Sarah Stone, "Marriage to the Sea: Linked Novellas" (Four Way Books, 2026)

Summary

---

Podcast Summary: New Books Network

Episode Title: Sarah Stone, "Marriage to the Sea: Linked Novellas" (Four Way Books, 2026)
Release Date: May 12, 2026
Host: G.P. Gottlieb
Guest: Sarah Stone

---

Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth interview with novelist Sarah Stone about her new book, Marriage to the Sea: Linked Novellas. The discussion explores the Zamarin family—particularly sisters Katya and Ariel—and their journey through loss, anxiety, art, activism, and intergenerational trauma. Stone and host G.P. Gottlieb delve into the interplay of family bonds, ecological anxiety, personal growth, and the vital role of art and theater in recovery and resilience.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Creation and Characterization of the Zamarin Family

• Timestamps: [02:42–03:13]
  • Origins: Stone describes the Zamarin family as coming to her “one by one,” separate from her own family, though they share “a little DNA” in their anxious temperament.
  • Anxiety: The family's high-strung nature mirrors being “hyper aware of the world,” an attitude Stone connects to her personal experience.

    "They're very hyper aware of the world and the more we're paying attention, I think the more likely we are to be anxious." – Sarah Stone [02:52]

2. Sibling Bonds and Central Motifs

• Timestamps: [03:13–03:52]
  • Sisterhood: Stone highlights the “close but potentially explosive” dynamic between Katya and Ariel, comparing the sibling bond to “the people you go into the forest with.”

    "There's something fairytale to me about the sibling relationship...it's your sister." – Sarah Stone [03:33]

  • Family as a Support System: Their intense attachment and interdependence is a core motif throughout the novellas.

3. Ecological Themes and Activism

• Timestamps: [03:52–04:44]
  • Subtle Eco Crisis: The rising sea level is an underlying concern, especially in Venetian settings, but the eco anxiety is more existential and personal.
  • Diverse Engagement: The characters approach ecological and social issues variably—as activists and artists—reflecting differing responses to overwhelming global problems.

    "Some people really focus heavily on their own lives because it's just scary to think that we're in a position where there's a lot of things that need to be done, and they're very large." – Sarah Stone [04:17]

4. Katya’s Motivation: Grief, Activism, and a Paternal Legacy

• Timestamps: [04:44–06:08]
  • Carrying On: After her father’s death, Katya seeks belonging and purpose by engaging with an ecology institute her father revered and hopes to “carry out his work.”

    "Maybe she can go help out someone who really can change the world." – Sarah Stone [05:52]

5. Dale Carnegie’s Influence on Character Development

• Timestamps: [06:08–07:14]
  • Unlikely Guide: Katya attempts to apply Dale Carnegie’s interpersonal strategies to activism but often struggles, making her efforts both earnest and humorous.

    "She knows she has trouble behaving the way that she's supposed to behave...she is not winning people over because she can be very blunt and outspoken." – Sarah Stone [06:41]

6. Raine and Genevieve: Matriarchal Dynamics at the Ecology Institute

• Timestamps: [07:14–08:22]
  • Mother-Daughter Power: Raine is the public, commanding figure, while her daughter Genevieve is the operational backbone, “the person who makes everything work.”

7. Women, Age, and Theater

• Timestamps: [08:22–10:00]
  • Ariel’s Challenges: At 26, former addict Ariel faces “aging out” of ingénue roles, her life and trauma giving her an older aura.
  • Julia’s Reinvention: In her late 40s, Julia returns to theater after setbacks, underscoring resilience and mentorship across generations.

    "Aunt Julia is kind of a mentor to Ariel." – Sarah Stone [09:48]

8. Experimental Theater and Performance of Virtues

• Timestamps: [10:00–10:32]
  • Venice Festival: Julia’s involvement in an invented experimental theater company takes on the challenge of staging “the virtues” rather than traditional “sins.”

9. Religious Identity and Heritage

• Timestamps: [10:32–11:28]
  • Familial Blend: The Zamarin family is of mixed Jewish and Quaker Methodist roots; these backgrounds inform their evolving identities.

10. Ariel’s Phantasmagorical Dreams and Internal Journey

• Timestamps: [11:28–12:59]
  • Continuous Dreaming: Ariel experiences dream sequences that possibly signify communicating with the deceased or entering an afterlife; the novel deliberately embraces ambiguity and the fantastic.

