Wally Lamb, THE RIVER IS WAITING: A Novel
[0:00]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Book to Zibi.
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[0:44]Wally Lamb is the author of the river is waiting.
[0:48]Wally is the author of six New York Times best-selling novels.
[0:51]I'll take you there.
[0:52]We are water, wishin' and hopein'.
[0:55]The hour I first believed, I know this much is true, and she's come undone.
[1:00]Wally also edited, couldn't keep it to myself, and I'll fly away.
[1:04]Two volumes of essays from students in his writing workshop at York Correctional Institution,
[1:09]a women's prison in Connecticut, where he was a volunteer facilitator for 20 years.
[1:14]Wally lives in Connecticut with his wife, Christine, and they have three cents.
[1:18]He has been on this podcast in the past, and I am delighted to welcome him back now.
[1:22]Welcome, Wally.
[1:23]Thank you so much for coming back on my show to talk about the river is waiting.
[1:28]Congratulations.
[1:29]Happy to be here, Zibi, and thank you very much.
[1:33]This book deals with such dark, heavy topics, and yet there is a hopeful message of resilience
[1:40]all the way through.
[1:42]Can you talk a little bit about where this idea came from and what it's really about?
[1:47]Sure.
[1:48]Well, you know, I never know when it's time for me to start a new book, I never know what
[1:54]it's going to be about.
[1:55]I don't, you know, I'm not moving toward a certain character or a certain ending or anything
[2:00]like that.
[2:01]But what I do, and this was something that was taught to me by a long time teacher writing
[2:08]teacher, and she said, you're never going to tell an original story.
[2:15]She said, so go back to the ancient myths because they're the stories that have lasted
[2:20]because people need them to be told and retold.
[2:23]So I have done that ever since.
[2:26]And so when I was sort of spinning my wheels and trying to figure out what did exactly
[2:31]I was going to take on, I started reading about, it's a myth about, it's called La Rona.
[2:39]And she is the wailing woman in Mexican mythology.
[2:45]And she finds out her husband is unfaithful and in response, she drowns her children
[2:52]in anger and then she is a ghost that haunts others by rivers and bodies of water.
[3:03]So I don't know, that's where I started and couldn't, you know, I kept being interested
[3:09]in that, but it wasn't getting any traction.
[3:12]And then one day in the newspaper, I found a little article on one of the, you know,
[3:17]on page one, but it was about, it was about these terrible accidents called backovers,
[3:25]where usually a parent, somebody, somebody, a loved one who has a little kid will back,
[3:32]not realize that the kid is in, not in the car, but back in, back in the driveway or whatever
[3:37]and, and will roll over them.
[3:40]And in nine out of 10 instances, the child survives, but there is that one terrible example
[3:49]of a, of a child who does not survive.
[3:51]So I was in horror when I read about that and at the time we had a, we had a, our first
[3:58]grandchild was three years old and we had just welcomed an infant, his, his baby sister.
[4:05]And I have a, I have a car with a backup camera and my son down in New Orleans, Jared,
[4:12]he and his wife did not at the time have a backup camera.
[4:15]And I was so scared.
[4:17]And I think fear probably motivates me more than anything and, and so I called them up
[4:21]and I said, look, Jared, if you fly up here to Connecticut from Louisiana, I will give
[4:29]you my car with the backup camera and I'll get another car.
[4:33]And you know, you'll so fly up and then you can drive it back and he did that.
[4:38]And I went out and got the exact same car, my, you know, that car was only about six
[4:42]months old.
[4:43]And, but I, you know, I, and the dealership was like, you want the same color?
[4:48]You want, you know, they couldn't get it.
[4:50]But yeah, that, it started with those two things really, the, you know, the whaling woman.
[4:55]And of course, in the, in the story that, that came about, you know, almost seven years
[5:01]later, you know, there is a woman who cries for her children, for her child specifically.
[5:08]And, and there is water, you know, that, that figures into it.
