Q&A with Ellen Baker

  

 

 

Ellen Baker is the author of the new novel Summerland Cove. Her other books include the novel The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson. She lives in Maine.

 

Q: You’ve said that the inspiration for Summerland Cove came from a glimpse you got of a family on their front porch. Can you say more about that, and about how you created your character Lindy and her family?

 

A: I was out walking one night in the summer of 2024 in a place I often walk near where I live in Midcoast Maine—an oceanfront loop of century-old cottages. When I passed an old yellow cottage, I spotted a family (I was sure I saw three generations) gathered on their front porch.

 

As a neighbor came out of his cottage with a plate of charcuterie and a bottle of wine—and, in a very Maine way, invited me, a stranger, to join the party—I thought what it might be like to return to a beloved place once a year to reconnect with extended family and neighbors.

 

Being from a small family myself and having moved around a lot in my life, it was enticing to imagine—and then, being a novelist, I started to imagine everything that could go wrong.

 

I decided that the family in my novel would be a summer family “from away,” and that, to make the stakes of the story higher, they would be planning a series of important celebrations. Then I thought that what could really go wrong would be that the guest of honor at the first event—a 50th birthday party—would not only not show up but totally disappear.

 

I wanted the centerpiece of the story to be the woman in the middle generation, and that’s when I created Lindy. She’s 47 at the time the story takes place, and she feels the weight of responsibility for all three generations of her family—for her aging parents, her nearly-grown children (especially her oldest daughter Hailey, whose wedding she’s planning), and for throwing a perfect 50th birthday for her husband (even though he’s told her he doesn’t want a party).

 

From there, I created the rest of her family to be people who would naturally increase the amount of pressure on her, which I think is realistic for women in that stage of life. She has children in their early 20s whom she loves but doesn’t understand, a husband who’s very distant, and parents in their 80s who need more help than they’re letting on.

 

Then I added in difficult in-laws and the legacy and complication and financial pressure of two family cottages—and then there’s her husband’s attractive young assistant. Lindy is in a difficult position all around, and she has to figure out how to deal with all of it at once.

 

Q: The novel is set in Maine--how important is setting to you in your writing? 

A: I would say setting is very important to me in my writing. I spent my first 35 years living in the Midwest, and my previous novels have been set there.

 

To me, setting totally defines the types of characters and families you’ll encounter in a story—and what problems they’ll create for themselves. The weather and landscape also become characters—especially in places like the Midwest and Maine.

 

In Summerland Cove, everything I’ve learned in the last 10 or so years living in a small community in coastal Maine forms the spine of the book.

 

Again, the setting defines what kinds of experiences the characters have had up to this point in their lives, what’s possible for them, and how they look at and interact with the world. And little details, too, as far as what a character might be concerned about (or doing or eating) at any given moment.

 

In Maine, we worry about tick-borne illnesses, the sun rises at 4:30 a.m. in the summer, restaurants are often closed by 8 p.m., you can stop along the highway to buy eggs (it’s always an honor system, a box of cash), and you’re likely to be eating oysters, lobster, and excellent Maine-made ice cream and gelato.

 

So, to me, the story should not only include those things, but it should also sometimes turn on them, so that, in the end, place influences the story and defines people’s experiences—just as it does in real life.

 

Q: How would you describe the relationship between your characters Lindy and David?

 

A: One of the things I loved most about writing this book was getting to experience Lindy and David’s relationship evolving over the course of almost 40 years.

 

As a young teen, Lindy admired him from afar as the older brother of her best summertime friend. He finally notices her in return when he’s 17 and she’s 14. So, they grow up together, in a way, and they have a beautiful summer romance—to a point.

 

Her mother is against the match, which makes Lindy even more determined that it’s right. Things happen to cement the bond (I won’t give those away!). Yet David, being only human, can never, over the years, quite live up to what young Lindy has imagined him to be.

 

So, at the time the primary action of the novel takes place, when she’s 47 and he’s turning 50, there’s a lot of water under the bridge and a lot of distance that’s been created between them—both by his awareness that he can’t live up to her expectations and simply by the fact that she’s been engrossed in raising their four kids for the last 25 years while he’s been working to support the family.

 

There’s much that they don’t see or understand about each other—and yet, despite all this, they are absolutely devoted to one another. That’s why it’s such a shock to her when he disappears—she had thought she had everything in their life under control; she had thought she understood what he would and would not do.

 

And when he doesn’t show up for his birthday party, it upends everything she’d thought was true about them, their love, and their family. I absolutely loved writing about them because they are so good-hearted, and yet they misunderstand each other almost completely.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?

 

A: The value of questioning assumptions about other people and the paramount importance of loving them through everything.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m working on another novel that takes place in the same fictional setting of Summerland Cove, Maine. The working title is Breakaway Cottage.

 

It’s about a different family in a different time period (2023 with flashbacks to 1990, versus, in Summerland Cove, 2010 with flashbacks to the 1970s and 80s). So, it’s a standalone book, but it's fun for me to be spending more time in Summerland Cove.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: The experience of writing this book was a rich one for me, as I got to imagine things that I haven’t gone through in my life—like having four kids and a big extended family and a summer cottage to return to generation after generation.

 

I also got to work through some things that I have gone through in my life, like depression, trauma, and relationship issues. I seem to always return, too, to questions of home, belonging, and community. And I love to explore the extraordinary ripple effects that small moments or decisions made by one person can have on an entire family or community for generations. 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Ellen Baker.