TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe.
Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?
Clara Ketterling-Dunbar is an American suffragist who
decamps for the English suffrage movement, just in time to have it roll over to
support the WWI effort. In utter frustration, she signs onto a cockamamie
Antarctic expedition (her words, not mine!), thinking that, in a place with no
civilization, she can gain equity. But when the crew’s ship sinks, she’s
dismayed to see that the men have thought of her as “just a woman” all along.
Clara has to prove she can handle just as much as the men can handle, all while
trying to survive in the Antarctic. This book is Clara’s diary whilst on
expedition, and pegged to Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance expedition.
Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And
which character gave you the most trouble, and why?
The answer is the same for both of these questions: there’s
a clear villain on-board the ship, and he emerged as I was determined to stick
to the timeline and historical facts of the original Endurance
expedition. But the minute it became obvious that Clara was going to have
suffer some serious indignities, including a sexual assault, at the hands of
this crew member, I began to realize that I couldn’t stick to the historical
events as much as I thought I had to: I couldn’t prescribe the things Clara
goes through to any of the men I’d gotten to know through reading crew diaries
and their later recollections of life on this expedition.
So I was really happy to get to craft this terrible creature
from wholecloth, and remind myself that I was writing fiction. This realization
gave me so much more freedom. And, at the same time, I struggled to find
inspiration for this accursed human. Finally, it occurred to me that this guy
was already lurking in my past. So I wrote him. Gleefully, and with no small
sense of vengeance.
Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s
road to publication.
No lows, unless you count the waiting. The waiting was damn
hard. But I have a great agent, Kate Testerman, and she knew just the right
editors to send it to. We had our first offer in two weeks and a competing
offer not long after. Then we had to make hard decisions. Then, we had to wait
for the contracts. All that was like a three-month process. Then it was another
year and a quarter before pub date. So yeah. Waiting was the absolute worst
bit.
I know. I’m an irrational PollyAnna about this, but I truly
loved every bit of it, especially noodling through my editor’s notes and really
thinking about them, and puzzling through how to make the revisions that would
satisfy my editor’s rightful suggestions. I actually outright loved the
revision process. When you’ve been toiling by yourself, crafting a storyline,
having someone say, “Do you mean this?” is a godsend.
What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?
Write what you’re curious about. I wish to hell I could
remember where I read this. I pride myself on taking pretty good notes, but um,
apparently not.
My favorite writing advice is “write until something
surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?
The lateness with which things that should be obvious came
together. I was obviously writing a book about inequality all along. About
strong women having to prove themselves. The Antarctic was a convenient
backdrop, because I love the place and wanted to set a book there. I knew all
of this. I sent the query and completed manuscript off to my dream agent
February of 2022. It wasn’t until August of 2021 that I stumbled upon the fact
that the women’s suffrage movement was happening at the exact same time
as the Golden Age of Exploration, when all those men went off and did manly
things. I’d been working on the book in some form (it used to be a time-travel
book!) since early 2015. People. That is a lot of years to fail at putting some
big puzzle pieces together.
But, as you can tell from the timeline, when it came
together, it came together fast.
How did you find the title of your book?
Oh, I am so glad you asked how I got the title of my book,
because I can give proper credit to my friend and writerly BFF Roz. She nudged
me toward flexing the diary format of the manuscript to do double duty as a
guidebook that outlined my hero’s hopes for the future. Then, after dropping
that gem, she said, “You could call it ‘A Suffragist’s Guide to Antarctica,’ or
something,” That conversation unlocked everything, and I will forever be in
Roz’s debt.
As I mentioned above, when you’ve been living in your head
for so long, outside voices are the best thing that can happen.
Well, that’s what works for my brain, anyway. YMMV.
Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any
food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)
Aiya, yes. All through the Endurance expedition and a great
many other cold-weather expeditions of the time, they ate hoosh, a porridge of
melted snow, pemmican, which is a kind of dried-meat cake made with tallow or
fat, and sledging biscuits. There’s a pretty
good recipe here, but I’ve gone vegetarian since I started writing this
book, so I can only tell you that the one time I made it, on my
would-not-find-in-Antarctica-in-1914-induction stove, it was…disgustingly
satisfying.
Here's something I still love, though: Kendal mint cake.
Sugar and mint syrup. There’s no record of this having been eaten on-board the Endurance
expedition, but I put it in my book anyway, because it is delicious and
well known as a food explorers and walkers of a great many hills took with them
places.
*****
READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK: https://thegooddirt.org
ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/A-Suffragists-Guide-to-the-Antarctic/Yi-Shun-Lai/9781665937764