[5:12]And then there's that terrible accident that occurs.
[5:15]Oh my gosh.
[5:17]I love that, I love that you didn't like just tell your son Jared, like, I'm going to just
[5:20]buy you a car.
[5:21]You're like, you actually have to fly here and drive my car so that I can get help
[5:26]a new car.
[5:27]Right.
[5:28]That's right.
[5:29]A little bit of selfishness there.
[5:31]I was, no, not at all.
[5:32]You're like, you're teaching your kids to work for it.
[5:34]I love it.
[5:35]Yeah.
[5:36]Right.
[5:37]I like it.
[5:38]Well, I didn't know it had a name back over as it's, you know, as a parent, it's, I've
[5:43]oh, you're horrifying just so just the thought of it.
[5:46]So that's, that's great that you did that for him.
[5:49]But, you know, reading about it in the, the way that an accident and one moment and the
[5:56]ways that you get to some of the worst moments of your life and how you feel you can put
[6:01]yourself in those moments, like you're setting yourself up for some bad things to happen.
[6:06]Right.
[6:07]It's not that you're not causing them.
[6:08]It's just, you know, it's like when you're walking, walking in the street and I, you know,
[6:13]nothing good happens on walking on the sidewalk at like four in the morning type of thing.
[6:16]Like he's setting himself up for not optimal conditions.
[6:20]So when this horrible thing happens and then the self loathing after and what happens
[6:26]with his wife, Emily and, and Maisie is daughter, I mean, it's just, it's hard not to
[6:32]read without like grasping your chest like, oh my gosh, was it hard to write all of that?
[6:38]Like, that must have felt or do you like that feeling of like, oh, no, there's a part
[6:44]of me, maybe it's just superstitious that if I write about these terrible things happening
[6:49]to people, maybe, maybe they won't happen to me or my family, but that was only a little
[6:54]bit of part of it.
[6:55]No, it was difficult to write about because, you know, I become these characters.
[7:00]I always write in the first person, um, I think probably, oh, he pooch, oh, I'm sorry,
[7:06]my dog.
[7:07]No, don't be sorry, no, but, um, you know, I, you know, I hear actors talk about what
[7:14]they do, you know, for a living.
[7:16]And I sort of nod in recognition because what I do is like, I, you know, I walk into the
[7:24]room where I write, which is where I am now.
[7:26]And I become somebody else for, you know, five, six hours.
[7:30]And then luckily I'm able to, you know, shed that skin and go back to my own much more
[7:36]peaceful life.
[7:37]But yeah, I do feel, I feel, when I, when I'm writing as these characters, I feel
[7:41]what they're feeling.
[7:43]Well, the horror of the event just keeps going with, I don't want to give things away.
[7:49]There's so much that happens.
[7:50]And I don't want to like tell everybody, but it's just like keeps getting worse.
[7:54]It's like when you feel like your main character can't take anything else.
[7:58]He has like even more horrible, painful things physically and emotionally happening.
[8:04]How do you come back from this?
[8:06]And that's why I started by saying that is about resilience because he gets through.
[8:10]It shows us like we can get through anything.
[8:13]Is that what you were kind of going for even though it just evolved?
[8:17]You know, I wasn't going for anything in particular.
[8:19]I had no idea.
[8:20]And this is true of just about all the things that I've written, all the novels anyway.
[8:25]I didn't know where it was going to go.
[8:26]I didn't know what was going to happen.
[8:29]But another, another thing that sort of served me while I was writing this novel is that
[8:35]I had had a 20 year experience working with imprisoned women.
[8:40]I ran a writing program for them, started in 1999 and left the program in 2019.
[8:48]So, and this is a writing program, you know, I was a volunteer.
[8:52]And the women, you know, once they got to trust me and trust one another, they began
[8:57]to write about their lives.
[9:00]And in many cases, their secrets, you know, they began to divulge, you know, what had
[9:06]derailed their lives.
[9:08]Some of them, many of them had been the victims of incest when they were kids.
