Please turn the page for a very special
Q&A with Janna McMahan!
The Ocean Inside is a deeply layered family story much like your first novel. Do you see this as your hallmark?
I like to think my novels are about communities and how the social mores, politics, and economics of a place affect my characters. In The Ocean Inside, I see the community as a complicated mix of altruism and greed, of concern and deceitfulness. The Sullivans are ultimately able to overcome their financial woes with the help of friends like Larry. Then there are the random acts of kindness, like the church collecting money and people bringing food and gifts that is an important means of support for the family emotionally, as well as financially.
The Ocean Inside is set in contemporary times, unlike the 1970s era of your first novel, Calling Home. What are the differences in writing something set in present day versus a period piece?
The Ocean Inside required something entirely different. Instead of relying on my own memories of what it was like to grow up in the late 1970s, I needed to know what it’s like to be a teenager now. Technology, music, and language presented a challenge. Kids today communicate nonstop, they have information at their fingertips, they’re latchkey kids early and have cars given to them at sixteen. There’s a freedom and a maturity to children that didn’t exist thirty years ago. Family dynamics are very different. Parents don’t shelter kids as much and they allow them decision-making power, both socially and financially. While the daughter in Calling Home feels responsible only for herself, Sloan recognizes all the pain and struggles of her family. She tries to help where she can, but she’s unable to affect her sister’s situation or her parents’ imploding marriage. Sloan’s maturity allows her sympathy for others, but it also leads her to believe she can handle situations she really can’t handle.
Sloan does get in over her head and she never really gets out of trouble.
Sloan’s situation has no immediate ending. I’ve left a lot up to reader interpretation. Sure, she made some lousy choices. What teenager wouldn’t when faced with young love and a chance to escape unhappiness at home? So she ran off to Mexico with a guy she barely knew. She agreed to a shady road trip. When things got scary, she tried to pull away only to find she couldn’t escape Cal’s control. In the end, she protects the people she loves. She could have unburdened herself and drawn her family into a larger drama, perhaps even endangering them, but she chose to live with guilt and dread. That emotional sacrifice took a lot of maturity and strength of will. We know from the beginning that she’s a fragile person, but when things get dire she reaches down inside for the strength to do what she thinks is right. Her power is in keeping secrets.
So is that how the title came about? Does The Ocean Inside refer to Sloan’s secret?
I think it reflects something inside us all. Everybody has a secret, a fear, a regret, a longing, an emotional burden of some sort. The ocean inside is what lies behind the cultivated façade we show the world. I think midlife crises are built on suppressed desires and questions that visit us more as we age. The ocean inside is a universal feeling. I loved the title for all the possibilities it embraced.
Much like your first novel, there is a strong connection between siblings in The Ocean Inside.
Characters need alliances just like real people. The strong bond between siblings, people who will never betray each other, who will always be allies, is a relationship worth writing about. The connection between the sisters is integral to the story line. Sloan kept Ainslie going. She was the only one who actually let the child be herself and helped her without question.
What a complicated relationship Lauren and Emmett have.
They are a mess. Before any of the big drama of the story begins they are already at odds. Emmett, with his feelings of inadequacy, rejects Lauren in a physical way. Lauren, missing physical intimacy, questions his love and commitment to the family. They fight about money. They fight about sex. They fight about social obligations. They have differing philosophies about religion and parenting and it seems just about everything. They’ve reached the point in their marriage where they’re simply polite to each other for the children’s sake. So when a huge family crisis comes along they aren’t much of a team. It’s a widely held belief that most marriages that experience a major illness or death of a child end in divorce. If this is true, how can Lauren and Emmett make it?
Are you veering into the realm of magical realism in the part where Sloan has an encounter with the dolphin pod?
Not at all. Dolphins frequently act in altruistic ways toward humans. I found a newspaper article about recreational fishermen whose boat capsized off the coast of Georgetown, South Carolina, the same waters in The Ocean Inside. According to these guys, they were in the water for more than a day surrounded by hammerhead and tiger sharks. They said a dolphin pod stayed with them, repelling the sharks. After many hours the men floated into the Gulf Stream and were rescued.
I suppose you could find how Ainslie attracts butterflies and lizards to be a little magical, but I firmly believe that some people have an animal vibe. A lot of Ainslie’s animal interaction is based on my daughter. There’s something about Madison that animals love. She’s definitely the one who attracts butterflies. It was a month of mourning in our house when Steve Irwin died. I had to mention him as a sort of memorial. He had such an amazingly positive influence on children.
The Ocean Inside addresses the issues of coastal development of natural habitat. Would you say that you are a conservationist?
