A Sudden Light FAQ

Q: What inspired/motivated you to write A Sudden Light?

A: I grew up in a neighborhood north of Seattle, just down the hill from a very wealthy enclave called The Highlands. The Highlands serve as the basis for the fictional The North Estate: a gated community on a bluff overlooking Puget Sound. When I was a kid exploring the creek and the ravine across the street from our house, I would often look up at The Highlands and wonder who lived in these great mansions.

In 2004 I had an idea for a play, which I wrote and which was produced in 2005 in Los Angeles. It was titled Brother Jones, and it took place in the town of Aberdeen, Washington, in a decrepit old mansion that was haunted. Many of the characters from that play are also in A Sudden Light, others are new, some did not make the final cast of my novel. Having written the play, I knew I wanted to explore the history of the Riddell family much more deeply, and so I began this novel. I’ll say that it took a lot more exploring than I had initially bargained for—many of the issues and situations that Ben and Harry and Elijah grapple with came to me purely from their characters. In a sense, I populated a world with some characters and they then acted out their histories for me. We writers like to pretend we’re in control of everything, but in reality, we aren’t in control. Our story and our characters are in control, and it is our obligation to be faithful to them.

Q: A Sudden Light is dedicated to your dead father – Would you elaborate on your dedication?
A: My father died in 2009 rather suddenly and surprisingly of an unexplained lung disease. I think anyone who’s a member of the Dead Dad Club, as I like to call it, will agree with me that the death of one’s father—especially for a son—brings a substantial shift in one’s perspective in the world. I mean, I’ve been an adult for a large part of my life, and I’ve taken care of myself and my family, and really haven’t been dependent on my father for decades. Still, just his presence in life gave me the perception or sense of security. When your father is alive, there’s always someone you can call when you’re in a pinch. Even a good tight rope walker walks differently when he has a net beneath him! So when we take the net away, well it can be somewhat unsettling.

In the aftermath of my father’s death, as I was writing this book, the theme of the missing father grew around my story and informed my story. And I felt, as I was working on this book and taking care of my mother and so forth, that he wasn’t really gone, but that he was on an extended vacation, and I only had to pick up the right phone to reach him.

Q: What made you decide to use Trevor’s voice to tell the story?

A: For a long time, the narrator was the ghost of Riddell House. That was nice because he knew the entire backstory of the Riddell family. Unfortunately, he knew nothing of the latest generations—Jones and his family—because they had never lived in Riddell House. And so I realized I needed a new narrative point of view. I chose Trevor because it would be his actions that would determine whether or not the Riddell family could find redemption. Also, the natural curiosity of a fourteen-year-old boy set loose in a haunted mansion with little parental oversight gave me many opportunities for discovery. Finally, I found it necessary to create a lens for the narrative voice. The book isn’t narrated by Trevor at 14, it’s narrated by adult Trevor in the present day, recounting the summer of 1990 when he stayed at Riddell House with his father. Thus, in addition to having the youthful spirit of Trevor, I also was able to interject certain observation that a mature adult would make.

Q: A Sudden Light takes place in Seattle and delves into the Pacific Northwest’s history of logging. Did you have a particular reason for setting your story in this particular region?

A: Everything I write is steeped in what I know, and I grew up in North Seattle so I know it pretty well. I spent my childhood in the woods and ravines in our neighborhood, walking down the railroad tracks for miles, and later, when I was a bit older, bicycle touring with my best friend all over the state and even up to Alaska. It’s hard to imagine now, when we have cell phones glued to our fingers and ears, that there was a time when you could get lost and really be lost. So I think I wanted to write a book that harkened back to that era. And if you’re going to delve into the history of the Pacific Northwest, you’re going to have to delve into the history of trees.

Q: A Sudden Light includes characters of diverse ages and life experiences, which makes it part coming-of-age story, part middle-age crisis, and part end-of-life story, so it appeals to readers of many different ages. What did you set out to accomplish with such a diverse, if small cast of characters?

