about. It was still a fight every day, the rebuilding of a muscle that had atrophied—not just writing, but hope. She listened
to the clatter and chatter of her friends as they headed to the car, let the noise sink into the background and finally disappear. Soon the ache for Henry retreated, or at least quieted
to a dull pang. She opened the document and reread what
she’d written. Then she stared at the blank page before her,
put her hands on the keyboard and tried to trust that some-
thing would come.
* * * * *
East Coast_9780778309499_TS_txt_277098.indd 348
8/23/19 9:03 AM
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My amazing editor Emily Ohanjanians for understanding this
book so well and helping me to shape it into what I wanted
it to be. I feel so lucky to have you. My fierce agent, Cathe-rine Drayton, for your support, critical eye and honesty. Ev-
eryone at MIRA who helped this book make its journey into
the world.
Jeff Zentner for your unmatched wit, incredible mind, emo-
tional attunement, beautiful books and best of all your friendship. You always show up.
Jennifer Niven, Angelo Surmerlis and the rest of my LA
friend-family who keep me in laughter, great conversation
and lots of cake; Adriana Mather for your percipience and
your chill; Nicola Yoon and Charlotte Huang, my original
crew and favorite dinner companions; Jeff Giles, ever brilliant, funny and on call; and all the other wonderful, talented authors whom I have the great privilege to call my friends. You East Coast_9780778309499_TS_txt_277098.indd 349
8/23/19 9:03 AM
are the best thing in publishing and have brought so much joy and fellowship to my life.
Dr. Susan Nagin Thau for your empathy, wisdom and
strength; Dr. David Neer, whose kindness makes my heart
grow; Bob Maloney, a mentor, friend and a force of nature;
Katie Cunningham Tashjian and Mary Cunningham, for your
huge hearts and munificent spirits; Lori Barnett and Melinda
Rennert Mizuno, who set me on this path; Alexa Jade, water
child of my heart; Savannah Sullivan, the brightest light; the great Ryan Labay and his wonderful crew; Tammy Rayevich
Leitch for all the summers; and all my friends near and far,
old and new, who championed my first book with such un-
believable enthusiasm, generosity and kindness that I cannot
even think about it without crying. To have your love and
support has been the most humbling, beautiful, life-changing
experience, and I’ll never forget it.
For the readers, thank you for spending time in these worlds
I imagine and letting me do what I love.
For the librarians, teachers, booksellers, reviewers and bloggers who spread their passion for books—we’ve never needed
you more.
And finally, most important, David Zorn, love of my life,
best person I’ve ever known, who should probably get cowrit-
ing credit on all my work for the endless (endless!) reads and smart, careful critiques of my many drafts. You are the king
of patience, insight, comedy, kindness, compassion, integrity and good hugs. I don’t know how I got so lucky with you but
I’m grateful every single day.
Thank you.
East Coast_9780778309499_TS_txt_277098.indd 350
8/23/19 9:03 AM
EAST
COAST
GIRLS
KERRY KLETTER
Reader’s Guide
East Coast_9780778309499_TS_txt_277098.indd 351
8/23/19 9:03 AM
East Coast_9780778309499_TS_txt_277098.indd 352
8/23/19 9:03 AM
QUESTIONS FO
1. Hannah, Maya, Blue and Renee are all such distinct
personalities. Which character did you most identify with
R
and why? Did you empathize more with any one character
D
than the others?
IS
2. The four characters shared similar childhoods in that their C
mothers were absent or abusive. As a result they became
U
one another’s family. What are your thoughts on the
subject of “chosen” versus “given” family?
SS
3. The characters have all been deeply affected by the
IO
events of that terrible night twelve years ago. How did
each of them internalize the incident, and how has that
N
internalization played out in their life choices? How do
their individual ways of coping now get in their way? What
patterns do they each keep playing out?
4. What did you think of Blue and Renee’s friendship? Did
you agree with the reason Blue cut Renee out of her life
after that terrible night? Did you want to see them restore
their friendship during the story? What do you imagine
you would have done in Renee’s position?
East Coast_9780778309499_TS_txt_277098.indd 353
8/23/19 9:03 AM
5. How did you feel about Renee’s character? Did you feel that you wanted to see scenes from her point of view or did
you feel she didn’t deserve one, given her role within the
foursome?
6. How do you feel that the setting—Montauk, Nana’s beach
house—added to the story? What did it represent for the
characters?