11. Family Trauma, Loss, and Resilience

• Timestamps: [12:59–14:05]
  • Past Violence: The sisters’ mother was killed and Aunt Julia seriously injured in a random shooting, an event that haunts the family and shapes Julia’s art.

12. Supporting Cast and The Function of Giacomo

• Timestamps: [14:05–15:14]
  • Giacomo’s Impact: A photographer who pushes Julia to reinterpret her world; aids in her emotional liberation, exemplifying the novella’s exploration of healing through relationship.

13. Robert (Uncle) and Complicated Sibling Relationships

• Timestamps: [15:14–16:01]
  • Interference & Attachment: Robert, once Julia’s experimental theater collaborator, is both overbearing and loving, complicating Julia’s efforts at independence.

14. Personal Finances and Midlife Reinvention

• Timestamps: [16:01–17:06]
  • Lost Fortune: Julia loses her Hollywood earnings to a scam, facing destitution with stoic resolve.

    "She had never had money before...the more she tried to give away, the more the needs of the world seemed enormous to her." – Sarah Stone [16:37]

15. Character Affection and Author Attachment

• Timestamps: [17:06–18:01]
  • Stone’s Favorites: The author identifies closely with Katya’s activist spirit and feels protective toward Ariel, describing her as "precious."
  • Saint Jenny: The enigmatic, generous sister Jenny is only depicted through others due to her uncommon goodness.

16. Series Continuity and Future Projects

• Timestamps: [18:48–19:47]
  • Linked Books Structure: Stone describes the series’ evolution—first stories, then novellas, next a true novel toggling between timelines (2017/2030)—with the next installment centering on Jenny.

---

Notable Quotes

• “They're very hyper aware of the world and the more we're paying attention, I think the more likely we are to be anxious.” – Sarah Stone [02:52]
• “There's something fairytale to me about the sibling relationship...it's your sister.” – Sarah Stone [03:33]
• “Maybe she can go help out someone who really can change the world.” – Sarah Stone [05:52]
• “She knows she has trouble behaving the way that she's supposed to behave...she is not winning people over because she can be very blunt and outspoken.” – Sarah Stone [06:41]
• “The more she tried to give away, the more the needs of the world seemed enormous to her.” – Sarah Stone [16:37]

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

| Segment | Timestamp (MM:SS) | |------------------------------------------------|----------------------| | Episode opening & setup | 01:11 | | Zamarin family conception | 02:42–03:13 | | On sisterly bonds | 03:13–03:52 | | Eco crisis in the novel | 03:52–04:44 | | Katya’s activist journey | 04:44–06:08 | | Dale Carnegie’s influence | 06:08–07:14 | | Introduce Raine and Genevieve | 07:14–08:22 | | Women, age, and theater | 08:22–10:00 | | Experimental theater in Venice | 10:00–10:32 | | Mixed religious identity | 10:32–11:28 | | Ariel’s dream sequences | 11:28–12:59 | | Trauma of the mother’s loss | 12:59–14:05 | | Giacomo’s role | 14:05–15:14 | | Uncle Robert’s relationship with Julia | 15:14–16:01 | | Julia’s financial loss | 16:01–17:06 | | Stone on favorite characters | 17:06–18:01 | | Saint Jenny and future books | 18:01–19:47 |

---

Memorable Moments

• Host and guest laugh about writing “the virtues” instead of “the sins” in experimental theater [10:00–10:32].
• Stone’s description of being unable to write from Saint Jenny’s perspective due to her “unimaginable generosity” [18:10].
• Intimate insights into how trauma, art, and familial history interact form a narrative both honest and tinged with hope.

---

Episode Takeaways

Listeners gain a rich understanding of how Marriage to the Sea weaves together grief, siblinghood, inherited trauma, and the quest for meaning in art and activism. Stone’s affection for her characters and their journeys provides emotional texture beyond the narrative, promising future installments that continue to explore these interlinked lives.

---

Transcript

[Quince Brand Representative]

I love wearing clothing that's both comfortable and elevated. Outfits I can wear on a walk through the park or in a meeting with a client. Quince has become my go to with fabrics that are incredibly soft, clean and versatile. This spring I refresh my wardrobe with quints. I especially love their Pima cotton tees and bamboo jersey lounge shorts. Surprisingly soft and breathable with a quality level you'd expect to pay a lot more for. If you're looking for new clothes this spring, I highly recommend checking out their Italian swim trunks. I love swimming but can never find swimwear that feels comfortable and looks good. Quince's swimwear is the best I've ever owned. I can't emphasize enough how affordable Quince is for the quality you get. Check out their incredible deals and offerings, especially if you're looking for clothes that feel good and look great. Whether you're at the office or the beach. Refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to Quince.com NewBooks for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N C E.com NewBooks for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com NewBooks welcome to the New Books

[Sarah Stone]

Network

[G.P. Gottlieb]

around 3:30am Katja Sat Cross legged on the futon in her tiny loft watching her youngest sister twist in her sleep. Ariel's white blonde hair fell over her damp cheeks and wisps, her arms laced with scars from the old cutting days, meth days, opioid days, her face sharp and innocent as an arctic fox's Streetlights glinted through the rips and Katja's old purple velvet curtains. And somewhere nearby, a group of drunken UC Santa Cruz students or spring tourists sang Selena Gomez's Love you like a love song. This is GP Gottlieb, host for New Books and Literature, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. Today I'm talking to Sarah Stone about her novel Marriage to the Sea. The first novella centers on sisters whose mother died in a random shooting that left their aunt unable to walk without pain and crutches. They're now grappling with their father's recent death and struggling to find themselves. The second novella focuses on their Aunt Julia, her sudden marriage, her involvement in an experimental theater piece, and her realization that all her money has been stolen. Marriage to the Sea is a moving story about family ties, finding love and trying to make the world better. Hi Sarah, thanks for joining me today.

[Sarah Stone]

Hi Gileet. I'm so excited to be here thank you for having me.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

How did you conceive of the Zamarin family? And why is everyone so anxious?

[Sarah Stone]

Oh, what a great question. They sort of came to me one by one, and they are not my family. They're a whole different group of people who have become a living family to me over time. But I do think that they share a little DNA with my family, who tend to be anxious. They're very hyper aware of the world and the more we're paying attention, I think the more likely we are to be anxious.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

One main theme of marriage to the sea is the bonds of sisterhood and family. Can you say more about that?

[Sarah Stone]

I feel like sisters are. There's something so close but potentially so explosive among sisters. The sisters in my book really are very attached to each other and look after each other. They worry about each other, they love each other, they're central. There's something fairytale to me about the sibling relationship. I think about it as the people you go into the forest with. It's not sort of your friend from work, it's your sister.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

The eco crisis is a huge concern. Not in any specific way, except for the rising of the sea, but. Except that is really important when you're in Venice. But do you think people who don't care about the planet will still want to read your book?

[Sarah Stone]

I wonder if people who don't care about the planet. You know what I think? I think everyone cares about the planet. I think we care in different ways and we have different ideas about what the planet needs. And some people really focus heavily on their own lives because it's just scary to think that we're in a position where there's a lot of things that need to be done, and they're very large. The family in this book specifically are interested in what they can do. But some of them are artists and some of them are activists. So they have very different ideas about what that might be.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

Good answer. So Katja and her sister go to an institute, an ecology institute, in a converted sanatorium in Paris. There's a lot going on, but Katya is there because her father worshiped the person running the conference, Rain Mangeau, the woman who runs it, the institute. Why is Katia still trying to please

[Sarah Stone]

her father when the book opens? He's just died. In fact, the very first scene is a kind of prologue, which is the moment when we are with him and he's lost. And then Katya sees him. He appears to her and he needs something. She can tell he needs something. And she doesn't know what it is. So she comes up with the idea that because he's died unexpectedly, maybe she can carry out his work. He wanted to somehow be part of saving the world, as the family thinks of it. And she comes across information about this institute and this heroic figure who has led marches and runs a salon and written books. And she's thinking, she's never been a great activist herself, but maybe she can go help out someone who really can change the world. So Rain is in Paris and Katya, with no money and just putting on her credit cards, decides to go to Paris and find a way to help her out.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

And Katja finds inspiration in Dale Carnegie. Not a name I've heard in recent years. What's going on there? What does she love about Carnegie's method? And how did Carnegie's method appeal to you?

[Sarah Stone]

She's so. She's so well meaning. And I just have this. I am not objective about my characters. I love Katya so much. She's explosive. She has a temper, she's well meaning, she's loving. I find her funny. But she knows she has trouble behaving the way that she's supposed to behave. And she is not winning people over because she can be very blunt and outspoken. So she heard someone who's a big polished activists say all the activists should be reading Dale Carnegie. So she's trying to make sense of his ideas, of how you would influence people. And in some cases she's not perfectly resonating with them. So watching her struggle with them was interesting for me and I hope will be interesting for other people.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

Raine's daughter Genevieve runs the kitchen at the Institute, among other things. Can you introduce her and explain how she fits in the story?