I’m a realist. I know some about the economics and politics involved in land development because I’m married to a landscape architect. While the story portrayed here is totally of my own creation, it does have basis in reality. There is no stopping what some people call progress, but I get angry when a development company comes into a natural area, denudes it, then names the neighborhood for the natural amenities they destroyed—Whistling Pines and High Dunes Estates and such. We need stricter, more sensible regulations on development, but we also need incentives for developers to do the right things. Local governments find it difficult to balance the needs of an ever-increasing population with the divergent demands of developers and conservationists. The point is to find a way that benefits the community while respecting natural resources. That’s a tall order.
Is Sandy Island a real place?
Sandy Island is real. I was intrigued by the concept of an isolated community, so I finagled an assignment to write about the school boat so I could visit. I loved the school boat kids and I hope that comes through. Sandy Island has an interesting history typical of how land has changed hands in South Carolina. Of course, that land was originally occupied by tribes of Native Americans, thus the name the Waccamaw River. Then came the white man with his plantations. After the Civil War, slaves were allowed to settle on barrier islands because the sandy, windblown land wasn’t desirable for crops. Black families lived there for generations until the islands became attractive to developers, and once again, those with less money and power were pushed off their land. So far, Sandy Island has deflected attempts to “log” their island. All this background came from research. My story is a fictionalized account of what could have happened.
Today even middle-class families are finding it hard to continue to live along the coast because of rising property taxes and upkeep and insurance and such. The coastal ring of superrich that Emmett predicts is a creeping certainty.
Do you base your stories on actual events or people?
All writers do. Sometimes real life is so much more interesting than anything you can think up on your own. Then sometimes life and fiction collide. When I finished my original outline for The Ocean Inside one very important reader told me that she didn’t find it credible that people in their forties would be doing cocaine at parties. The next week our state’s treasurer was indicted on cocaine charges. While sad for him, it was a gift to my story. He’s a young fellow, upper crust, and he just co
nsidered his habit a “social problem.” I’ve had people say they didn’t like it that Emmett participated at the party, but casual drug use is rampant and I think that particular weakness made him a more believable character.
There are always the small liberties a writer takes. I know the bumper stickers for Pawleys Island read “Arrogantly Shabby” rather than “Shabby Chic.” It just wouldn’t have worked as well to refer to Charleston as the most arrogant of shabby places. Just isn’t the same as “chicest of shabby places.” Sometimes you make choices based on how true the language will ring.
You tend to set a lot of your stories around bodies of water.
I grew up water skiing and swimming in Green River Lake in Central Kentucky. Now that I live in South Carolina I have the opportunity to be at the beach quite often. Any time spent around water is a luxury to me. It makes me contemplative and sets my imagination free. I always wondered what’s under the water. When I was a kid my parents forbade me to go to the movie Jaws, but I sneaked to see it anyway. That entire summer I couldn’t bring myself to swim in the lake. I’d barely have my skis on before I was yelling at my father to gun the boat and yank me up out of the water. A vivid imagination can be a curse at times.
So you were an imaginative child?
Let’s just put it this way, my Barbies weren’t of the milquetoast variety. Jacques Cousteau was big when I was a kid, so my dolls were deep-sea divers and marine biologists and sometimes astronauts. They also had babies before they were married and fought over Ken like soap opera queens. My Barbie beauty pageants always ended in a big cat fight. I may have frightened some of the other little girls with my story lines. I’ve always had very vivid and elaborate dreams. I would dominate breakfast conversations relaying these involved dream sequences from the night before. I’m sure my parents are grateful that my imagination finally manifested itself in a positive way.
Did you start writing early?
I’ve written stories for as long as I can remember, even in elementary school. I once wrote a poem for a friend in high school, a class assignment that she didn’t want to do. It was a sad poem about a depressed girl. The day after we turned in our poems my friend stopped me in the hall and said, “Thanks a lot for that stupid poem. I got called into the guidance counselor’s office because of it.” Apparently they thought she was in danger of harming herself. That was the first time I realized how writing can impact other people.
The Ocean Inside is about a family dealing with the turmoil of cancer. You’re a cancer survivor yourself.
I was diagnosed with breast cancer at twenty-eight. At first, I didn’t want to admit weakness and I continued to work. I completed and defended my thesis while doing chemo. I just looked at it as something that happened to me and moved on.
A couple of years later I stopped trying to prove how damn strong I was. Acting like nothing had changed was exhausting. I was constantly frightened that every day would be relapse day. I asked myself what I really wanted to do with my life, however long or short it might be. The answer was write a novel. I’d always wanted to see if I could do it. My husband encouraged me to quit my job and give it a try. He just wanted me to be happy again. So, you could say that having cancer made me pursue this lifelong desire of being a writer earlier than I would have otherwise.
But you didn’t want anybody to know you were a cancer survivor?
I didn’t want that label. The Big C takes center stage when you bring it up. While being interviewed for my first novel I once let it slip that I had been spurred to write because of illness. That immediately became the dramatic headline. The article became about cancer and not about my writing. I decided then that I would never mention cancer again in an interview.
