Introduction by Melissa Amster
I'm thrilled to have Allison Larkin back at CLC today! She was one of the first authors I got to interview when we started out 15 years ago. I loved her debut (as Allie Larkin), Stay, and have enjoyed all her novels ever since. I loved her first novel written as Allison (The People We Keep), so I knew I had to read her latest, Home of the American Circus, right away! It is just as beautifully written and as heartfelt as her previous novel. It's up next for me to review on Goodreads, but you can find my thoughts and Allyson's review on Instagram. Allison is delightful and I hope you will enjoy reading her answers to our questions as much as we did. Thanks to Gallery, we have THREE copies to give away!
Allison Larkin is the internationally bestselling author of the novels, The People We Keep, Stay, Why Can’t I Be You, and Swimming for Sunlight. Her short fiction has been published in the Summerset Review and Slice, and nonfiction in the anthologies, I’m Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship and Author in Progress. (Bio courtesy of Allison's website.)
She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, with her husband, Jeremy.
Visit Allison online:
After an emergency leaves her short on rent, thirty-year-old Freya Arnalds bails on her lackluster life as bartender in Maine and returns to her suburban hometown of Somers, New York, to live in the house she inherited from her estranged parents. Despite attempts to lay low, Freya encounters childhood friends, familial enemies, and old flames—as well as her fifteen-year-old niece, Aubrey, who is secretly living in the derelict home. As they reconnect, Freya and Aubrey lean on each other, working to restore the house and come to terms with the devastating events that pulled them apart years ago.
Set in the birthplace of the American circus, this deeply moving novel is an exploration of broken families, the weight of the past, and the complicated journey of finding home. (Courtesy of Amazon.)
“Told with compassion, humor, and honesty, Allison Larkin’s stunning Home of the American Circus is a poignant tale of estrangement, redefining family, reckoning with the past, and healing through challenging but ultimately empowering circumstances. Readers will fall in love with Larkin’s cast of vivid characters and won’t want to say goodbye at the end of the book.”
—Cassandra Dunn, author of The Art of Adapting
"A tender and heartbreaking exploration of what it's like to come crawling back to a home you once fled. Amid her keen observations on life in small towns, Larkin shows us the crushing despair of failure and the fearlessness it brings. You will come away from this book changed, eyes bleary with nostalgia and hope for the future."
—Bryn Greenwood, New York Times bestselling author of All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
What is one thing you'd tell the debut novelist version of yourself?
At the beginning of my career, I carried the sense that having a book published could be a fluke — what if I wasn't good enough? That imposter syndrome led me to seek approval from people who knew how to use my insecurity as leverage or didn't even realize their approval was something I needed. Now, instead of worrying if I'm good enough, I simply focus on whether I've told the story I want to tell the way I want to tell it. Did I dig deep enough? Did I earn the big emotional moments? Do I believe I've written the best book I could possibly write? No matter what happens or what anyone else thinks, I want to do the best work I can for me and tell a story that does justice to the characters I've built. So I would tell my past self to stop worrying about what anyone else thinks. Keep your eyes on your own paper and believe in yourself. And look for earnest feedback from trustworthy sources, which is very different from seeking approval.
How is Freya similar to or different from you?
The occurrences of Freya's life aren't mine. A big example is that I don't have a sister. And while I also dropped out of college and worked as a bartender and worked hard to leave my hometown, my reasons were very different from Freya's.The people populating her world are very different from the ones who populated mine in that time and place, even though I crafted them to be characters who could have existed there. But like Freya, I grew up in Somers and felt sad about the elephant, had a rowboat, and didn't feel like I fit in that town or in my family, and now have a family of friends who mean everything to me.
At the beginning of my career, I carried the sense that having a book published could be a fluke — what if I wasn't good enough? That imposter syndrome led me to seek approval from people who knew how to use my insecurity as leverage or didn't even realize their approval was something I needed. Now, instead of worrying if I'm good enough, I simply focus on whether I've told the story I want to tell the way I want to tell it. Did I dig deep enough? Did I earn the big emotional moments? Do I believe I've written the best book I could possibly write? No matter what happens or what anyone else thinks, I want to do the best work I can for me and tell a story that does justice to the characters I've built. So I would tell my past self to stop worrying about what anyone else thinks. Keep your eyes on your own paper and believe in yourself. And look for earnest feedback from trustworthy sources, which is very different from seeking approval.
How is Freya similar to or different from you?
The occurrences of Freya's life aren't mine. A big example is that I don't have a sister. And while I also dropped out of college and worked as a bartender and worked hard to leave my hometown, my reasons were very different from Freya's.The people populating her world are very different from the ones who populated mine in that time and place, even though I crafted them to be characters who could have existed there. But like Freya, I grew up in Somers and felt sad about the elephant, had a rowboat, and didn't feel like I fit in that town or in my family, and now have a family of friends who mean everything to me.
