Here it is, better late than never, the book trailer for The Smallest Thing.
This one was really fun, as I got to include photos of the real village where the story takes place (photography credit: moi!). I think it captures the tone of the story and sets up some of the intrigue of what’s to come.
What do you think?
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The Smallest Thing is available on:
After the recent wildfires here in Sonoma County, our local radio station read the names and ages of all the victims, adding more as news came in. We’ve also, sadly, become accustomed to seeing the faces and hearing the names of victims of gun violence, long lists of people no longer alive. As hard as it is to hear these names and see these faces, it’s important for us to remember that real people with full lives, with families and friends who loved them, are behind these news headlines. I never want to lose sight of the fact that they were far more than simply terrible statistics.
When I first began writing The Smallest Thing, I was intrigued by the story of Emmott Syddall and Rowland Torre. I imagined a romantic tale of two young lovers separated by a quarantine. But, as I brought the story into present times, it morphed and evolved, as all stories do.
I imagined what it would be like to be held inside a quarantine zone, uncertain about your future. I couldn’t stop thinking about the real people of Eyam, who made the decision to impose the quarantine on themselves. What would it have been like in 1665 with no social media to gather information or cell phones to stay in touch with loved ones outside the zone? Would it be any better or worse in the 21st Century?
When I visited the real-life plague village of Eyam for research, I was struck again by the sacrifice made by the villagers, and the scope of the tragedy. In the village church, I saw the parish death register listing the names and dates of death of every victim.
Because that tragedy happened when record-keeping was imprecise, it’s unknown exactly how many people lost their lives in the village. Estimates suggest that 260 of the approximately 350 villagers perished during that 14 months. In some cases, entire families perished, one after the other. In the register, I saw, in writing, how the disease picked its way from person to very real person. Among the dead were six members of the Syddall family, including Emmott.
Seeing her name made me realize that I needed to tell more than just a tragic love story. It had to write about survival. It had to tell the story of an ordinary girl who finds herself in an extraordinary situation, who witnesses a catastrophic tragedy and is forever changed by the experience. More than anything I wanted to make Emmott real.
Even though the true story of Eyam and the plague happened more than 350 years ago, we can’t forget that it happened to real people, not so different from us.
If you would like to read the names of the Eyam plague victims, you can find them at the Eyam Museum website.
Over the past couple of weeks, the threat of tragedy has set many people on edge. First Harvey swept into Texas, then Irma battered the Caribbean and headed for Florida. Meanwhile, Jose and Katia built, bringing more uncertainty of what they would become or where they would go.
People in the direct path of the storm faced the very real possibility of tragedy. They stood to lose their homes, livelihoods, pets, and even their lives. Many were called upon to tap into reserves of strength and courage to get through a situation for which they had little time to prepare.
Meanwhile, many of us outside the danger zone could only watch and wait. Although I didn’t have anyone close to me directly affected by the storms, my social media feeds were full of posts from friends who did have loved ones in danger. Lots of people were afraid of what might happen, but felt powerless to do anything about it. That kind of stress can have a huge emotional toll.
I thought a lot about the effects of powerlessness while writing The Smallest Thing. On the pages of the main story, Em finds herself stuck in the middle of an unimaginable tragedy that she is completely unprepared to handle. She does what any of us would do, which is to figure out how to survive. She doesn’t always make the best choices, especially at first. She has no role models or experience to call upon, but she does what she has to, and then she does what she needs to do. She finds her inner strength and a side of herself she never knew existed. And while she thinks she is powerless, she finds ways to take action.
Meanwhile, in the fictional world beyond the book, Em’s mother and little sister Alice experience the powerlessness that many of us felt last week as Hurricane Irma barreled towards our loved ones. Although their story isn’t told in the book, I’ve imagined them watching helplessly as Em and her father fought for survival.
I imagined that Em’s mother, like many us last week, would carry enormous guilt that she had gone to visit her sister and so had avoided being swept up in the quarantine. She’d feel helpless because there would be nothing she could do to protect her loved ones. She’d be terrified and probably frustrated that she didn’t know, at every second of the day, what was happening to them. She’d have moments of fury when others judged her actions or those of her loved ones, without full knowledge of the situation (hello, social media haters) and perhaps relief when one kind person asked how her family was doing and how she was holding up.
In fiction, and in our real-world tragedies, the stories of the supporting characters aren’t generally the ones that keep us riveted. But if you were a supporting character in the recent news headlines, you know, like Em’s mother, that you have your own story, too.
It’s no secret that A Strange Companion took me a long time to write. I’m talking ten years, maybe longer.
The idea first came to me during a conversation over pancakes. A friend and I were talking about reincarnation and wondering what it would be like if souls found one another over and over in every lifetime. You know, your typical breakfast chit-chat.
