Amanda Churchill is the author of the new novel The Turtle House. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Hobart Pulp. She lives in Texas.
Q: In The Turtle House’s acknowledgments, you note that the historical part of the novel was inspired by your grandmother. Can you say more about that, and does the dynamic between Mineko and Lia reflect your own relationship with your grandmother?
A: Yes, my grandmother was a war bride from Japan and arrived in Texas in the late 1950s. As I was growing up, she was always reticent to talk about her life before Texas—she rarely even spoke about anything other than what was going on in the present. I’d ask and she’d tell me to go play with my cousins!
So, I was surprised that she was willing to allow me to interview her in 2009. She had gone through a cancer diagnosis and an awful surgery and I was pregnant with my first child. We both were slowed down by our bodies—me temporarily, her permanently.
And she opened up and talked about her life. She was less inclined, of course, to explain how she felt, unless really prodded, that was just her way. We traversed 80-some-odd years of life over nine months.
By the time my daughter was due, she felt that I should turn her stories into “a real good book” (her words). I didn’t feel like I was up to the challenge. It was a role reversal. She continued to remind me that I owed her a book and I kept telling her not yet.
We had a good relationship, one of gentle teasing and small talk. Our relationship was activity-based—she taught me to crochet and knit, how to make fun dangling earrings, how to fold paper into cranes. We took a quilting class together once. And she told me old Japanese folklore tales—the ones she had been told as a child.
But we never talked about feelings. And trust me, I tried.
Q: How did you research the novel, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: I researched based on what I was told—my grandmother’s stories served as my compass for digging for more information. She was remarkably clear and accurate with her memories and her recall of facts was amazing.
So, my most surprising moments of realization came as I was reading, specifically, about the U.S. occupation of Japan. It was a complicated and confusing time and when I laid my grandmother’s story over the dates and details found in the history books, I could see the two timelines worked in harmony.
It brought everything to life. The choices she made during that part of her life became clearer to me and I felt like I knew her better.
Q: The writer Jenny Tinghui Zhang called the book a “touching story of two women who find their way back to themselves, each reclaiming what was once thought to be lost.” What do you think of that description?
A: I think it’s a lovely description. I think that’s a very common human experience—I know that I find the answers to my biggest questions through my relationships with women. My sister, my mother, my friends and especially my grandmothers.
And to have one’s book be read and to be seen, truly understood, is such a gift. And, for that reader to be Jenny! Her novel, Four Treasures of the Sky, was one that I adored, so it was a great honor for me to read her thoughtful blurb.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the novel?
A: I hope readers are inspired to ask questions of their own family and to take the time to explore the history that weaves us all together. Part of my family is from Japan and this migration, this dramatic change in geography and in culture, has made me who I am.
We all have stories like this and I feel like the lack of curiosity in our own stories can become a lack of curiosity about the lives of our neighbors.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am working on another historical fiction novel, this one taking place during the Great American Dust Bowl. It takes place in a fictional religious utopian town where the leadership is led astray by greed and the teenaged women in the community are forced to make a life-changing choice. It’s a story of true faith, sisterhood, and friendship.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I am incredibly grateful to my readers. They have been champions of this book and I don’t think it would have been as well received had these amazing people not cheered and shared. I simply want to say thank you!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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