Tara Badstubner is the author of the new novel Every Room Remembers. She lives in Pennsylvania.
Q: What inspired you to write Every Room Remembers, and how did you create your character SJ?
A: Every Room Remembers began as a response to the anxiety I felt about losing someone I loved during Covid. The constant barrage of images took up enormous space in my head. A dear friend encouraged me to write into that fear rather than look away from it, which is the best advice anyone has ever given me.
The story found its real shape later, at a small writers' retreat in upstate New York, where five other writers and I experienced a haunting together.
SJ arrived on her own as I worked, and she is not based on any one person. She began as the character through which I explored grief, but the longer I wrote, the more alive and autonomous she became.
Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: My working title was Lovely Creatures, but at the time there were several novels with "creature" in their titles, so we went looking for another. Every Room Remembers came out of a collaboration with my publisher, and I think the book is stronger for the change.
For me it alludes to the energy a space absorbs over time, from the history of the land, from the people who have lived there, from everything that happened to them under that roof. The gradual accretion of lived moments creates an atmosphere, peaceful or angry, melancholy or joyful, until the rooms themselves become characters.
The Osprey House is the clearest example in the novel. SJ arrives at a house under construction, one with a long legacy of pain and loss, and over the course of the book we watch the two of them change together.
Q: The author Kate Moses said of the book, “Badstubner’s characters find a way to walk into their unimagined futures, where love and memory, the author reminds us, have the power to outlast us all.” What do you think of that description?
A: I am grateful for Kate's thoughtful reading of my novel, and I think she goes straight to the heart of it. The book started as an exploration of grief and my own fears.
What surprised me was where it went, the way hope crept onto the pages without my planning it. In the end this is a story about resilience, community, and enduring love. That was a surprise even to me.
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 usually know my final scene going in, but with this novel, I didn't. The ending only became apparent to me about halfway through the first draft, which felt fitting given the book's themes. My characters were navigating their own uncertainty about what lay ahead, and so was I as I wrote them.
In general, reading each scene out loud is my greatest tool for navigating changes. It's how I catch what needs tweaking or what needs a complete revision, since dialogue that sounds stilted on the page reveals itself the moment it's spoken, and emotional beats that read as flat on paper either land or fall short once I hear them.
I read every scene this way, often more than once, before I trust it's doing the work it needs to do.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: My second novel, about an adult brother and sister, True and Tennyson, who spend a long weekend together remembering the summer of '83 and the events from it that shaped their adult lives.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I have several personal essays and craft essays coming out in the next few months. The links to these can be found on my Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/tarabadstubner and on my author page: https://www.tarabadstubner.com. Upcoming events can also be found there.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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