Where Freya and I truly line up is the way our brains work. I do think I was probably selectively mute as a child, and I still sometimes have moments during extreme stress when I can see words in my head--or pictures about those words--and get a little stuck on how to speak them. Our sensory issues and sense memory are the same. And I've had to work very hard to figure out that giving people space to have their feelings can easily cross over into being a negligent friend, so like Freya, that's something I'm continually examining. I'm trying to be more emotionally brave.
What is something you cut from Home of the American Circus that you wish you could have kept?
In one draft, Freya's childhood friendship with Bee was a little more complicated, and I'd written a super emotional scene where Bee had a seizure at school, and even though they'd drifted apart, Freya was the one who comforted her. I did so much research on seizures and wrote it at a level of detail that made me cry and gave me goosebumps. But ultimately, I think the universality in the simple ways Freya and Bee disconnect and reconnect is a more powerful story to tell. As tweens, we're all maturing at different rates, and it's very common for childhood friends to grow apart and come back together in adulthood when the tempest of adolescence dies down. So, while I loved that scene, I think the simple story is the more honest one. And I'm pretty fearless about letting go of things that don't serve the story I want to tell. When a scene is still in the book by the end, it usually serves many more purposes than it may seem on the surface — they're all load-bearing scenes by the end.
What is your favorite circus act?
To be honest, as a child the circus made me very uncomfortable. I felt sad for the animals and worried the people performing might get hurt. I think there was a lot of inhumanity in the circus in the past. But one of my college friends actually has his own animal-free Broadway-style circus now, and I know he cares deeply about the safety of his team, and bringing joy to his audiences. I haven't had the chance to go, but I would really love to see Venardos Circus live someday.
What is something you cut from Home of the American Circus that you wish you could have kept?
In one draft, Freya's childhood friendship with Bee was a little more complicated, and I'd written a super emotional scene where Bee had a seizure at school, and even though they'd drifted apart, Freya was the one who comforted her. I did so much research on seizures and wrote it at a level of detail that made me cry and gave me goosebumps. But ultimately, I think the universality in the simple ways Freya and Bee disconnect and reconnect is a more powerful story to tell. As tweens, we're all maturing at different rates, and it's very common for childhood friends to grow apart and come back together in adulthood when the tempest of adolescence dies down. So, while I loved that scene, I think the simple story is the more honest one. And I'm pretty fearless about letting go of things that don't serve the story I want to tell. When a scene is still in the book by the end, it usually serves many more purposes than it may seem on the surface — they're all load-bearing scenes by the end.
What is your favorite circus act?
To be honest, as a child the circus made me very uncomfortable. I felt sad for the animals and worried the people performing might get hurt. I think there was a lot of inhumanity in the circus in the past. But one of my college friends actually has his own animal-free Broadway-style circus now, and I know he cares deeply about the safety of his team, and bringing joy to his audiences. I haven't had the chance to go, but I would really love to see Venardos Circus live someday.
If your life was a TV series, which celebrity would you want to narrate it?
Oh my goodness! I love this question! This is a little obscure, but do you remember that Tumblr page, Louis Vs. Rick, that was written as if a cat had learned to text his owner? At one point, Louis the cat discovers caps lock, and Rick tells him it's obnoxious to use all caps, and Louis writes back, "CAPS LOCK IS HOW I FEEL INSIDE RICK".
Well, when I listen to the beginning of the WTF podcast, and Marc is talking about his anxieties and annoyances, I often think to myself MARC MARON IS HOW I FEEL INSIDE RICK. So, I'm certain he'd be a good narrator for my life, and there'd probably be a lot of defeated sighing over situations where a molehill feels like a mountain. He gets it. I know he does.
If we were to visit you right now, what are some places you would take us to see?
There are two layers to this because I love the greater Bay Area so much. There's a long, long list of amazing bookstores on all sides of the bay. In San Francisco, there's The Pirate Supply Store at 826 Valencia and an arcade museum on Pier 45. Also, I don't care if it's touristy; seeing the sea lions at Pier 39 is awesome. Claude the white alligator at the Academy of Sciences is awesome, too. The Lands End trail to Sutro Baths is incredible. We could spend all day at the botanical gardens in Berkeley (and they have a summer concert series in the redwood grove that is my favorite music experience). I love Half Moon Bay and Goat Rock Beach and Mount Tamalpais and Mount Diablo. There's a very cool little town called Port Costa that's pretty deserted on weekdays and super fun to walk around. But I get equally excited about small beautiful things. So, I'm just as likely to show you my favorite trees in my neighborhood or take you to see a spot where I know butterfly mariposa lilies are blooming or the right area to catch the tarantula migration in fall (if you're not squeamish about muppet-like spiders). As an East Coaster, the fact that I now live in a place with palm trees, cactus, and hedge-sized rosemary bushes delights me to no end. California is gorgeous on a level I'll never fully get used to. I love that so much, and I love to share this beauty. But also, I really just want everyone to meet my dogs. Come for a walk with us! I know a good tree we can visit.
Thanks to Allison for chatting with us and to Gallery for sharing her book with our readers.
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Giveaway ends May 18th at midnight EST.
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