Soon Wiley, CECE DOWNING'S START OVER SUMMER: A Novel
[0:00]Welcome to Totally Booked.
[0:02]I'm Zibi Owens.
[0:04]I've interviewed more than 2,000 authors on this show
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[0:27]Soon, Wiley, author of CC Downing's Start Over Summer.
[0:32]Soon, Wiley is a native of Niac, New York,
[0:34]and the author of the novel When We Fell Apart.
[0:36]He currently teaches English at the upper school
[0:39]at Greenwich Country Day School,
[0:40]where he also serves as chair of the English department.
[0:43]He resides with his family and connect
[0:44]get, although he told me in this episode
[0:46]that they are all moving.
[0:48]So stay tuned for his next assignment.
[0:50]Welcome, soon.
[0:51]Thank you so much for coming back on to talk about CC Downing's
[0:54]Start Over Summer.
[0:56]Congratulations.
[0:57]Thank you so much.
[0:58]Thanks for having me again.
[0:59]Of course.
[1:00]Let me just start by saying how well
[1:02]you captured the point of view of a woman.
[1:05]I know that people have different views on
[1:07]can we all write from different perspectives.
[1:09]But I feel like you totally nailed that.
[1:11]So I don't know if that was even a question or what.
[1:14]Yeah, I think for my debut,
[1:17]one of the points of view of that book
[1:19]was from a woman as well, like a young female college
[1:23]student, although I think it was like elementary
[1:26]through college.
[1:26]There were some flashbacks.
[1:29]So a lot of the feedback for that book
[1:30]was about the female perspective and readers being
[1:34]interested in how I'd done that.
[1:36]And yeah, it's just been something
[1:38]I've written from the male perspective.
[1:41]Nothing published other than my first one.
[1:43]But this novel actually came from a short story
[1:45]that I wrote from my thesis way back in like 2014.
[1:49]So she's always existed.
[1:51]She's existed as a character for quite some time.
[1:54]And some of my favorite books are also
[1:57]from the female perspective.
[1:58]Why don't you tell us nurse a little bit
[2:00]about what the book is about?
[2:01]CC is 32.
[2:04]She's freshly, unfortunately been fired from her job
[2:08]as an actuary, which for folks that don't know
[2:11]actuaries are people that essentially use data
[2:14]and numbers.
[2:15]I'm not smart enough to be one.
[2:16]But the reasons that I did, they essentially
[2:19]helped predict outcomes, the probability.
[2:22]So life insurance companies have a lot of actuaries
[2:25]and their job is to predict maybe a bit more of it, right?
[2:29]But what kind of policy might the insurance company
[2:32]take out for you, given your health and et cetera?
[2:36]But the job is very much logical and numbers based
[2:39]and all kind of rational.
[2:41]And she's fired from that.
[2:42]And then that leads to a breakup with her fiance
[2:47]who is also a very nice guy and well off
[2:50]and makes a lot of sense for her.
[2:52]But something doesn't quite feel right.
[2:54]And he's kind of response to her firing also
[2:58]is kind of throws a little bit of gasoline on the fire.
[3:01]So she decides to kind of move up to new London
[3:06]and escape of sorts and ends up meeting a few characters
[3:11]and ends up working on an oyster farm.
[3:15]And so that's kind of it.
[3:17]And you know, high jinx ensue and adventure ensues, romance.
[3:21]And you know, it's one of those, I always
[3:25]like writing about characters that are in crisis.
[3:27]This crisis compared to my first book
[3:29]felt a little bit lighter and a little bit more.
[3:31]There are certainly moments of drama,
[3:32]but there's a lot of kind of lighthearted
[3:35]feel-good moments.
[3:35]So that was nice.
[3:37]There are so many really interesting threads.
[3:40]One of which is the oyster farm itself,
[3:43]which I am really interested in.
[3:44]We published a book called Pierce Oyster's Wildback.
[3:47]And I got involved with the billion oyster project.
[3:50]And so it's become sort of an area of fascination for me
[3:53]over the last several years.
[3:54]So I loved all of the things that happened with that
[3:57]and the trajectory and the project.
[4:00]I mean, there was so much that subplot,
[4:03]which actually maybe talk about that.