A: Well, we have a clever term for this phenomenon today: “sandwich generation,” which describes those in their 40’s or 50’s who are caring for both their children and their parents. In the old days, around 1990, we called them “families.” My grandmother lived with us off and on for quite a few years when I was a teenager and both my parents were in their 50’s and working. Often times, when I came home from high school, my job was to look after my grandmother (though I’m pretty sure my parents told her that she was baby-sitting me!).

I think I wanted to create this family to reflect the idea that these are things we are always dealing with in our families—we’re all growing older together and so our relationship evolves; yet because we have such a seminal history with our immediate family, sometimes we don’t recognize the maturation while we’re in it. In other words, sometimes the projected image of our siblings and parents is based on a snapshot taken 23 years previously, so while we as people have evolved, our relationships haven’t. And therein lies a tension that makes for good drama in a novel.

Q: In A Sudden Light, Grandpa Samuel’s apparent decline into dementia sets off Jones and Serena’s attempts to wrest control of the family estate. Did you have any particular reason for addressing issues such as senior care and end-of-life decisions?

A: When I was a teenager, I sometimes took care of my grandmother. She was was in her nineties, and had all kinds of cancer. She’d broken more hips than she had. And then she got an infection in her foot. The doctor said it would be best to amputate. But, he said, there was a better than 50-50 chance she wouldn’t survive the surgery. My mother said that wasn’t a proper way to die, so she sent my grandmother back to her hometown in Alaska to find her own path, as my grandmother had requested, and so the place and fashion of my grandmother’s demise was of her own choosing.

When my father died of SARS in 2009, I remember going to the hospital one morning to check in on him; his primary doctor was waiting for me. “I’m glad you’re here without your mother,” he said. “Your father has taken a bad turn. Very bad.” “What do you recommend?” I asked. “We could make him more comfortable,” he offered. “I’d like to make him more comfortable,” I remember saying hopefully. “How do we do that?”

He looked at me for a long moment. “We turn up his morphine. Soon his breathing slows. Then his heart stops.”

Oh, I thought. We’re using code words.

“I’ll need to talk to my mother,” I said.

“Of course. I’m here if you need me.”

I spoke with my mother, and she knew as well as I knew: making my father more comfortable was the right thing to do. But still. Knowing the correct decision doesn’t make it any less painful.

With all the advances in medicine today, we are confronted with these issues more and more. Palliative care. End of life decisions. And yet often we hide from the answers, we don’t discuss them in public, because we are afraid we will be stigmatized by the answers. I think we should be able to discuss these issues with friends and family, and then on a broader level as a society. These issues will not go away because we cover our eyes and pretend we don’t see them. If I can begin a conversation through my fiction, I feel it’s important to do so.

Q: A Sudden Light delves into several 19th-century trends, such as Spiritualism, transcendentalism, and naturalism. Can you elaborate more on the impact of such ideas and movements on the Riddell family, their contemporaries, or your own interests?

A: Jim Alderdice, my high school history teacher, first introduced me to the Transcendentalists in one of his classes. I know we all have had a teacher or three who has influenced our ways of thinking in our formative teen years, and Mr. Alderdice was one of mine. I enjoyed exploring and discussing the ideas of these thinkers—that we are connected to Nature on a fundamental level, and that we can’t hide from this connection by claiming to not see it.
I grew up in a family of mixed religious background: my father was an old school Brooklyn Jew, my mother a tenuous Episcopalian, though her mother was raised in a Catholic convent in Canada, and her mother before that was a Tlingit Indian from the small town of Klawock on Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska. So I was raised…what? Not much. Eventually, I was baptized in the Unitarian Church, but that didn’t stick really. What stuck, for me were the ideas Mr. Alderdice introduced: we are all connected throughout all time, going forward and backward. That our world is an intricate tapestry in which every thread counts equally, because every thread touches every other thread at some point. Oh, some threads may get to stand out a bit more at certain times because of the pattern of the weave. But eternity has a way of leveling things…
This is a very old idea, if we look to other cultures and traditions. What I enjoyed about bringing these ideas of my view of spirituality into my book is that some of the ideas that we struggle with today–the environment and our relationship to it—were the same ideas previous generations of our own families struggled with a hundred and twenty years ago during the conservation movement, and before that as well. If I hope for one thing in my life, is that my children will learn from my experiences and move forward, and that my children’s children will continue to learn. Our spiritual relationship with this universe is an ongoing conversation; if we are deaf to the echoes of our past, we will stumble rather than ascend.

