Barbara Linn Probst is the author of the new novel Roll the Sun Across the Sky. Her other books include the novel The Color of Ice. She lives in New York's Hudson Valley.
Q: What inspired you to write Roll the Sun Across the Sky, and how did you create your character Arden?
A: Each of my novels has arisen from a specific, unexpected moment—and that was the case for Roll the Sun Across the Sky too.
Trite as it sounds, I was going through boxes of decades-old diaries and memorabilia in my attic—with the aim of throwing out papers I didn’t want my nosy children to find one day—when I came across some truly terrible short stories that I’d written years and years ago.
The stories really were “terrible,” yet there was so much life and vitality in the descriptions of the train ride from Venice to Istanbul, the tombs of Luxor, the restaurant by the Nile River that I suddenly thought: I could do something with this! With no idea of what that “something” would be, I started writing …
Arden, the story’s protagonist, “appeared” to me, on her own. She is like me in some ways (my impatience, for example).
You could say that her traits are exaggerations of tendencies that I recognize in myself, which allowed me to “understand” her and use her (invented) life as the canvas on which I could depict the human struggles that interested me: What kind of person am I, and what kind of person do I yearn to be? Which acts define a life? Can a person be better than her worst acts?
Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: I’ll let the characters explain! From page 45:
Nabil has brought the scarab he told us about. He holds it in his palm—a blue-green oval, intricately carved—and explains that it stands for the human soul emerging from the mummy and flying to heaven to be resurrected ...
“In ancient Egypt, the scarab beetle represented rebirth. It was associated with Khepri, God of the rising sun. Just as Khepri reappears each morning, from a place of darkness, this little creature also reappears—from excrement—to begin anew ...
The beetle rolls its eggs in dung and pushes the ball across the ground, just as Khepri rolls the sun across the sky. Then, when it is time, the little ones crawl out and new life begins—transformed, resurrected, from what may appear ugly and worthless.”
So too for Arden, who yearns for transformation and renewal. You could say that the title capture’s the book’s premise: no matter what darkness lies in your past, there is still a possibility for redemption.
Q: The writer Fiona Davis called the book a “spellbinding story of a complex woman and her imperfect choices, and how those choices resonate from mother to child and beyond.” What do you think of that description?
A: I think it’s perfect! Praise is wonderful, and Fiona has been generous with that—calling the book “a treasure, profound and moving, impossible to put down”—but praise coupled with understanding is even better.
There are several words in Fiona’s description that ring especially true for me. One is her choice of the adjective “complex” to describe Arden. It’s a good word, I think, because it bridges those easy polarities of arrogant/weak, kind/selfish, likable/unlikable. Arden is all of these things!
Yes, some of her actions are reckless, even cruel. Yet she suffers deep remorse and, despite everything, yearns to be “good,” to be better than her worst acts. It is her complexity that makes her real. We can relate to her, feel her humanity, because of her flaws and contradictions, not despite them.
So too, Fiona’s description of Arden’s choices as “imperfect.” At each of the crucial junctures in the story when Arden does something that ends up causing harm or pain, it’s because she’s faced with an impossible choice. Both choices are terrible, yet she has to do something.
So she acts—impulsively, rashly, knowing that what she has just done is going to hurt someone who deserves better, but doing it anyway because there is no pain-free alternative. Those “imperfect choices,” made with awareness of the remorse that will follow, are what give her story its depth.
As Fiona also notes, our acts have consequences that we must face, accept, and (if we’re brave enough) do the hard work of forgiveness, including self-forgiveness.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: I’d describe my writing process as having a strong vision for where a story is headed, but no certainty about the route I will take or what I will discover along the way!
In other words, I knew that Arden needed to arrive at the possibility of transformation and redemption—like the scarab beetle, rising anew from what may have seemed dark and ugly and worthless. We always have the capacity for goodness, because—and that’s the story’s other, parallel theme—no one is just one thing.
As Arden comes to understand: “There were too many pieces that made up a life. You couldn’t pull them apart, no more than you could pull the rain into separate drops.”
So yes, that vision was there from the beginning, but the details unfolded as I got to know my characters better.
For example, in the crucial scene between Arden and Robert, when she “earns” that redemption, new layers emerged over the course of successive drafts that made it so much richer than it was in the first version! I also changed Leigh’s ending to give her the liberation she longed for—and deserved.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: For me, there is always a period of emptiness—a time of mourning, really—after finishing those last revisions on a new book.
Having been through this four times, I’ve learned that my default mode is to immediately plunge into a new manuscript in order to fill that emptiness with the all-engrossing creative passion that I love so much.
Inevitably, however, the new manuscript turns out to be terrible, and I toss it out! Sometimes that happens two or three times, after detailed outlines and multiple chapters, until I’m ready to sit with the stillness and silence—and wait.
That’s where I am now. I’ve written and discarded that transitional manuscript. What comes next, and when? We shall see!
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I’ll share two “behind-the-scenes” facts that people might not know. One is that the train accident that sets events in motion is based on a real event that took place in December of 2013 on the Hudson Line of Metro North, New York’s commuter railroad—the train I took regularly, but was (thankfully) not on that day. Yet the incident haunted me. I’ve changed a few of the details, but the essential facts are true.
Another is that yes, I really did travel across Europe and Egypt “way back when.” I would never have been able to recall and relate the sights, sounds, and smells in such vivid detail, however, if it hadn’t been for the journals and story sketches I rediscovered, decades later! The sensory details are absolutely “real”; the characters and events are invented.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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