[4:05]Where did that even come from for you?
[4:06]As a writer, you spend, and you know this too.
[4:09]I mean, you spend a lot of time just writing,
[4:12]sitting in your desk.
[4:12]So one thing that I find important is
[4:15]like write about your passions, right?
[4:16]If you can slip in a passion, it kind of takes things
[4:19]a little bit even more exciting when you're writing a book.
[4:22]So I've always loved eating oysters.
[4:25]That's the first thing.
[4:26]But I'm also fascinated with them.
[4:28]I think there's such an interesting,
[4:30]there's such interesting organisms.
[4:32]It's also such an interesting metaphor.
[4:34]Oysters taste different and are different based
[4:37]on their environment, right?
[4:38]So the temperatures of waters and West Coast oysters
[4:41]are different than East Coast oysters,
[4:43]and they taste completely different.
[4:44]They're also really good for your environment.
[4:46]They filter the water.
[4:47]They're kind of really a plus for the ecosystem.
[4:50]And also just being from New York, you know,
[4:53]there are these accounts of oysters being like just
[4:56]the Hudson, right?
[4:57]You could look down and there were these incredible oyster
[4:59]beds.
[5:00]And even there are all these really cool accounts
[5:02]of when Manhattan was settled, right?
[5:03]That there were like oysters lining the streets.
[5:06]And basically there's so many oysters
[5:07]that we didn't know what to do with.
[5:09]The Dutch kind of wiped those out.
[5:12]And then there were some other commercial farming,
[5:13]but they're kind of coming back now, which is great.
[5:16]But that was just something that, you know,
[5:18]when you write things happen,
[5:19]characters end up doing things that surprise you.
[5:21]And so when she ended up working on the history,
[5:25]it was like the complete opposite, right?
[5:27]Of what she's done.
[5:28]So once I kind of written a draft, I realized it was kind
[5:32]of a nice plot point of like conflict,
[5:35]but also something, you know, I'm a teacher by trade.
[5:39]And I also in my spare time write,
[5:41]which is all very like kind of soft,
[5:44]a lot of sedentary work.
[5:46]So it's always nice to do something physical, right?
[5:50]Whether that's exercise or actually like yard work
[5:53]or gardening or whatever.
[5:54]You know, I always love to get out of chainsong,
[5:56]cut down a tree or something.
[5:57]It feels like the opposite, right?
[5:59]It's like tangible, like, okay,
[6:00]I actually did something, whereas with writing,
[6:03]you know, sometimes you spend hours working on something
[6:05]and you just, okay, did I get anything done?
[6:07]Was anything actually, was any progress made?
[6:11]So I think that's one of the appeals for CCR, right?
[6:13]Is that it's something where the pressures off,
[6:16]it's manual labor.
[6:17]It's something that she actually loves to do,
[6:19]even though being a oyster farmer is actually quite hard
[6:22]and you don't make much money.
[6:23]And there's all sorts of unpredictability in the business.
[6:26]So it was kind of nice, a nice plot point
[6:29]when the draft took me there.
[6:31]I was excited when she ended up on the oyster book.
[6:34]This is when people think writers are nuts,
[6:37]when we're like, and then she ended up on oyster farm.
[6:41]I was so happy about it.
[6:42]It's like, wait, didn't you write that?
[6:43]Yeah, I had no power in New Orleans,
[6:46]and that choice.
[6:48]But yeah, as you know, I mean,
[6:49]just, you know, characters surprise you
[6:52]and they do all sorts of wacky things
[6:55]that maybe at the moment don't make sense,
[6:57]but I think if you kind of trust your instincts
[6:59]and at least follow those decisions,
[7:01]it's always fun to see at the end, you know,
[7:03]whether those were the right decisions or not.
[7:05]So interesting.
[7:07]Cece is also going through something that many people,
[7:10]I'm sure, have been through at one point
[7:12]or another in their lives after a breakup,
[7:14]wondering, was that the right thing, right?
[7:18]Like, I think so, but the other person doesn't think so
[7:21]and they're trying to convince me otherwise,
[7:23]are they right?
[7:24]Am I right?