Q: One of the Riddells’ past tragedies involves Trevor’s great-uncle Ben and his lover Harry. What inspired you to include their gay relationship and the difficulties they faced in early 20th century society?

A: The decision wasn’t really made by me; it was made by them. I mean, I had an idea for a character who was quite poor and who developed a relationship with a very wealthy family. That’s where I started. Little did I know that this poor kid, Harry, would fall in love with the son of the great Elijah Riddell! But it happened, and it was up to me to tell their story.

In my research, I came across some wonderful essays on the Whitman Archives website, one discussing Walt Whitman’s sexuality as expressed through his poems. I like the term used in that essay: omni-sexual. Love is love, and it is quite powerful whether or not it carries with it a physical aspect. In A Sudden Light, I wanted to show that the love between Harry and Ben was, in part, physical, but also went far beyond a physical relationship. Indeed, their love was beyond temporal existence; it is truly eternal and without limit.

Q: As part of your research for A Sudden Light, you climbed a coastal redwood. What are your thoughts on that experience?

A: In August, I went down to California and met my friend, climbing guru, Tim Kovar. We climbed an 800 year old redwood, nicknamed “Grandfather,” twice. The first time we climbed, we brought along Michael Barnard, owner of Rakestraw Books in Oakland. It was a vigorous climb in the afternoon, and we all enjoyed ourselves.

Later that evening, Tim and I climbed Grandfather again, reaching the top just as the sun dipped below the horizon of the Pacific Ocean. Both climbs were wonderful, but I have to say, seeing the sunset from the top of an elder really makes one consider one’s place in the universe. I mean, we were in a tree that had lived through centuries. It had seen thousands of sunsets and will hopefully see thousands more. It was alive, and I was being held in its embrace.

Recreational tree climbers tend to be mystical people. At the very least, they are tremendously respectful of nature and our relationship to it. By spending time in the trees, I have learned to slow down, live at “tree time,” as Tim would say, and appreciate that for all the quickness of our lives—our download speeds, our cars, our Dominos Pizza delivery—Grandfather will be here long after we’re gone, unless we abuse what we’ve been given and destroy him before his time.

Q: Regrets and making amends for past wrongs are recurring themes in A Sudden Light. Is this an important theme to you?

A: In all of my books you’ll find certain themes. One of them is that we must come to terms with our past if we are to move ahead with our future. The idea of leading a thoughtful life in which we are accountable for our actions is something I like to work with.

Q: Did anything surprise you as you were researching and writing A Sudden Light?

A: There are always surprises when writing a book. As I say, the first draft of a book is about the author. It’s got our ideas and intentions. Every subsequent draft is about the story and the characters–sometimes characters tell you things and you must listen to them. I was surprised, for instance, when Harry and Ben fell in love. Then later, when Trevor dreamed that he jumped into the grave and started digging alongside Ben…that just happened without any pre-thinking on my part . In fact, I took it out after I had written it, and my wife said, “What happened to that moment?” “I wasn’t sure it worked,” I told her. “It worked; you should leave it in.” Sometimes it’s best to go with the surprises.

Q: When people read your story what would you like them to take away?

A: The epigraph of my book is: “We do not see things the way they are, we see them as we are.” I think you can apply that to books, too. We do not read books the way they are, we read the as we are. As a writer, I believe it’s my job to start the conversation, and let the reader determine what, if anything, is relevant to his or her own life. All people read a book differently, and what a given reader will get out of my book, A Sudden Light, will depend on where that person is in their life, spiritually, morally, and philosophically. My only wish is that when a reader finishes a book I have written, he finds himself considering the world with a bit of a new perspective, and looks at things just a little differently….

 

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