Q&A with Sally Dukes

  

 

 

Sally Dukes is the author of the new memoir Drummer Girl: A Story of Life After Death. She lives on a Greek island in the Cyclades. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write this memoir?

 

A: For most of my adult life, I have been on a pilgrimage to make meaningful the near-death experience that I had as a young child. Drummer girl is a compilation of journal entries, academic papers and therapeutic notes. The central theme, the organizing principle, is the search to find my truth.

 

As in any memoir, my writing was inspired by my personal journey; however, drummer girl is not so much about me as it is about the interface between life and death.

 

Rachel Cusk describes “surface tension” as writing coming out of the tension between what’s inside and what’s outside. It is this “surface tension” that left me no choice but to write drummer girl. The words had to be spoken; they needed to be shared.

 

Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: Drummer girl was my nickname as a child. In the years prior to heart surgery, my heartbeat was very loud, hence the sound of a beating drum.

 

As told in my memoir: When entering a room, the drumming was footsteps ahead of her actual presence. “Here comes drummer girl,” friends and family would whisper to one another. It is drummer girl who seeks the answers to life’s unfolding; this is her story; this is her title.

 

Q: The Kirkus Review of the book called it a “poignant reflection on the eternal tension between life and death.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: They nailed it! As a debut author, I could not have been more thrilled than to receive the Kirkus Review of drummer girl. The review did not present as a linear synopsis of my memoir but rather was written by someone who truly understood it as a reflection on the duality of existence.

 

Although touching on many of life’s difficulties, the focus of drummer girl was never intended to draw upon on trauma or loss, but rather the placing of those obstacles in the greater context of the cycle of life and death. Simply put, drummer girl stands as a contemplation. The Kirkus description aptly fits the message.

 

Q: What impact did it have on you to write the book, and what do you hope readers take away from it?

 

A: I wrote this book for myself; it was a birthing. I had been wanting to put pen to paper for many years, and as the words flowed, I realized that so much of what I was writing had never been shared. A deep vulnerability accompanied each page.

 

The writing itself allowed me to look closely at my internal world, a world that only I had occupied. The writing also gave me strength, the strength to claim my truth, and after a lifetime, to stand firmly in the footsteps of drummer girl.

 

Although writing my memoir was never aimed at a particular audience, the underlying themes are commonplace.

 

I am hopeful that those who read drummer girl will grant themselves permission to pursue their personal path with the in-depth understanding that obstacles can present as disguised opportunities, resilience is birthed from trauma transformed, and that moment-to-moment presence grounds one in today, not tomorrow, not yesterday.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Currently I am focused on the book launch; however, I love to write and am most curious to see how my next inspiration will present.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I do not profess to be an expert or a scholar on near death. As we navigate our singular passage through this lifetime, we each have our own truths to uncover, our own paths to meander.

 

Drummer girl takes the reader on a thoughtful search to find the very thing that we universally understand as true: where there is life, there is death; where there is darkness there is light.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb