Poured Over: Alison Espach on Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance
“For me, part of the fun of coming-of-age novels, both reading and writing is getting to have that adult perspective on these youthful moments and kind of allow you to make sense of them in a way you couldn’t before; it can allow you to forgive yourself for some of the things maybe you did, it can allow you to laugh at some of the things that horrified you know, and that can bring peace and joy and resolution.” It’s been a minute since Alison Espach’s debut novel The Adults—she joins us on the show to talk about the inspiration behind her new novel, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance, writing love stories, sitting with grief, her obsession with the passage of time in life and in books, Lorrie Moore’s Self-Help, and much more with Poured Over’s Host, Miwa Messer. And we end the show with TBR Topoff book recommendations from Margie and Marc.
Featured Books:
Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach
Self-Help by Lorrie Moore
Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.
Full transcript for this episode of Poured Over:
B&N: I’m Miwa Messer, I’m the producer and host of Poured Over and I’m really excited to have Alison Espach here. She is the author of The Adults, which you may have remembered from 2011. And it’s a pretty terrific coming of age novel set in Connecticut. And it’s been a minute. This book came out in 2011. Alison, where have you been?
Alison Espach: It’s a very good question. I have, I’m afraid my answer might disappoint you. I’ve been in Rhode Island that I have been basically trying to write this novel that is coming out in May. Alongside writing that novel, I moved a few times, I started a new job, I got into new relationships, ended new relationships, made new friends you know, basically life. But really, you know, you the question I think you’re asking is, why did it take you so long to write this second novel? And that was a question I asked myself quite a few times, it was a question my parents asked me quite a few times, right? as supportive as my parents are, and they’re very supportive every once in a while, I’d be like, What are you writing war in peace? You know, come on, I didn’t think after publishing The Adults that it would take so long to put out my next novel, I’m someone who sort of always wrote obsessively whether or not someone was going to read it. And I think, in fact, what I realized over the past 11 years is that when I wrote The Adults, I truly didn’t believe anyone was going to read it. You know, it’s your first book. And I was pretty young, you know, when I, when I was writing that I was started when I was about 23. So I was really just moving out of the writing in my diary phase, and only my mother wants to read this, that is what I had in my head. And that’s what allowed me to write it so freely, and quickly and without much hesitation. And then people read it, you know, and then I read what people thought about it, for better or worse, and I didn’t think it was going to have such a huge effect on me. But it did, because it was surprising. It was a debut novel, my agent kept telling me over and over, in the kindest way possible before it sold, don’t expect too much from your first book, she’s very, very cautious about keeping my expectations low. And so it was very surprising to me that anyone said anything, and those things just kind of got into my brain, even the praise gets into your brain. So I kept thinking, this book has to be funnier than The Adults, this book has to do all the things that The Adults did, but times too, you know, and, and that’s just no way to write. So what happened is I wrote a few different books that I think of sort of as trial and error books until I stumbled upon the writing of Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance. And I kind of knew even really, really, when I wrote down that first title. That’s how it began for me with the title. I just kind of knew that this was going to carry me to the publication phase.
B&N: This new novel has an amazing opening line, you disappeared on a school night. That’s a great opening line. Would you set notes up for the listeners?
AE: When I began writing this novel, I really wanted to write about this young sister who has this older sister Kathy, and the young sister, the narrator, Sally, she kind of worships her older sister Kathy, in a way that I think a lot of younger siblings sort of worship their older sibling, right? She’s so beautiful. She’s so smart. She knows everything. I want to be around her all the time. And I wanted to open the book with this evening when the older sister, Kathy, says, I’m going out for can you take notes on the State of the Union for me while I’m gone? And of course, the little sister Sally says yes, absolutely. That night, she begins taking notes for her sister. And the next day, tragedy strikes, Kathy dies. And I conceived of the rest of the book really as a series of notes that Sally would take for her sister on everything that she missed for the next 10 or 15 years.
B&N: Those notes include notes on their parents and on school and a boy and a boy who Sally keeps calling your boyfriend. Your boyfriend. Billy Barnes is local boy basketball star. Yeah, he’s Kathy’s boyfriend. I mean, they’re definitely a couple and his story gets locked in with Sally’s and her parents. And it’s interesting the way you walk this line between grief and humor, because sometimes grief can be funny. We’re gonna get to that part of the conversation, but grief and humor and forgiveness and the passage of time and the passage of time is really hard to capture on the page and you do it with these changes. Suddenly, phones are replaced with instant messages. And then instant messages are replaced with the phone again, and how teenagers talk to each other and how they interact and how parents see their jobs and how parents see each other. You’ve got a lot of moving parts in this book.