[7:24]Do I listen to myself?
[7:26]There's no logic, right?
[7:28]Emotions and relationships are so complicated
[7:31]and there's never a right answer necessarily.
[7:33]So I feel like we're so in this with Cece,
[7:36]as she wrestles with this.
[7:37]And I love that as she, you know,
[7:40]has a very interesting experience with Morgan
[7:42]that I won't, you know, as that relationship takes off
[7:45]and we find out more things as the novel goes on about Jonathan
[7:50]that maybe lead her one way or another
[7:52]into her decision making.
[7:54]At the beginning, she's very much like,
[7:57]I think this is right, but maybe it isn't.
[8:00]Talk about that, because that is a tough way to be.
[8:03]Yeah, so I try to treat every character kind of with grace.
[8:06]That only my character is to be villains.
[8:08]And in many ways, he is a great guy
[8:10]and I think many, many people and CC acknowledges this,
[8:13]like any girl would, you know,
[8:15]die to be in the position that I'm in
[8:17]and I think even her sister and her mother say that to her.
[8:21]And, you know, she's also someone that he is obsessed
[8:23]with like the right decision
[8:24]and that there is actually like an objectively,
[8:28]like a formula almost.
[8:29]And that's kind of what drives her crazy
[8:31]about the whole thing is that it still doesn't feel right.
[8:34]And there is something,
[8:35]even though throughout the book she's kind of gone.
[8:38]She's trying to figure out kind of
[8:39]and she does kind of go back and forth.
[8:41]And then Morgan, who's kind of this summer fling
[8:45]who comes in her life,
[8:46]who she very quickly identifies right as,
[8:49]this is something temporary,
[8:50]this is something that's just kind of,
[8:52]it's a fleeting thing and it's not gonna last.
[8:54]But I think I was interested in, you know,
[8:57]when the older I get,
[9:00]I feel like I think about this,
[9:03]that I was interested in CC's predicament
[9:06]because I think what happens when like you meet the right person,
[9:10]but it's like the worst time or it's like the worst timing.
[9:14]And right when you've just gotten out of a marriage
[9:18]or gotten out of a relationship or, you know,
[9:20]and it can be any relationship really.
[9:22]Often I think at least an American culture,
[9:26]I don't know if it's like in other cultures,
[9:27]but there's this insistence on like,
[9:29]I need time to like, I need six months or a year.
[9:32]I'm not gonna, you know, date or I'm not gonna see anyone
[9:35]or I'm gonna be celibate for five years.
[9:37]And then I'm, you know, I'm gonna clear my head.
[9:39]I don't think we're that good at that.
[9:41]Usually people fall into something very quickly
[9:44]or, you know, there's oftentimes there's something like
[9:47]that maybe it began right before the end of something
[9:50]and then that kind of bleeds into one another.
[9:53]There's one other piece of the story
[9:55]that I found really interesting, which is CC's mom.
[9:59]So she's,
[10:00]It's really pressuring CC to end up with Jonathan.
[10:03]And she even has a line about how it's not,
[10:08]well, she says like it's,
[10:09]can I read this line from her letter?
[10:10]Yeah, of course.
[10:11]Remember her letter?
[10:12]She's talking about,
[10:13]she's pressuring her to get back together with her.
[10:15]She said, everyone loses their,
[10:16]and she's saying, okay, I'll start here.
[10:18]I can only hope that you've reconciled with Jonathan.
[10:20]He's a good man, CC.
[10:21]He is dependable, and yes, he is rich,
[10:23]and that matters.
[10:24]There, I've said it.
[10:25]Sure, money doesn't buy happiness,
[10:27]but it buys so much else, space, time, safety,
[10:31]and consistency.
[10:32]You might not think much of these things.
[10:34]You're still young, but trust me,
[10:35]there is nothing worse, nothing dinjier,
[10:38]than getting old and worrying about money.
[10:40]I don't know why I've never said it so plainly to you before,
[10:43]perhaps because it sounds crude,
[10:45]but it only sounds crude to those
[10:46]who are unwilling to admit it's truth.
[10:49]I actually hear myself.
[10:52]I actually think CC's mom is,
[10:55]I think maybe qualifies as an unlikable character.
