:05]what is gonna be useful for you trying it out
[15:07]and then maybe not thinking it's like the word.
[15:13]Got it.
[15:15]Okay, that makes sense.
[15:17]Awesome, well Sarah, thank you.
[15:18]I told you this would be easy.
[15:20]It's just great.
[15:21]It's so great.
[15:22]And thank you.
[15:23]I mean, you were really, you're a beautiful, beautiful writer
[15:24]and I'm glad you didn't give up.
[15:26]I, you're super talented and it's,
[15:29]it's really a joy to read your sentences.
[15:31]So.
[15:32]Thank you so much for taking the time
[15:34]and yeah, for all the work you do promoting
[15:36]and helping writers find readers.
[15:39]No problem.
[15:40]All right, take care.
[15:41]Thanks so much.
[15:42]Okay, bye bye.
[15:43]Bye.
[15:44]Thanks for listening to this episode
[15:46]of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[15:48]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
[15:50]at Zebioans and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
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[16:00]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan.
[16:02]In fact, texture sound for the sound editing.
[16:04]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[16:06]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.