But I think things are different with The Ocean Inside. My diagnosis and treatment lends me credibility to speak about the emotions and financial tensions involved. I understand the guilt of being the one putting strain on the family. I understand the fear and the pain. Major illness sorts out your true friends. It emphasizes strengths and weakness. It’s an eye-opening experience in so many ways.
You proved that you could write a novel—two, in fact.
I now feel as if I’ve contributed, that if I died tomorrow I would leave something of significance behind. I love the fact that my novels are in libraries across the country. It’s now documented that I existed, and I think that’s what matters to me on some basic level. I want my daughter to be able to pick up one of my books when she’s an adult and say, “My mother wrote that.” It may sound strange, but now I feel as if I’ll live forever.
From an extraordinary new voice in fiction comes a haunting, powerful novel about mothers and daughters, choice and regret, the mistakes we make and the ones we hope we can correct before it’s too late.
Nothing much ever happens in Falling Rock, Kentucky. Nothing good, anyway. So when Virginia Lemmon’s husband takes off in his Trans Am to take up with a beautician, there’s not much to do but what people in rural Kentucky have always done—get on with it. Now, overwhelmed and unsure, Virginia’s got her hands full trying to keep it together, body and soul, while raising her two teenage kids—eighteen-year-old son, Will, and her spirited fourteen-year-old daughter, Shannon.
But Shannon has her own ideas for breaking free of Falling Rock, and in her reckless, wild-child daughter, Viriginia sees echoes of herself and her own painful past. She’ll do whatever it takes to keep her daughter from making the same tragic mistakes, and saving what’s left of her fragile family just may be the biggest fight of Virginia’s life.
In this compelling, heartbreaking first novel, Janna McMahan brings to authentic life the dreams, passions, and troubles of one southern town, where choice isn’t always easy to come by, and living the hand you’re dealt with is a grace all is own.
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of
Janna McMahan’s
CALLING HOME,
now on sale at bookstores everywhere!
The window gave a couple of inches. Virginia, poised on a cinder block, put her hand against the bottom of the sash and shoved again. Paint fractured and fluttered down as the frame broke loose and slid up. The reek of nicotine tinged with perfume seeped over her, a sour contrast to the clean air outside.
It was a vivid day. The sky seemed close as Kentucky skies can, as if you could just reach out and touch the pale smear of clouds. Virginia squinted into the dark interior. She could see it was a bedroom, as she had anticipated. Not hard to figure out where things were in these rectangular brick boxes. People had started trading tall breezy farmhouses for the central air of squat ranches with hardly enough room to make up a bed and no kitchen big enough to have a family meal.
She hoisted herself up onto the ledge. Her pants snagged on rough brick and ripped. She stopped, balanced on her stomach, half in, half out of the window, to inspect the dirty, thin streaks of blood where her forearms had scraped the window ledge.
She hadn’t expected to have to go to so much trouble. Most people around Falling Rock never locked their doors. But this woman was from Louisville. She had paranoid city habits.
Virginia dropped down onto the floor, her heart beating in her ears as if she were underwater. She felt submerged, her movements measured, her legs heavy. What was she looking for? What did she hope to find, to not find, in this woman’s house?
The louvered closet door screeched as she pushed it aside and there she saw what she came for. His frayed jeans with the torn pocket. Scarred hunting boots. Proof.
A metal tang came to her mouth—an angry taste she recognized. Her fingers itched to rake everything in the room into a shattered pile. She imagined the perfume bottles on the woman’s vanity, the hand mirror and brushes and combs in a grotesque dance on the hardwood. The cut-glass lamps and crystal ashtrays—one with Roger’s cigarette stubs, the other with her long skinny ones all crinkled down—she could sweep from the bedside tables with one swipe. She could find scissors and cut blouses and skinny
little jeans to shreds. Bleach would ruin every carpet and drape and bed linen in the house.
She felt a stinging on her leg and turned in the vanity mirror to check where she had caught her pants. A right angle was neatly cut from the thin material and her skin underneath was abraded. She saw herself fully then—ruddy cheeks and dark hair in riotous curls around her shoulders. She didn’t like what she saw, this woman with a set jaw and hollow eyes.
She jerked suddenly, her attention focused down the narrow hall. Was that a car door thudding shut? Virginia reactively laid her hand to her heart. Its staccato throb under her fingertips threatened to burst through her bones. She crept to the kitchen, where she scanned outside through the kitchen sheers. Nothing in the carport. She peeked through dust-filmed windows in the front room. No truck on the gravel road beyond. She moved from window to window, checking every possible angle before she was satisfied that nobody had arrived. It was her imagination. She’d checked to be sure they were in town before she came.
She gave a little laugh then. Silly, she whispered. Why was she so jumpy? She’d thought this through. She knew what she was doing. Her car was hidden on the other side of the woods behind the house. There was a farm road that cut through fields to the next road over. She’d have to open and close a few cattle gates, but she could slip away and never have to drive back down the road in front of this house.
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