At Human Nature’s Edge

Paula Xiberras

I recently spoke to the lovely Sara Gruen, author of ‘Water for Elephants’ and the new novel ‘At the Water’s Edge’, from her home in North Carolina but disappointingly the phone kept cutting out and we were forced to complete the interview by courtesy of email.

However, before the phone connection, or lack of, disrupted our chat I was able to discover that as yet Sara hasn’t been to Australia but would love to visit,
Which seems to be the cue to start talking about the animals in each of our immediate vicinity. I tell Sara about wallabies and kookaburras, which delights her and she tells me that how in her daily life she has been up close and personal with the mountain bears (that have damaged her bird seeders) and how she shares her mountain home with her other neighbours, a bob cat, wolf, coyote and cougar all which require her to take care walking her dogs!

Ironically the ‘middle German’ word ‘gruene’ is the origin of Sara’s surname and means ‘green, fresh and raw’ which fits in very well with Sara, her interest in and proximity to the rawness of nature’s wild life.
From all these very real wild presences near her home, our discussion turns to Sara’s new book ‘At the Water’s Edge’ that revolves around, this time, a mythical creature, the monster of Loch Ness.

Read on in our email question and answer to learn of Sara’s tea party and conversation with a great ape and how Sara and her family all had cameos in the movie ‘Water For Elephants’.

You have a great love for animals and in this novel you write about a mythical animal in the Loch Ness monster. Are you interested in perhaps writing the story of extinct animals as well to get attention for the plight of other animals facing such a possibility?

I wrote about endangered animals in APE HOUSE, but not for moralistic reasons. Although I am happy to have raised awareness of their plight, it was their language capabilities and proven ability to differentiate between past, present, and future that so intrigued me. I had a tea party on the lawn with a great ape, Panbanisha, who set up the blanket and made the tea. We conversed using a lexigram board, and after we ate cookies, she foraged for tasty leaves. It was incredible.

Do you have a moment of epiphany when you write, that the novel is complete?

I wish! I have an epiphany when I conceive of the novel, a wonderful moment when a vague notion and various small ideas converge into something resembling a story, but after that I stagger forward on a wing and a prayer. As for knowing when my novel is complete, my agent compares me to Picasso, who said he knew a painting was complete when his agent walked into his studio and left with it under his arm. I work on a book until it’s ripped from my fingers.

Is it difficult to say goodbye to your characters and do you ever feel like one author I interviewed like turning around to your character in your kitchen for example and asking them if they would like a cup of tea?

It’s very difficult, and I mourn the loss of them with every book. I’ve compared it to a post-partum period, but it’s not quite, because I’ve lived with these characters, and rooted for them, and sometimes put them in absolutely ghastly situations, and suddenly they’re gone. I like to believe that they’re still going, still living their lives, but that we’ve lost touch, like old friends. I wouldn’t mind getting a Christmas letter from them!

How is it to have your book made into a film and do you like to have input in the process?

I didn’t have much input at all, other than correcting a couple of technical circus issues in the script and raising a stink about using a trained ape (I won, and the ape was written out), but I think it’s better that I didn’t. I know nothing about movie making, and I probably would have been in the way. As it was, it was a wonderful and positive experience for my whole family (all five of us have cameos in the movie). Movie contracts are written so there’s practically barbed wire built in between the author and the set, I think in case the author turns out to be a control freak and makes it difficult for the producers to adapt the work into a different art form, but once they realized I wasn’t going to do that, they flew me out to the sets and let me be involved in a wonderful, rewarding way. The most amazing moment for me was when I arrived at the set in Filmore, California, and the director picked me up in a golf cart and drove me over a berm, and suddenly there was the Benzini Brothers. All the tents, the midway—everything. All of that existed only in my head a few years before, and there I was standing in the middle of it. It felt Chinese-boxy, like I was standing in my own head.

Australian author Morris Gleitzman talked about the ‘magic spaces’ where author and reader meet. The author brings there life experience and interpretation to a work. Do you believe in this and have you any interesting stories of readers interpreting something in a novel that you didn’t initially intend but then consider it may have been the work of your subconscious?

I absolutely believe that readers bring as much to a novel as the writer, and there are times I’ve learned surprising things about my work from other people. I go quite deep into my characters’ psychological landscapes, and when I’m doing it, I’m writing from their points of view, explaining and justifying their actions according to their thought processes. But their views of their own motives and actions are skewed they their own collective experiences, and other people interpret them through their own prism, which is, of course, equally skewed. No person can interpret any other person’s (or their own) actions and experiences completely objectively. My truth of the book may be different than someone else’s truth of the book, but both are equally valid.

‘At the Water’s Edge’ is out now published by Allen and Unwin.