Q&A with Amy Meyerson

 

 

Amy Meyerson is the author of the new novel The Water Lies. Her other books include The Bookshop of Yesterdays. She teaches at the University of Southern California. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Water Lies, and how did you create your characters Tessa and Barb?

 

A: When I get pregnant with my first child, I became more aware of the ways motherhood was displayed in the books that I read. In recent years, there have been a lot of novels about the challenges of motherhood. Specifically, I've read wonderful books about reluctant motherhood, troubled children, and postpartum.

 

While all of these are important stories to tell, I found that my experiences of motherhood weren't represented in these stories. I wanted to capture the daily challenges of motherhood, how hard it can be even when you want to be a parent.

 

Specifically, I was thinking a lot about the daily anxieties of early motherhood and the emotional journey of watching your child grow more and more independent of you. So, I knew thematically what I was interested in before a story came to me.

 

Then, when my son was starting to speak, I was really struck by how he acquired language and the gap between what he wanted to say to me and what he could. For him, it was frustrating, but I began to imagine a scenario where the inability of a young child to communicate wasn't just a struggle but was terrifying. From there, The Water Lies was born.

 

Since I wanted to write a book about early motherhood, Tessa's character came to me first. I put a lot of my experiences as a pregnant woman into her. She embodies that combination of the way the world treats you and the way, accurate or not, you assume you're being treated.

 

As I started to write Tessa's character, I realized that the novel was too narrow when told only from her perspective. As I was thinking how to expand the book, I was struck by a conversation I had with my mother-in-law about how she feels undervalued in society.

 

I began to realize that many of the ways I felt I was treated as a pregnant woman paralleled nicely with how older women in our society are treated. From there, Barb was born. 

 

Q: The novel is set along the Venice Canals in Los Angeles--why did you choose that setting, and how important is setting to you in your writing?

 

A: I've always written places I know well. I think it's difficult to write setting if you aren't familiar with the world your characters are embodying.

 

To me, setting is relative to the story you're trying to tell. In some of my novels, it was very important. In others, less so. In this, it was essential. I knew that I wanted the novel to take place along a body of water because it centers on a drowning.

 

I explored a lot of options--Echo Lake in Echo Park, LA, the fountain in Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia--before settling on the canals. The other locales didn’t seem specific enough for Tessa, the mother of the boy who recognized the drowned woman, to think the death had something to do with her son. It needed to be literally outside their doorstep.

 

I also knew that I wanted the location to feel unique and cinematic. Once I thought of the canals, there was no turning back. While there have been a few movies featuring the canals, I couldn’t find any novels set there. That told me I’d landed on a pretty special setting.

 

Often, with writing, you make a choice intuitively and then later realize why it’s essential to the story. The setting of the canals organically gave the novel a voyeuristic quality that works really well with the paranoia of the plot.

 

Q: In the book’s acknowledgments, you write, “Every novel requires a leap of faith, but this one’s felt especially big. I was entering a new genre where I'd only ever been a reader.” What was it like to write this novel, and was your writing process different this time?

 

A: With every novel, I like to set up new challenges for myself. With this it was to see if I could write a thriller.

 

During the height of the pandemic, I started listening to a lot of thrillers and I was really impressed with the structure of so many of them. This gave me an inkling that I wanted to see if I could plot one too.

 

I think the biggest difference here was that plotting. I studied a lot of books I admired, breaking down how the story unfolded. And I learned a lot about leading the reader--and myself--astray in order to surprise.

 

Q: What do you think the novel says about motherhood?

 

A: Much of this book is about motherhood. The beginning and end. The anxieties. The instincts. It's also about pregnancy and the desire to be a mother. I don't want to give anything away, but my hope was that mothers with a range of experiences would feel seen in this book.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I'm working on a new novel that's slated to come out next year. It's another thriller, this time about a school camping trip set on Santa Cruz, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of Ventura, California, and the most remote park in the National Parks system.

 

As you can imagine in a thriller set on an island, things start to go wrong. It's about the parents rather than the children, how they can't leave their secrets behind on the mainland.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: If you read the novel and enjoy, please reach out! I love hearing from readers.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Amy Meyerson.