Amy Bloom, author of Away, answers your questions!
Panoramic in scope, Away is the epic and intimate story of young Lillian Leyb, a dangerous innocent, an accidental heroine. When her family is destroyed in a Russian pogrom, Lillian comes to America alone, determined to make her way in a new land. When word comes that her daughter, Sophie, might still be alive, Lillian embarks on an odyssey that takes her from the world of the Yiddish theater on New York’s Lower East Side, to Seattle’s Jazz District, and up to Alaska, along the fabled Telegraph Trail toward Siberia. All of the qualities readers love in Amy Bloom’s work–her humor and wit, her elegant and irreverent language, her unflinching understanding of passion and the human heart–come together in the embrace of this brilliant novel, which is at once heartbreaking, romantic, and completely unforgettable.
Writers Revealed fans will recall that we had technical snafus and couldn’t get the Virtual Book Club running. Amy has since been gracious enough to field questions from her readers after the jump.
Amy Mercer asks:
The first book I read of Amy Bloom’s was, Love Invents Us, then Come To Me and A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You. I was initially drawn to you because of the imaginative title and the first thing I noticed when I saw Away, was the one word title. Then I began reading and noticed the chapter titles such as, “If I had Chains I would Pull You To Me.” How do you choose your titles? Where does the inspiration come from, what does Away mean to you?
Amy Bloom: There’s never a good way to talk clearly about inspiration. In the end, I found myself drawn to the word “Away” because it represents both leaving and going to. The chapter titles themselves are all song titles. The first half of the book Russian and Yiddish lullabies, and the second half of the book American Folk Tunes and Christian Hymns.
We spend a short amount of time with all the different characters in Lillian’s life from Reuben to Gumdrop to Chinky and finally John Bishop. Yet you create such complex, deeply felt personalities I wonder how much research goes into each characters? What is your process, how do you make these people real in such a brief amount of time?
None of the characters required much research. It’s more the setting and setting details that take the reading of primary texts and newspapers and photos from that period. As for the way in which I get a lot of depth into a short stretch of writing, thanks for the compliment.
Why did you end Lillian’s journey with John Bishop? I wanted her to keep going, why didn’t you want her to make the crossing to Siberia? Did Lillian fail, did she give up, or did she simply change what she was looking for?
I think your last question is an excellent one, and really hoped the kind of question readers would choose to answer for themselves. (I would say she did all three).
Why did she end up with John Bishop? I’m afraid that the happy sentimental ending in which she and Sophie find each other didn’t make alot of sense to me. But a not ‘unhappy’ ending did.
Amy Kiger-Williams asks:
Why did you choose to have the narrator tell Lillian’s story, which happens over eighty years ago, in present tense, as opposed to past?
For me, the setting of the story was of course the present for the people involved in it. Just as our children will consider 2007 the past, we know it is the present.
What problems or issues did you face while writing Away? Did the story sort of unfold organically as Lillian’s journey unfolded, or did it evolve in some other manner?
Every novel comes with its own difficulties. Some are in surmountable, like the limits of ones talent, and others are more manageable like getting the dialog right, making sure the actions reveal your characters in the most interesting manor, and creating a story that moves forward without closing the door on the inner lives of your characters.
How much historical research was involved in the writing of this book?
Tons, on libraries in both coasts (NYC, Yale’s Sterling Library, Seattle’s public libraries, etc.) and in Alaska.
Delia Scarpitti asks:
In this novel, Lillian is a heroine who defies traditional gender stereotypes. In literary studies, much has been made of female protagonist’s stories as following a circumscribed inner/emotional territory due to the restrictions of family and the home. Lillian, however, sets forth from Russia to NYC, to the West and the Telegraph Trail to Siberia, a female completely set loose in the “external landscape” of men. Did you consciously decide to craft a character who would defy the norms? Would you consider Lillian to be a feminist character specifically or simply a survivor in more general terms?
If a feminist character is a woman who assesses the world without expecting rescue, and anticipates that the person who comes for the princess at the end of the day is the princess herself, then Lillian is a feminist character, and not, for example, neither a happy prostitute nor a doormat.
Throughout the novel, the roving point-of-view allows readers to wander through time and place with the characters, revealing unusual insights into their futures. We know of what befalls Reuben and Meyer after Lillian leaves the city, how Gumdrop’s later life takes its shape, where Chinky ends up after prison, and even with Lillian and John. This fascinated me-how fluid the perspective was. Did you ever consider writing this novel in the first person? Why or why not? Could it have worked as well?
Every point of view has it’s advantages and disadvantages. I always knew I wanted to have an omniscient narrator for this one. As my intention was to create a 21st century version of a 19th century novel.
References to classical mythology are woven throughout this book, particularly concerning the story of Proserpine lost in the underworld and her mother, Ceres, seeking desperately to find her with mixed success. In fact, in Away, when John asks Lillian, “What‚s your story?” it is this tale she immediately thinks of. Is Lillian a mythic character to you? How important were these classical stories in the process of telling of Lillian’s life and experiences?
The classical stories were very important to me every since I was a girl because I was so immersed in them. And Persephone and the pomegranate and Psyche and the burning drops of oil were as much a part of my interior landscape as Richie Rich and Casper the Ghost.
As for Lillian as a mythic character, it is my feeling that we are all, if we are lucky enough to see it this way, heroes in the myth that is our life.
Regarding the ending of Away, did Lily hallucinate reuniting with John or was it a promise of reuniting or did she die and meet him in death? Just wondering?
This too is driving me nuts. I have read that page, the ending, so many times, and I just don’t know. Does anyone? Will the author answer this question please.
Please have the author answer the quetions of Jane West and Carol Summer.Did Lillian halucinate the life with John Bishop as they both died or did it happen? I thought her ending with John Bishop would fit the story.
I am truly glad I am not the only one who did not get the last couple of sentences of this book. I immediately picked up another book and started reading, but kept putting it down and reading that paragraph over and over!
Reason tells me that the last paragraph would be deleted by the author or an editor if it did not add necessary and new information to the story. Unfortunately, I can’t understand what the paragraph means! If this last paragraph is describing Lillian’s discovery of Bishop’s dead body under the leaves, are ALL the “tidy endings” given to the characters throughout the book just stories that Lillian tells herself as she moves into each new leg of her journey? Are these stories her way of putting the past to rest so that she can focus solely on her goal of finding Sophie? Are these tidy endings all connected to Lillian’s earlier observation that the story you can tell has very little to do with the ugly truth that clings to your underside like tar? Will they be the stories she eventually wants to tell Sophie? Do these “tidy ending” stories come in a rush to Lillian at the end of the book as her mind creates a bold fiction to protect her precarious mental state in the face of Bishop’s dead body (his earlier-described rescue having also been a story Lillian told herself as she attempted to push on toward Siberia)? If her brain eventually absorbs the fact of John’s death, does she, too, finally crumble under the crushing burden of her losses (like Yaakov) and give up–perhaps succumbing to the harsh elements of nature since all her provisions have disappeared downstream and she doesn’t know she is only five miles from where she started? Help! I feel like I’m drowning in the river with Lillian!