AE: I do. Yes, for better or worse. Really. I’m obsessed with the passage of time, both in life and in literature, the divine Ice of Sally taking these notes for her sister was really what helped me explore. I think that passage of time in a particular way or sort of brought out the distinctions between moments of our life, I wanted to structure the book. So that sort of every time we see Sally again, she’s a little bit older, and the world around her is different enough so that she wants to write to her sister again, right? You know, she feels like she has something to report, you wouldn’t believe the way the world is now, Kathy. You know, that’s very much how I imagined each reason for stopping where we stop and Sally’s timeline, right? That that, Oh, yeah. Now I’m talking to your boyfriend on instant messenger. These are the things he says to me. And years later, I’m talking to your boyfriend on the phone. Now, this is what his voice sounds like now that he’s older and so on. So for me, that was both the fun of writing the book trying to capture each specific time and the elements, the tech, the different forms of communication that were predominantly being used at that time, but also just the weirdness of having to report on what the world is like to your older sister, who’s supposed to know it before you do.
B&N: How did you know when you had Sally’s voice, because it’s really she’s a messy teenager, she she’s not one of these teenagers who’s sort of preternaturally old and wise.
AE: I think I had it. And this will probably sound annoying to anyone who’s struggling on a book right now. But I probably had it from the title. And that first line, I mean, I really did write Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance, and then you disappeared on a school night. And this direct address to Kathy is what put Sally’s voice into perspective. For me, she was always the audience. And so I just knew I wanted this voice of this little girl who’s both trying to connect to her older sister with the stories that she’s telling and also sort of reveal herself to her older sister.
B&N: She’s also working through her grief, and her parents are not handling this well, as you know, to be expected their children are not supposed to die before you do. Certainly, it’s also the 90s, we didn’t have a lot of language for especially in New England, we really don’t have language, for emotion and grief, and grief, you know, it’s presented so often in literature and other media as sort of being this very quiet moment. And there’s a lot of rage, there’s a lot of chaos, all of which you capture, not just through Sally, who she’s 14, when the book opens, and we see her as time passes.
AE: She’s 13, I believe.
B&N: So in the throes of adolescence, and then on top of it, her sister gets taken away. And there’s all of this grief, and she hasn’t got the first clue how to process it. And her parents don’t have a clue how to help her either.
AE: No, and I don’t think anyone could ever know, particularly with such a sudden death that happens instantly. You know, the first thing that Sally is dealing with is just utter shock, right and as well as her parents, and in my experience, you know, I lost a brother when I was about Sally’s age 14, and he was 16. And, and so much of the grief that I explore in Sally’s life is drawing on my experiences, my feelings, my thoughts at that time, but also my feelings and thoughts now as a 37 year old. And when I look back, I can really see just how long, I was in shock. And I can see it now I didn’t, I didn’t quite know it at the time. You know, at the time, what it feels like is why am I not responding properly? Why am I not saying the things I’m supposed to be saying? Why am I not crying at the right moments?
B&N: So here you are deep in your own feelings. But deep in the character’s feelings is what it’s a lot of emotion, especially because of teenagers. I mean, what’s that like for you as the writer, balancing your characters needs your own understanding and also just needing to take a step back. So you can breathe a little bit too because you can’t sit with this 24/7. You just, it’s too intense.
AE: Yeah, that’s a great question. I, for me, writing this book was was interesting because I never really wanted to write about this particular kind of grief. I think for the reasons that we don’t want to feel this particular kind of grief. My brother’s death dominated my adolescence in all the ways you would imagine. And by the time I became, you know, a young woman in my 20s I wanted to live my life. I wanted to move beyond it. I got irritated when people brought it up, you know, just sort of let me move on world and I found sort of in my 30s, I found it kept coming back in certain ways. It kept showing up in moments when I least expected it and I don’t know maybe it was just feeling older. Maybe it was feeling like I had the chance to live differently for quite some time that I was ready to really face it and actually became interested in engaging with it again, in a way that I would say never, I never was, I was always tired of it, I was always ashamed of it. So writing this book did allow me to sit in my grief in a way that I don’t think I ever had even right after it happened, because as a teenager, you have so many concerns, right. And I really tried to express those concerns through Sally like the song that we chose for the funeral. So embarrassing. Whatever those teenagers concerns might be, and they get in the way of processing grief. And now I just I don’t have those concerns. And so it just felt like for the first time truly processing it through my writing, I think that those moments when I was sick of it, right or those moments when I was like, Okay, enough, I just want to go canoeing, I want to, like sit in the sun and tired of these feelings. That was an important thing, too. Because I think that feeling urged me on, it pushed me toward the end and pushed me to explore the possible ways that Sally might also let go of her grief.
B&N: I think it’s really important to point out there are a lot of moments of joy and love and fun, you have not written a dirge.
AE: Well, thank you for saying that.
B&N: It’s a big, sweeping story. But it’s also a coming of age again. You’ve written another coming of age.
AE: Yes, I have.
B&N: It is different, obviously, from the adults, not just in plot, but in tone and some other things. Clearly, we love to read coming of age stories, you clearly like writing them. I mean, is it just that that we’re all looking for a do over?
AE: Partly, I think yeah, you know, I mean, and I also think that we experienced so much as teenagers, that we just don’t have the time or the skills to reflect upon, at the moment, it’s happening. And some really big things happen to us when we’re young. I mean, uh, you know, for me, part of the fun of coming of age novels, both reading and writing is getting to have that adult perspective on these youthful moments and kind of allow you to make sense of them in a way you couldn’t before it can allow you to forgive yourself for some of the things maybe you did, it can allow you to laugh at some of the things that horrified you know, and that can bring peace and joy and resolution. And so I’m really drawn to it for that reason. But I also think my sister-in-law, just read the book for the first time. And she was like, how do you remember all of that, you know, you know, I just like, I forgot what it was like to be 13 or 14. And for me, you know, I think perhaps is best explained. But you know, my father and I, we used to always ask this question to each other, like, what age are you really, he was like, probably 65 at the time, but he’s like, you know, in truth, I’m a 27 year old man inside in my head, right. And I was very much like, I’m 28, but I’m secretly 14. Yeah, maybe not the best age to be sort of psychologically frozen at but I think I do feel so in touch with who I was when I was 13 or 14. And probably because I experienced such a sudden loss and shock at that time, it was almost sort of like jumping into a really, really cold ocean. And it’s you’re just so suddenly aware of your body and your self and reality. And I don’t think I can forget that feeling. Joan Didion in her essay, Goodbye to All That puts us in a way I love right. I’ve lost touch with a few of the people I used to be. And that’s certainly true for me, but I don’t think I’ll ever lose touch with that 14 year old girl, she feels always in reach for me. And so I think for that reason, I’m just always drawn back to that little person.
B&N: I think there’s also something to be said, though, for reading coming-of-age stories as an adult and being able to see the adults as people and not these mythological figures, you know, mom and dad, capital M capital D, in control of everything. And, and control is part of that story. You know, you’re a teenager figuring out what you can control what you can’t wanting to control everything at any given moment. But then also thinking, Well, my parents do have control and realizing they don’t, and that they’re just people. It’s amazing when we see Sally start to realize, I mean, her mother starts going to a psychic who’s not really a psychic, I get that mom is having a crisis of faith. And I totally understand why Mom is having a crisis of faith, but I was not expecting a psychic. Is she just reaching for anything she can?
AE: Yeah, I think so. You know, I think the desire to connect to the people that we’ve lost is so strong. It’s one of the strongest things that we feel as humans and particularly between a mother and a child, right. So to me going to see a psychic really seemed like a natural progression for a grieving mother. And perhaps that highlights how much a tragedy like that can change a person right? The mother character really wasn’t the kind of person who would even think that way. Very kind of practical in the living world kind of mom. And so when Sally starts To see her mother really lean on what the psychic is telling her and what the psychic is promising her right, this continued conversation with her dead child, how could you turn away? You know, there’s just always that little thought, but what if? What if? What if? What if?