[9:15]But anyway, some of the women were, you know, they had had, you know, okay, middle class
[9:20]lives or working class lives and then like Corby in the novel, one day something happens
[9:28]and, you know, they go off the rails.
[9:30]And so, whereas some of the women that I dealt, some of the women that I dealt with, you
[9:35]know, had lives of crime that, you know, from early on, others just did something one
[9:42]day and found themselves in prison, which is, you know, which is not to say that Corby
[9:47]didn't, you know, cause him to, you know, to do this terrible thing and end up in prison.
[9:55]But that was, that was instructive for me that you could be living your life, you know.
[10:00]ethically and then something happens you snap or whatever and and then you spend a lot of years
[10:08]you know having to repent. Oh my gosh. You set it up with you know struggling with substance
[10:16]that's right Corby is really self-medicating his way through twin fatherhood and as a parent of
[10:23]twins like that is hard I get it it's hard to get through some days but we don't there's a lot
[10:29]written I feel like about moms needing wine to get through the tough times but there's a lot
[10:34]less about like how men cope with the overwhelm of parenting talk a little bit about that.
[10:40]Well he's before he becomes the you know the custodian parent he he's lost his job so he was a
[10:48]sort of a conventional 30 something guy working for an advertising firm and then they and then that firm
[10:55]sort of you know it's sort of you know there's a reduction in force a reduction in people and he's
[11:03]on the chopping block and so now he has a wife who is a is a teacher and she becomes the cheap breadwinner
[11:11]and he loves he loves the kids his twins his his two-year-old twins but he also as a guy feels
[11:21]somehow disconnected and something about failure because he you know he's no longer you know
[11:28]the family breadwinner and so he begins to he gets he gets he's anxious and so he gets a prescription
[11:36]for a benzodiazepine and he becomes addicted to that and he also starts drinking and he does this
[11:45]you know sneakily and so that his wife doesn't see she knows about the prescription but she doesn't
[11:51]know that he's also drinking during the day when in fact he's you know he's also parenting those kids
[11:57]so that sort of leads to what happens with him and you know I have had my own you know problems
[12:04]with alcohol and I've been I've been sober for about 14 years now but I bring my own experience
[12:14]into the into some of his addictive behavior is there a moment that you think of when you were
[12:21]struggling that's a moment that you wish so much you could take back yeah I think well not a
[12:28]not a moment but sort of a way that my life I didn't seem like me for while there and this
[12:33]this happened to me I was the late bloomer in terms of alcoholism and so um you know I drank
[12:40]enthusiastically before that but it was in my 50s when it became a real problem and it was at
[12:46]a crossroads we had we just adopted a very troubled kid you know we had two of our two of our own
[12:52]children and then we adopted a third who was mentally ill and and you know had come from a terrible
[12:59]situation so there and and so there was the challenge of that he had suddenly he changed all the
[13:05]rules of parenting that we we thought we knew about you know we could love him he was four when
[13:11]he when he came into our lives and you know we thought okay we can keep him safe and we can love him
[13:16]and and he'll come out okay but we were ignorant about the damage that can be caused in very
[13:24]early childhood so there was that at the same time my parents were I was becoming a parent of my
[13:32]parents my mother had a number of strokes and she was kind of losing her mind and my father had
[13:36]Parkinson's disease and so um they became very much in need of my support so there was you know
[13:44]there were these things happening and then and then the third element was that you know I had
[13:50]had this glorious thing happened twice with the overbook club but I was it intimidated me to
[13:57]write the first sentence of something new because I didn't want to I didn't want to disappoint
[14:02]these suddenly millions of readers that I had and and so I was I was afraid I was afraid to write
[14:07]so it was it was the you know that perfect storm of those three things happening and I began to
[14:14]escape by using by medicating myself with alcohol not not any kind of prescription medication
[14:23]but it was you know it was easy to go to the package store and spend your night with your bottle
[14:30]and how did you know it was when did you know it was a problem and when did you seek help?
