Mary Kay Andrews Chats With Us About Her New Novel: Hi there, Summer season
New York Household’s Guardian’s E book Membership Choose for Might is Mary Kay Andrews’ Hi there, Summer season. We’re loopy about this new learn, telling a page-turning story a couple of younger lady who returns dwelling to her small city when her big-city job takes a flip for the more severe. As soon as once more, she writes for her household’s newspaper, now overseeing the native gossip column, “Hi there, Summer season.” However when she witnesses an accident that ends within the dying of an area congressman, she decides to dig deeper into an internet of harmful secrets and techniques. As an previous heartbreaker causes bother and a brand new flame ignites, it quickly seems to be like their sleepy seashore city is probably the most scandalous hotspot of the summer season.
Mary Kay Andrews is the New York Occasions bestselling writer of greater than two dozen novels together with SUNSET BEACH, THE WEEKENDERS, BEACH TOWN, and SUMMER RENTAL. A local of St. Petersburg, Florida, she obtained a B.A. in journalism from The College of Georgia and was a newspaper reporter for 14 years. The final ten years of her profession had been spent as a options reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Structure. She left journalism in 1991 to jot down fiction. HELLO, SUMMER is her 27th novel and will likely be revealed on Might fifth by St. Martin’s Press. Be taught extra: marykayandrews.com
Are you caught up with our ebook membership reads? Take a look at final month’s choose: Mary Kubica’s The Different Mrs.
You labored as a journalist for some time earlier than changing into a fiction writer. It’s fairly apparent that your journalism background performed a job in writing Hi there, Summer season, however are you able to inform us extra about how journalism formed your profession as a novelist as a complete?
My previous few years as a newspaper reporter, I believed I used to be a failure — as a result of I didn’t have my very own column, hadn’t received a Pulitzer Prize, and so forth. What I didn’t know then was that my 14-year profession as a journalist was only a reaalllly lengthy apprenticeship as a novelist. Being a reporter taught me easy methods to ask exhausting questions— one thing I exploit each in analysis and for my characters, particularly Conley Hawkins, the protagonist of HELLO, SUMMER. As a result of newspaper tales are essentially restricted in size, I realized story construction —starting, center and finish. I realized easy methods to write a dynamic starting — or lede, because it’s referred to as in newsspeak, and a memorable ending, or kicker. I realized to hear, which taught me easy methods to write plausible dialogue, and I realized the worth of an incredible editor — though all too typically I realized it the exhausting approach by having not so nice editors.
Along with Hi there, Summer season, you’ve written a number of different stellar seashore reads, together with The Excessive Tide Membership, Sundown Seashore, The Weekenders, Summer season Rental, and Seashore City. What attracts you to the seashore/summer season style of fiction?
I wish to give my readers a enjoyable, memorable learn, one thing to anticipate by way of these lengthy, winter months, an enormous, juicy page-turning peach of a ebook, so I believe my novels simply naturally match that summer season seashore ebook class.
What was your inspiration for writing Hi there, Summer season, and what do you hope readers take away from the novel?
I’ve all the time wished to jot down a ebook set at a small city newspaper as a result of they’re such a unusual mirror of neighborhood life. I hope readers will love the time they spend in Silver Bay, see one thing of themselves within the household relationships, and perhaps even come acknowledge the worth of native journalism within the lives of our communities, particularly in these loopy instances.
Hi there, Summer season is the identify of Rowena’s “gossip” column in The Beacon, which Conley has to supervise. Why did you determine to additionally make this the title of the novel?
The title was my editor’s thought. I resisted at first, as a result of I’m cussed that approach, however ultimately got here to comprehend that could possibly be the identify of Rowena’s gossip column — in addition to a strategy to telegraph to my readers that they’re in for some enjoyable.
I completely love the dialogue within the novel — it feels so actual, like I can really think about the characters speaking to one another, and it’s certainly a device for character growth. For our aspiring writers on the market, are you able to increase in your technique of writing dialogue in fiction?
Dialogue is my favourite factor to jot down. However I can’t put phrases in a personality’s mouth till I do know who they’re, the place they got here from, what they care about. All of it goes again to actually listening and being attentive to how actual individuals actually converse.
Hi there, Summer season encompasses a lot- thriller, small city life, profession, household, romance and so forth., but it surely’s additionally very a lot a narrative of revisiting the previous, as Conley heads again dwelling. I’m within the threads of reminiscence, the previous, and residential that this ebook explores, and particularly how these threads connect with id. Are you able to increase in your concepts about both of those threads and the way you see them taking part in out in Hi there, Summer season?
House is a theme I’m consistently exploring in my fiction. I knew, after I began penning this story that Conley dreaded going dwelling — not simply because she equated it with skilled failure, however for different causes she couldn’t fairly perceive herself. It wasn’t till I began delving into her sophisticated relationship along with her grandmother and sister, and along with her oldest buddy, who occurs to be the “boy subsequent door” that I started to see there was a painful secret in her previous.
Studying Hi there, Summer season completely immersed me into the small city setting, partially due to how vividly you describe the setting, but additionally due to the relationships between the characters. Are you able to inform us extra in regards to the setting, and the way you determined that the story would happen in a small city?
Small cities are the right petri dish for secrets and techniques, betrayals, feuds, and household drama, all of the juiciest substances for an incredible seashore learn. My solely query stepping into was WHERE would Silver Bay be positioned? I searched across the South — the place all my tales have been set (up to now) and at last selected the Florida Panhandle, a spot I’m pretty conversant in, since I’m a local Floridian, though I really grew up farther down the Gulf coast, in St. Petersburg. A seashore home was additionally a foregone conclusion, since you actually can’t have a seashore learn with out a nice, creaky previous seashore home. I had such enjoyable creating The Dunes and furnishing it, by the top of the ebook I wished to maneuver proper in, together with a cranky previous canine like Opie — and naturally, a housekeeper like Winnie to prepare dinner and clear for me!