B&N: The women and girls in the story has very different life? I mean, there’s grandma, we’re gonna let readers meet. But grandma has a very prickly, distinct personality. Mom who goes through a lot in this book. And ultimately Sally’s life is going to be very different from her grandmother’s and her mother’s. And here she is trying to explain to Kathy, what all of these changes are, I mean, they’ve always known this very sort of specific path. And now the world’s opening up, and Sally’s kind of looking at their mom going I don’t think this is right. Honestly, it’s not just the psychic, there’s a lot. What do you think Kathy’s response would be to Sally’s adult life?
AE: That was a question I did try to ask myself at every big life moment for Sally, What would her sister’s reaction be? Because I, you know, I think that was very much how Sally processed her experiences, right? I know, I experienced it. But now what would my sister say in this moment, and there is that attempt that she has, when she’s with Ray to sort of reimagine what her sister would be like, if she were in the kitchen with them, you know, would she clap her hands when Ray popped the cork of the champagne, which she loved the way that Ray bought fancy wines and drinks, probably right. But at that point, she’s almost working off bad data about her sister, because so much time has passed. And for me, it became really difficult to imagine what my adult brother would say, because you can know the younger version of them so well, better than anything, right. But I think if life teaches us anything, and if this book teaches you anything is that people can change wildly, and you just never know. You never know who they’re going to become. And so I think there’s always that insecurity for Sally that yes, she still knows her sister so well. And she can predict certain reactions that her sister might have based on who her sister had been when she was 17. But she kind of knows by that point in her life, that she doesn’t know who her sister would have become. She didn’t know who she would become, she could never have predicted it.
B&N: I want to move over to craft talk for a second, because your editor is also a novelist. Yes. And I’m wondering how does that change your relationship when you’re working together? If you’re stuck, for instance, whatever the situation may be, is she able to step back and say, Oh, I get this? How does that relationship work?
AE: It’s fantastic to have your editor also be an amazing writer. I can’t recommend it enough. Carolyn, and she has been such a positive force for this book. And specifically to your question, you know, I mean, I think my experiences with editors in the past have been, you know, okay, the editor points out a line that’s maybe overwritten, or not quite working the way it should. And that’s the editors job to point it out. Right, and maybe tell you a little bit about why it’s not working. But if your editors a writer, the editor might also say, why not try this, her brain is working on that level as well. She’s not just sort of looking for things that irk her, or maybe you don’t sound quite right. She’s also thinking, how would I fix this? Right? How would you take this metaphor and sharpen it. And so that was just such a delight to see opening the manuscript after Carolyn sent it back to me. And just every once in a while seeing a little gem, a suggestion, writers do so many edits, over and over and over again. And there are times in the editorial process where you feel like you’ve run out of steam, or you can’t fix another thing. And so those were the little gifts that I think she gave me to just Oh, yeah, that’s right. That’s how you do it. And then I would go on.
B&N: Did you have a favorite moment while you were writing Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance, just something where all of a sudden you realized it was working? Especially because you’d clearly put other projects aside that you just had been wrestling with this for a bit but outside of the title in the first line, which we know how you kicked it off, but was there just something that surprised you as you were doing this?
AE: It always surprises me, anytime I try to work on a novel. My particular process is a little crazy, and I wouldn’t suggest it to anyone but I don’t write in order. I did for this book start with that kind of beginning idea and that a very strong sense of how I wanted to open but after that, you know, I just started writing things like short you know, what I thought might be a short story I started writing something maybe about Billy or Ray like a story from their life that I had no idea why I was writing it but I was just drawn to it for whatever reason and you know, after years of kind of doing this with really no system in place, you end up with a lot of material and no map. So for me the writing process is like sorting everything out, selecting, oh, that story belongs that other story about Ray. Good to write but total garbage. Just, you know, let it go. And so I think I have a lot of those moments toward the end of like, yes, yes. It’s like putting a puzzle together. Yes, it fits, I thought it might fit. You know, the ending for me is really that golden moment that, okay, I got it. If I don’t quite have the ending in place, I can’t sleep. Like I don’t feel like I know that I can finish it or where it’s going. So when I started writing the weather report and really realize the work that the hurricane could do at the end, that was when I knew.
B&N: It’s a really great ending. It is so perfect and organic for these characters. That’s all I’m gonna say, because she just read it here. So Thomas Hardy comes up. And I was not expecting Thomas Hardy and I don’t think it’s quite a high school reference. I mean, there’s some talk about what the girls have been studying and what they’ve been working on. So it’s Thomas Hardy part of your reading life.