[14:36]I knew it was a problem about this was it for a 10-year period I knew I was I knew it was a problem
[14:42]about five years in but then I was um I was too afraid to go to any you know 12-step program because
[14:51]uh suddenly I was you know I had this name recognition and that was keeping me away it was pride
[14:57]truly and so you know it just got worse it spiraled down and uh that God my wife hung in there with me
[15:04]and uh so eventually I had to walk in and and you know so to declare myself to a bunch of
[15:10]strangers and what was what the wonderful thing was was that it opened to me up to all kinds of people
[15:18]who I hadn't known before and uh really and and I and I still go to meetings and and I had
[15:26]so many good friendships come out of it and so really you know you think it you think this
[15:32]terrible thing is gonna lead to more terrible things but in in my case it led to a very very good
[15:38]dividend. Well good for you for getting to the other side of that and being inspiring
[15:45]those who might be struggling do you still feel that fear of starting a book? Oh yes yeah I
[15:51]have just started a new one you know but uh the one that that's coming out soon the river is waiting
[15:57]I actually finished that at the end of last year and so I didn't know what else to do I thought
[16:02]maybe well maybe that's my last novel and then uh I was hanging around the house for about a week or
[16:07]so and I go I don't know what to do so I'll try something else and so so I started uh I started
[16:17]this one and if I I knew the other one had to had to come out for so I wasn't so intimidated to
[16:22]start this but I figured uh well you know nobody's gonna have to look at this and you know for a long
[16:28]time. It's so funny oh my gosh do you feel like you'll drink said if you say what this one is
[16:33]bad can you talk about it at all? I'll tell you a little bit about it uh the main character is
[16:39]a feisty young woman named Josephine who is uh who's born in 1898 and uh she's born into a
[16:48]into a family she's got two brothers she idolizes one brother and uh she can't stand her
[16:54]bratty little brother because uh he is sick he uh his their mother enters him in the uh the charming
[17:03]child contest and uh which actually was the thing at the news and uh and he wins second prize and
[17:12]uh so the mother you know she her younger son you know can do no wrong and Josephine Josie is just
[17:19]really pissed off of this and uh he's a little brat he's a little manipulator and and then you
[17:25]know the story grows up yeah I mean she grows up a little bit in the story and he does and uh he
[17:31]becomes a sort of a conniver uh with women and uh and her brother her other brother her second
[17:39]her older brother becomes a soldier in world war once I had to do a ton of research on that horrible
[17:45]war and so that's I'm about yeah I'm about maybe 125 pages into it uh and again I'm not sure
[17:54]quite where it's going. I mean if you want I could throw out some lighter topics for you
[17:59]you just go right to that it's like you can't think of anything you know researching a new war
[18:04]it's like you're a glutton for punishment. Yeah well I did write one funny book called wish and hope
[18:10]and they uh they actually made a uh a movie a Christmas movie out of it and that that was a delight
[18:16]to to write it was the fastest thing I ever wrote and it was a lot of fun and and being you know
[18:22]going to the movie set and everything that was fun that was that would stars um uh Molly Ringwald
[18:28]and the late great meatloaf like I met when I met on the set one time and uh he said oh oh yeah
[18:37]you had a guy who wrote the book right and I said yeah and he says well I want to tell you something
[18:41]Wally I've had three concussions in my life and for these tell me about the three concussions I'm
[18:47]like okay I'm not sure where that came from but I'm gonna listen to me
[18:56]Oh my gosh I was kidding of course about the you know lighter topics um oh sure well I do
[19:04]I do have to because I write about these bleak things I do have to sort of uh save myself by
[19:10]uh putting in some uh some comic relief so uh usually there is a friend or somebody in the you
[19:17]know the one of the minor characters uh so it gives the readers a chance to sort of breathe a little
[19:22]bit in this case it is one of uh one of Corby's cellmates uh a guy named a guy named Manny
[19:30]Manny de la Vecchia who is half Italian and half Jewish and uh he's uh you know he's he's a
