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East Coast Girls (ARC)

Page 35

by Kerry Kletter


  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.

  * * * * *

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  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

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  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.

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  EAST

  COAST

  GIRLS

  KERRY KLETTER

  Reader’s Guide

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  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?

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  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

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  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?

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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.

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  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

 

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