AE: You know, no. He was part of my high school reading life. I remember reading Tess, and that book did I couldn’t speak intelligently on it now, because I haven’t read it since I was in high school. But I remember loving the scope of it. The idea of watching this girl grep through so many changes, and the payoff at the end of staying with someone for so long. Through so much development, obviously, you can see my attraction to that come out and the things that I write.
B&N: Well, I felt like there was a little bit of Susan Mynott in your work and a little bit of Lily King in your work. Your publisher also has mentioned Mary Beth Keane’s Ask Again, Yes. Which I can totally see that
AE: I didn’t read that until I saw that I was compared to it.
B&N: But you see the connection?
AE: And then I read it, I was like, Oh, my goodness, yes, yes.
B&N: Very, very good comp. And Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carroll Rifka brunt, which I also think is a pretty great comp. So if you’re listening and you’ve read any of those four writers, you really do need Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance. But who are you as a reader?
AE: I would say my very first sort of true love of something as an adult reader was Lorrie Moore. And that book, self help. I read it when I was in college professor had given it to me it wasn’t part of the assigned reading of any particular class, you know, because I went to a college that we read much older stuff more often than not. And so I was really not well read and contemporary fiction, even when I was really starting to think that I might want to become a writer. And so being given a copy of Self Help by Lorrie Moore was I would say, true. I mean, actually, life changing. I read in a day essentially couldn’t believe that you could write like that. I didn’t know you could be so funny or irreverent or talk about sex, or it just opened my eyes and lit the fire for me.
B&N: You teach right? Do you teach, writing?
AE: I do. Yes.
B&N: Can we talk about your life as a teacher for a second? Who’s on your syllabus? What are you trying to get your students to see what have you learned from your students?
AE: Yeah, so I teach creative writing classes. And I also teach some required literature courses that have a sort of historical component. And that’s a great combination, because I’m often reading things that I don’t feel like reading, but have to teach combined with things that I get to choose things that I’m truly passionate about. And so it’s always like a little bit of education, a little bit of inspiration for my creative writing courses. I do love to teach Lorrie Moore, I did just teach the other day How to Become a Writer by Lorrie Moore, we were talking about some of the funnier moments or you know how she creates comedy in her writing. And for me, you know, I’m always trying to get my students to think more about specificity and detail that the humor is is in the precision of the detail. You can’t tell your reader that it’s funny, you really have to do the work of finding exactly the right detail that’s going to make them laugh, and I think Lorrie Moore is so good at that. So that is always for me a constant education of looking at writers who do it well, and always being reminded of just how precise you need to be sometimes. And then there’s Girl by Jamaica Kincaid, which I really love. And my students are really drawn to as readers.
B&N: So 11 years later, you’ve got a second novel, you’re teaching, you’re learning from your students, you’re learning from your own mistakes, you’re learning from your editor. What, if any advice do you have for a writer who’s just starting out or frankly, is just stuck?
AE: Well, one of the things that I have learned teaching and just being a writer is how important it is to trust yourself as a writer, and I’ve really come to believe that that’s the number one thing before all other things, you just have to start trying and I know it’s so hard, but really start trying to believe that the things that you think are good or good, the things that you think are funny are funny, the things that you like are worth liking, because at the very end of the day, it’s going to be that trust that you have Have your own tastes and your own ability that’s going to carry you through because you can always be asking other people, right? Is this good or bad? Is this good or bad? Does this work or not work? Certainly there’s a role for editors and readers, of course, but it’s that intuitive sense of, I’m pretty sure this is good. And that’s very hard for new writers and young writers or any writer who’s stuck to feel because that’s, in fact, when you feel the least confident, right? And so I think you just do that by literally telling yourself, sometimes a post it note on your computer can help, right? You’re good. My 14 year old self would be really embarrassed that I do things like that now, right? Like have to speak to myself in the mirror or write little like kind notes to myself, but I think they work over time.
B&N: How did writing Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance change you?