I mapped out a complex tale of twisted fates and unexplained connections, and, to be honest, it was a load of rubbish. David Mitchell did a much better job of that story in Cloud Atlas. Plus, that wasn’t the story I wanted to tell. I wanted to write a more personal story of one person’s experience with reuniting with the soul of a loved one. So, bit by bit, draft by draft, the story of A Strange Companion began to form.
The trouble was, my ability didn’t match my vision, and I could never quite get the story just how I wanted it. So I’d abandon the project for a while and work on something new. Sooner or later, the idea would wriggle its way back into my mind and I’d take another pass at the book, each time inching it a little closer to the book I wanted it to be. But I’d always end up disappointed, and eventually, I stuffed the manuscript under the bed and accepted that the story was destined to remain abandoned.
But, not long after I finished writing The Smallest Thing, the story started niggling me again. And this time, I knew how to write it. I knew what I wanted to say and I knew exactly how the story should unfold. So, I dusted off the manuscript and this time I finished it.
If you’ve read the book, you’ll see that the finished story is a far cry from my original idea, thank goodness, but that’s the way it goes. Stories take on a life of their own and they won’t leave you alone until you’ve done them justice.
To hear more about the idea that wouldn’t go away and the twists and turns of the creative process, check out my interview with Melissa Dinwiddie on her Live Creative Now! podcast.
Get your mitts on a signed copy of A Strange Companion on Goodreads this week. I’m giving away a copy to one lucky winner.
Giveaway ends August 25, 2017.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
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I was 15 when my dad died suddenly and unexpectedly. None of us is ever prepared for this kind of loss, and I was no exception, but I was surprised by some of the strange experiences that came along with grief. Only much later did I understand that almost anything extraordinary is “normal” when it comes to grief. Here are a few weird things that happened to me:
It takes the brain a long time to process the idea that someone who has been there since the moment of your birth is suddenly gone. Every time the phone rang or there was an unexpected knock at the door, my first thought was always, “Oh, it’s my dad.” My adrenaline would start flowing and it would take several seconds for my grief-addled brain to catch up and realize that it couldn’t possibly be him.
The experience was worsened when, on the day of my dad’s funeral, I answered the door to find him standing there. It took me a lot longer than a few seconds to realize that the man on the doorstep was my dad’s younger brother, who’d I never met in person and who happened to bear an uncanny resemblance.
It’s a wonder the shock didn’t kill me.
And speaking of flippant expressions like “It’s a wonder the shock didn’t kill me”, only when someone you love dies do you realize how often people use death-related expressions in daily life. “Don’t have a stroke”, “The good die young”, and “It’s like a cancer” all take on a different meaning when they happen to your loved one. “I almost had a heart attack” was an expression used often by many of my friends, but it stung like hell to hear it after my dad actually did have one.
It’s been over 30 years since my dad’s death and I still have the travel alarm clock he woke up to every morning. It doesn’t work and I don’t even keep it on display, but I will never part with it. Same goes for the monogrammed handkerchiefs into which he always blew his nose. My dad won trophies for running and was an avid gardener, but it’s the clock and the hankies that suddenly became significant.
In my collection of worthless, but priceless, treasures, I have costume jewelry brooches from each of my grandmothers and a miniature ceramic teapot that belonged to my auntie. These items have become hugely significant to me.
You think about your loved one all the time in the weeks after their death. You’ll probably talk to them a lot, too. Then one day, as you’re walking down the street, you’ll recall a fond memory and in that instant, the sun will peek out from behind a cloud and shine on you. And you’ll know, I mean absolutely know without a doubt, that it’s a sign that your departed is thinking about you.
About six months after my dad passed away, my mother and I adopted our first cat. The cat had been abandoned, taken in by a relative of my friend, but hadn’t settled with the cats she already had. My friend couldn’t take the kitten, and so by a series of random events, Smudge came into our lives. One day, Smudge looked at me in a way that made me speculate if he could be the reincarnation of my dad. Crazy, right? Perhaps, but the possibility gave me a lot of comfort.
The dead never age. My mother is almost 85 now. She has white hair and her body has lost its strength. But my dad will always be young and vibrant, his body lean and strong from running, and his face slender and tanned.
For a long time, I couldn’t shake off the images of the last time I saw him on the night he died. But over time, I replaced those with fonder memories of him at the beach or walking in the hills. I’m no longer sure if I remember him this way in real life or just from the photographs I have. But I do know that there were days when I woke up and could not remember what he looked like. Those were terrible moments, filled with panic. But they passed because you never really do forget.
Losing someone you love changes you forever. You immediately feel like you don’t fit in, that you are the sole member of a club that even your closest friends aren’t eligible to join. Eventually, you learn to live without your loved one, you get on with your life, and you even love other people. You don’t drag around your grief forever.
But you never really get over losing that person. You always have a little hole in your soul that no one else can ever fill. But somehow you learn to live around it.