[10:58]I think she doesn't have that many redeeming qualities,
[11:01]but there is a lot of truth in what she says, right?
[11:05]Maybe not the dingy part, that's a little bit cruel,
[11:07]but, and right, it isn't like,
[11:09]I don't think she's talking about like,
[11:10]an amount of money, right?
[11:12]She's talking about what are the things that you want
[11:14]when you're older, not when you're 30
[11:16]and figuring things out, but down the road,
[11:19]hear the things that if you want space and time
[11:22]and good health, well, then you're gonna need kind of money
[11:24]to buy those things.
[11:26]And CC, I think, obviously, her two choices,
[11:31]if they are choices, maybe represent kind of having
[11:34]to decide between those things.
[11:36]And she probably sees them in a very kind of black
[11:38]and white way, which of course isn't really the case.
[11:42]But yeah, CC's mom, I think it's someone
[11:44]that we probably, I'll be interested to hear
[11:49]what readers think of her,
[11:51]because I think, in some instances,
[11:54]she is really tough kind of in her,
[11:57]in her, the advice that she's given to CC.
[12:00]And right, often we probably would not want parents telling us,
[12:05]who to marry and who not to marry and who to choose
[12:08]and who not to choose.
[12:09]But I think there is actually a lot of wisdom
[12:12]in what she's saying.
[12:14]So yeah, I don't know what that says about me
[12:16]that I'm citing, right today, I'm saying.
[12:18]I'm saying CC mom.
[12:20]She probably isn't going about it in the best way.
[12:24]But right, she herself is in a position
[12:26]where she's older, she's, you know,
[12:29]because she feels like she hasn't made enough money,
[12:31]she's having to work kind of closer.
[12:32]She thought she would have been retired already.
[12:35]So she's coming from the perspective of like,
[12:37]hey, I didn't think about this stuff enough.
[12:39]And you know, that's kind of the pattern, right?
[12:42]As parents, we want to make sure that our kids,
[12:46]whether we want to call the mistakes or challenges
[12:48]or whatever it is, but we want to make sure that our kids,
[12:51]you know, maybe don't do the same stuff that we did
[12:54]that we think gave us a really hard time.
[12:57]Interesting.
[12:57]And yet CC's mom is having her own start over
[13:00]in the end as well.
[13:01]I mean, that could be the next book.
[13:02]CC's, CC's mom is the start over, start over fall.
[13:06]And then we just keep going.
[13:07]Exactly.
[13:08]And so I know you have a lot of personal change
[13:11]on the horizon.
[13:12]Like what chapter would you say you are leaving
[13:16]in an entering in your life?
[13:18]Oh, gosh.
[13:19]That's a good question.
[13:20]I think creatively.
[13:22]So I mean, this book is very different from my first book.
[13:25]You know, my first book was more of a mystery,
[13:29]like self-discovery book about identity.
[13:32]And this book is kind of a much more kind of feel-good,
[13:36]romantic, beat-read.
[13:37]And so I guess creatively,
[13:39]like I'm kind of wondering what my third book
[13:41]will be about.
[13:42]I have some ideas and I'm working on stuff.
[13:45]But when I was kind of working on my second book,
[13:49]I had a couple of different directions that I could go.
[13:52]And this is the direction that kind of ended up,
[13:55]it was the most fun for me.
[13:56]It was the one I wanted to keep working on past 80 pages
[13:59]or whatever it is that were you usually hit that wall.
[14:02]So yeah, I'm interested in kind of what chapter that is.
[14:05]I also was writing and finishing this book
[14:09]during the birth of my daughter.
[14:11]So that was, that's also a big change.
[14:15]So I'm trying to figure out how to find time to write
[14:18]and how to, you know, while I'm giving her as much attention
[14:23]as I can.
[14:24]Amazing.
[14:25]Yeah, a very busy chapter.
[14:27]Good luck with your, your move this summer.
[14:29]Thank you so much.
[14:30]Okay, bye.
[14:31]Thank you for listening to totally booked with Zibi,
[14:34]formerly Momstone, I have time to read books.
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[14:44]Thanks so much.
[14:45]Oh, and bye the books.