AE: I think it freed me in very important ways. You know, as we were talking about before, so much of the writing of this book felt like sitting in grief and truly feeling it for the first time. There were times when writing this book, where you know, I was pretty certain that, oh, this might be the first time I’ve ever really cried about my brother’s death, right, just some of the passages when I was working on them, just brought it out me, you know, in a way that I never could quite feel before. So that was healing in its own way, just getting the opportunity to grieve like that, I was always very embarrassed of my grief. I suspect I know why. And we don’t need to get into that. But to get to a place where I wasn’t embarrassed about it anymore. And I was actually starting to see it as just a really natural human response and evidence of great love that I shared with another person that was so important to understand and feel. And, you know, part of writing this book and the fact that it took so long, I did get sick of it. And I was so happy when I finished a joke with my editor, you know, like, I didn’t really feel the catharsis until she bought it and started to work on it. Because that was when I felt like I could go canoeing, right, like someone else is working on it, she’s taking care of it, I don’t have to think about it at all. And I can just be present wherever I am. So it really did have that freeing effect for me in my life. And in my fiction, I find myself really excited by the things that I’m writing now. I don’t feel like everything’s sort of always coming back to death or grief in the way that perhaps it has for me in the past. So that’s really fun for me, too.
B&N: Is forgiveness part of that? There are a couple of points where characters make choices in this book, that it seems that even you as the writer would need to have a little grace for them as well. Not just for you. But I mean, there are a couple of things that readers will discover and go, Oh.
AE: She shouldn’t have done that. Maybe a bad idea. Yeah, I think forgiveness is really everything. Yeah, forgiveness of myself. For anyone who’s ever lost a sibling, you know how guilty you can feel just by the fact that you’re still alive. And for Sally, one of the things that she keeps coming back to is that this idea that so many of her greatest moments of joy are linked with guilt, wow, I get to experience life still. I get to feel the full joy of something and my sister doesn’t, you know, so that kind of feeling really is powerful for siblings who lose siblings, this kind of survivor’s guilt. And so I think I tried to express that in ways dramatically, like perhaps through character mistakes, or people doing things that perhaps they shouldn’t be doing. It doesn’t even have to be like that in life. It can just be here I am making breakfast and my brother’s not right. And that can be quite damaging. And so for me, you know, what did I have to forgive myself for it was just allowing myself to feel joy, allowing myself to not think about it for days or weeks or months, and just live my life and the people around you too, you know, I mean, one of the really challenging things about losing someone, particularly a child in the family is everyone’s different overnight. Suddenly, your parents are different. You’re different. You’re all grieving in different ways. In my experience, it generally doesn’t ever line up. And so you can hold on to little resentments. You can say, Oh, my mom didn’t do this for me, or she was crying when I needed her. Right. And so part of it was not just understanding Sally fully but really trying to understand her parents fully and really thinking about all that they might have been dealing with at the time seeing them as full people and recognizing that everyone there at the table was trying their best. So that kind of forgiveness, I think is really key as well.
B&N: You think Sally’s okay now?
AE: I hope so. That is the feeling that I I was writing towards so.
B&N: That’s what I got out. I think she’s fine.
AE: And I think that’s why I say I’ll find ending it where I did, right. She’s okay now, I can leave her.
B&N: Before I let you go back because I know you’ve got teaching and all sorts of stuff to do. But I do want to make it clear to listeners that there’s a lot of love in this book. And there are lots of different kinds of love too. There’s siblings. And there’s other kinds of romance that will let you figure out because it’s a very sweet story. And I feel like I’m dancing around a giant spoiler, but I think once readers pick up this book, they’ll know what’s going on. We’ll let them be delighted. Did you know how much of a love story you were writing when you started out? Or did you just think, Oh, I’m gonna write about sisters, and we’ll see what happens. This is a really expansive and actually, even the parents have a love story.
AE: I knew Yeah, I think I always want to write a love story. You know, I just I love love for me. You know, it was, of course about this love story between the sisters and how their love changes over time and after death. But I do always remember something key that one of my graduate professors said to me once, which is grief is not a plot. You can’t just ask your readers to sit around and just cry with you. And I absolutely believe that. And so when I knew I was writing about such dark material, I knew immediately that I wanted at the center of the story. The forward moving action of this book is this great love story between Sally and Billy, that was so much a part of how I structured the book, right? And every time we see Sally again, she has something new to say to her sister about Billy and what he’s like now and the crazy ways that he has changed, she just wouldn’t believe it. Right. So I do think of this book as a really intense love story. And you write the book that you want to read at the end of the day, and that’s often very much what I want to read.
B&N: There’s so much great storytelling here. There’s so many great characters. Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance is out now. Alison Espach Thank you so much for joining us on Poured Over.
AE:
Thank you so much. This was a lot of fun.