[19:37]he's sort of a good guy in uh in this prison where there are a lot of bad guys and uh so
[19:43]he becomes a Corby's friend which is lovely when you finish a day of intense writing
[19:49]and you walk back into the other room how is that transition are you able to just shake it off
[19:54]or does it linger do you feel it is it heavy like a coat you're wearing no I
[20:00]usually shake it off, although my wife Chris sometimes she can, she knows, I don't usually talk,
[20:06]tell her, you know, on a day-to-day basis what's happened in the story, but she can tell if something
[20:12]really hard happened because she says your behavior will sort of reflect that. I don't necessarily
[20:19]feel that, but you know, that's her observation. And I play a lot of music, music lots of times
[20:27]will pull me out and pull me out of the plot. And I also sometimes play music while I'm writing
[20:35]usually, you know, on a low volume, and sometimes it sort of helps me if I'm trying to figure
[20:42]out what the story is or what the next plot element might be. Sometimes the lyric, a song lyric
[20:49]that I kind of over here while the music is going on will direct something. And that
[20:55]and that happened. It's why I like to tip my hat to songwriters because so I've always, every one of
[21:05]my novels either is from a song title or has like an excerpt from a song, from a song lyric. And this
[21:15]latest one, the river is waiting, actually came in the middle of writing the story and it's an old
[21:23]John Fogarty song. He was the lead singer for Breton's Clearwater Revival. And this beautiful
[21:28]version of this same song by Erma Thomas, who is one of the main states of New Orleans music.
[21:35]So yeah, that's I like to sort of tip my hat to the musicians for helping me find the way.
[21:43]And you know, the river is waiting. So I decide, okay, that has to be the title. I'm not sure why,
[21:49]but what is the river waiting for? Then I have to ask myself that question and try to solve that
[21:56]real. So interesting. Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, what advice do you have for aspiring authors?
[22:03]Well, I've worked with a lot of aspiring authors, high school kids for about 25 years. And then
[22:10]I worked as the head of creative writing at the University of Connecticut for a while.
[22:15]And then I work for the prison with the prison writers and so forth. And I, I tell them the same
[22:21]message that the real writing comes in revision. You know, don't ever feel that you can get it right
[22:27]in a first draft. It doesn't happen to me and it doesn't happen to any of the professional writers
[22:31]that I know. And I've been in a writers group for book, almost when I started writing, first of all,
[22:38]at Vermont College. And then later, you know, with a private writing group there. And we've
[22:45]been going together for years and decades. And so you, so you humble yourself to the process. You
[22:52]listen to other people about how you might add something that's going to make it better or cut
[22:58]something that's going to make it better or clarify something that you think is clear, but other
[23:04]people don't. And sometimes reordering things like it, you might have a great paragraph that's buried
[23:15]in the middle of an essay or a story. So try it at the beginning. You know, see if you like it. In other
[23:22]words, that I like to, I really like to revise. I think a first draft is grunt work. I mean,
[23:30]that could come really hard to me. And then after that, all of this more play involved.
[23:35]I love that. Wally, thank you so much. The river is waiting so beautiful, so emotional.
[23:42]This is what good books do, right? They make you feel like you're going through it yourself. And
[23:48]it was really beautiful. Thank you. I really, I really enjoyed this. And the, you know,
[23:53]the way I know it is because I thought about 10 minutes that gone by. And instead,
[23:58]it's time to close. So that, that, that's a tribute to you. You're a great interviewer.
[24:04]Thank you, Sibi. And thank you for all you do for books and for readers and writers as well.
[24:10]Thank you. It's very sweet. Thank you so much. All right. Have a great day. Thank you. Bye bye.
[24:15]Thank you. Thank you for listening to totally booked with Zibi. Formerly, mom's don't have time to read
[24:21]books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens
[24:27]and spread the word. Thanks so much. Go and buy the books.