7. Lately there’s been a lot of conversation about sexual
harassment and the kinds of safety measures women
are forced to take when they go out into the world. Men
often seem surprised by the fact that many women stay
silent and endure harassment, and yet, as in Maya’s case,
confrontation can carry its own risks. How do you feel
about the bind women are put in, where they are forced
to absorb street harassment and accept it as part of life or
risk danger simply by defending themselves? What would
you have done in Maya’s position? What can we do as a
society to put an end to the harassment of women?
8. How did the characters change throughout the story? How
did your opinion of them change? Did any of the characters
stay the same?
9. How did you feel about the ending? What did you like or
not like about the way the story resolved?
10. Maya and Hannah have a yin-and-yang relationship.
Sometimes Hannah takes comfort in Maya’s practicality
and the way she dismisses Hannah’s fears. Other times
she feels that Maya is insensitive—perceiving her anxiety
as a weakness, hiding her Xanax, having strong, mostly
unspoken opinions around the subject of Henry. Since
Maya is largely a compassionate person, what do you
imagine drives her insensitivity? Do you think it’s simply
East Coast_9780778309499_TS_txt_277098.indd 354
8/23/19 9:03 AM
that she doesn’t understand? Is she a product of a society that tends to see people struggling with mental il ness in
a diminishing way, particularly women? Or do you think
Maya is acting out of her own trauma?
11. When Maya and Hannah go looking for the psychic, they
grapple with the idea of fate. Do you believe in fate? Do
you agree with Maya that, either way, it’s better not to
know the future, or are there things you’d like to know? If
so, what are they?
12.
If this was going to be made into a movie, who would you cast in the roles of the four women?
East Coast_9780778309499_TS_txt_277098.indd 355
8/23/19 9:03 AM
East Coast_9780778309499_TS_txt_277098.indd 356
8/23/19 9:03 AM
A CONVE
RSATION
What inspired you to write this story?
W
I always start out with a question I’d like to find the answer to myself. In this case, I’d just sold my first book, my friends ITH
were so incredibly supportive and I was struck, as I often
am, by how important and extraordinary it is to have good
TH
friends. At the same time, my best friend got very sick and, as happens, we were all suddenly confronted with the fragility
of life. It was a very frightening time and I was keenly aware E
of just how hard and painful it is to love people when we
A
have to live with the possibility of losing them. So I wanted to answer the question for myself, which is Hannah’s question
U
in the book: How does one live, really live—capital L—in such TH
an uncertain, sometimes scary world where out of the blue
something bad can happen? How do we let go of the reins
O
and just accept what life brings us instead of wanting to
R
run and hide and pull the covers over our head and never
take a risk or love too much because what if something went
wrong? And what are the ways in which those fears mute the
experience of living and how can we step away from them—
how can we hold the duality of joy and precariousness, love
East Coast_9780778309499_TS_txt_277098.indd 357
8/23/19 9:03 AM
and loss? So I started from there and the book came out of that and then, happily, my friend got well and here we are.
Why did you decide to set the book in Montauk?
I grew up spending summers on the East End and surfing out
in Montauk. It’s such a beautiful place and has this interesting quality of being at once rugged and soft. There are these
stark, ragged cliffs that hang out over gentle beaches and this odd combination of craggy fisherman and old-school surfers
mixed with young hipsters and wealthy city people. I felt like it was a town that perfectly mirrored the past-present aspect of the story because of the transformations it’s gone through over the years. Each summer I go back, the restaurants get
a little fancier, the beaches more crowded, but just as one of the characters says in the book, “the bones of the place are
the same.” And that’s exactly what old friends are like—they
grow and change in ways that are both good and bad—but the
essence of who they are remains steadfast and that’s what
keeps the bond intact.
Why did you choose characters who were all self-described
orphans in one way or another?
We tend to say as a society that “family is everything” but not everyone has a loving family or one with whom they connect,
so I wanted to write a story about the family we choose. These girls had far from perfect lives growing up, but what mattered was that their lives were perfect when they were together,
especially when they had these idyllic times every July at the Montauk house. I loved the idea of these lonely, lost girls finding one another and having this cocoon of friendship where they
raise one another and stand in for the families they each don’t have. And of course, this gets more complicated as they get
older because things happen, difficult experiences alter them and they start to bump up against each other. But still they
recognize that they need one another, that they have agreed
East Coast_9780778309499_TS_txt_277098.indd 358
8/23/19 9:03 AM
to be passengers on one another’s life ride, through good and bad. So I wanted to write about how they traverse that and just in general about the saving grace of friendship. At the end of the day, this is my love letter to the friends in my life who have been my own chosen family.
The characters go through a traumatic experience together
that changes them all in profound but different ways. Why
did you decide to make that part of their history?
One thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is how by
a certain age we’ve all been traumatized in one way or
another, and the methods, largely unconscious, we each
use to cope can interfere with our attachments and cause
a lot of unintended pain. I made the characters experience
the same traumatic event to illustrate how even when the
pain is shared, we don’t always see or recognize the wound
that’s driving someone else’s behavior; how, for instance,
someone turning away from us may be doing so because
they feel shame and not because they don’t love us. We’re all interpreting other people through our own very limited and
distorted lenses and it causes a lot of misunderstanding and
strife. So part of this book, for me, was about exploring how that happens, how we can fail to see even those closest to us and then learning to find grace for our flawed humanity, our
flawed methods of coping. At the end of the day, we’re all just flying blind, doing our best to get through an unpredictable
world, and nobody gets it right even when there’s love. I feel like that’s an important thing to hold, especially in today’s cancel culture where people’s humanity can be flattened to a
single moment, and one mistake, even sometimes a small one,
can define a life.
What was your favorite part of writing this book?
The girls having fun. I love the parts where the bond is really visible, whether in the past or present, and they’re riffing on East Coast_9780778309499_TS_txt_277098.indd 359
8/23/19 9:03 AM
one another or simply happy to be together—all of that was a blast to write. It gave me the same warm, happy feeling that
being with my real-life friends gives me.
And, too, I loved working with my editor. It’s magical when
someone sees exactly where your blind spots have been in
the book, the parts you missed or didn’t develop well enough, and as you’re fixing it, you can feel the book coming to life in a new way. That was really exciting for me. Editing is always my favorite part but it’s especially fun when that happens.
What did you find most challenging about writing this book?
It took me a long time to really understand Renee—in part
because I wasn’t writing her inner thoughts as with the others and also because I think she’s the least like me. Draft after draft she kept eluding me until I finally realized she was eluding me by design—that she was unknowable to me because she was
largely unknown to herself. She’s been running from everything for so long, seeking herself in external things—her appearance, an engagement ring, the trappings of what society tells us is a desirable life—that her true self has atrophied to a certain extent by being denied air. Once I realized that—how Renee’s
entire personality is shaped around self-protection and trying to escape the one thing she can’t, which is herself and her fear of being unlovable—I finally understood her and liked her and saw that glimmer of a person who wants connection and repair and
realness and who could move toward it if she could find a way back into the group.
What kind of research went into writing this story?
One of my primary interests is the subject of trauma—how it
affects our brains, behavior and attachments, so I’m always
st
udying that and incorporating what I learn into my work. And of course, I researched Henry’s condition but sadly was also able to draw on lived experience. Someone I knew was in a minimally East Coast_9780778309499_TS_txt_277098.indd 360
8/23/19 9:03 AM
conscious state for many years, and I watched someone I love, who was very close to that person, struggle with that very
difficult reality.
Is there a character in the story that you identify with
most? Or a favorite character among the four main women?
Oh, I think that would just depend on the day. Sometimes I can be anxious like Hannah—I’m definitely a bit of a germophobe
and I really don’t like uncertainty. My sense of humor and love of fun is pretty in line with Maya’s. I have been known to cover hurt and vulnerability by shutting down at times like Blue, or even running away like Renee. So I see myself in all of them. As far as favorites, I think Maya edges the others out just a bit. I love her for being so unapologetically herself and I think she is always primarily motivated by love—not just the desire to be loved but to love other people, to share life with loved ones.
She just wants everyone to be happy.
Can you describe your writing process?
So, as I said, I always start with a question I’m grappling
with in my own life. Once I have the question, I simply start writing. At that point I have no idea what will pop up. If I just sit down and put my hands on the keyboard, a character
with a problem inevitably appears. I let my subconscious
rule until it runs out of steam—my hope is always that it will produce a fully formed book but, alas, the burst of creativity peters out by around chapter two. Then I have to stop and
think about what I have and where it might lead and try to
develop a loose outline of a story. The rest is just winging it until I have a draft. Then, because that first draft is terrible, I rewrite, replot over and over until finally it clicks and I hit a flow where I know what the story is, who the characters are
and what I’m trying to say. I dream of the day I nail it on the first try—but until that miraculous day appears, I am very
grateful to have early readers and an editor to help me out.
East Coast_9780778309499_TS_txt_277098.indd 361
8/23/19 9:03 AM
In writing as in life, we make mistakes, take wrong turns, and if we’re lucky, we have people who gently, honestly set us back
on track. I think it’s what I love the most about it. It’s a great reminder that you can always rewrite your story—if something’s not working, you can make another choice. As the characters
East Coast Girls (ARC) Page 35