[Sarah Stone]

Yes, and I'm going to do it without getting into a huge plot spoiler, but Raine's daughter Genevieve is a terrifically smart, interesting, inherently powerful woman. But she's been in the shadow of her mother all her life. And Rain is the one who has the genius ideas and who can be a little bit abrupt and who runs things. And everybody listens to what she says. But her daughter is that person who makes everything work. She runs the kitchen. She's sufficiently in touch with all of the admin things happening that nothing would exactly work without her. So I had originally thought I was gonna write a book about these two people, the mother and the daughter in that relationship. But as it went on, it morphed into really being the first novella, the Stories of the Sisters.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

You focus on art and theater in Both novellas. So this is interesting to me. Ariel is 26, and she's being told that she's no longer an ingenue. But Aunt Julia finds herself in the position of needing to seek work in her 40s, almost 50. What did you learn about both ends of the spectrum?

[Sarah Stone]

They're in such different positions because Ariel is. She's a former meth and opioid addict, and theater is really what brought her out of it. And she fell in love with Shakespeare. So really what she wants to do is Shakespeare. But as the director tells her early on, he says, you might have gotten a little too interesting for the ingenue parts. And because she's been through so much, she looks older in some ways than 26. And she's trying to figure out what to do with herself, which is one of the reasons that she latches onto Katya and goes on the trip. And Julia, she had been in experimental theater. She had worked with her brother, and then she found herself in Hollywood, and she was a villainess on a night soap opera. But she couldn't handle the responses she was getting from people in daily life. So she fled to Venice. She's now doing experimental theater, and she's gonna be performing in Venice. But she's from the position of having done a lot of different kinds of theater and having different sorts of experience being open to things. But what she loves is experimental theater. So they're in a slightly different position, but they really admire and respect each other. And Aunt Julia is kind of a mentor to Ariel.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

But Aunt Julia's theater piece that she's working on at the end, that felt like experimental theater, was it not?

[Sarah Stone]

Yes, it is. She is doing experimental theater. And now there's the theater festival and most of the companies. This was a real life theater festival that happened in 2011. Most of the companies are doing the sins, but I've invented a performance of the virtues so that we have this experimental device theater company trying to figure out, how do you perform the virtues without them being just incredibly dull?

[G.P. Gottlieb]

Mm. Why did you create a family of mixed religions? Do you identify with that? And how do the sisters identify themselves?

[Sarah Stone]

Well, that part does come from life. My mother is Jewish. My father comes from Quaker Methodists. And so we go back through my family, and the family in the book share these lineages. They go back on the one side to Russian, Polish, Jews, and then on the other side to people who came over and were small time farmers. And they are all putting together a patchwork of it. And it shifts a little bit in their sense of identity over their life. I think Katya is the one who most clearly identifies as Jewish of all of them.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

Mm. Let's discuss Ariel's phantasmagorical underworld. What is going on with her sleeping and what does her long running dream mean?

[Sarah Stone]

Mm. As she. It's in Paris that she has a kind of visitation really the first night there from a group of people who are leading her on a journey. She's carrying a package. She doesn't know what the package is. She has this strong sense that it needs to be delivered. And we come to feel over time that it may be her father that she's journeying towards with this package where she just doesn't know what's in it. So there's that sense of an urgent mission, but an urgent mission that you can't rationally explain.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

And it's really cool that I've never seen this or experienced it. To go to sleep and have a dream and then the next night have the same dream, just a continuous dream. That was really interesting. Is that from real life?

[Sarah Stone]

I have sometimes had dreams that showed up from time to time, but that state of falling into this dream, it does feel to me like she's potentially going to another world. But it's arguable. Maybe she's going to another world. Maybe there's some way in which she's in the afterlife, or maybe it's psychological. But the book is kind of voting for the fantastic element.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

We learned that Katya and Ariel's mother was shot and killed while on an after dinner walk in the woods behind their house. How frightening. Can you say a bit about Katyan? Ariel's mother had a sister who was there too and was just injured in the shooting. Can you talk about Aunt Julia?

[Sarah Stone]

Yeah. So Aunt Julia, this is another aspect of her life is when she and Eva, the girl's mother, who was a scientist, she was looking for the roots of empathy. And Julia, they were walking in the woods, they had the attack happen. Julia was unconscious for a while and when she woke up, her sister was gone. And her sister was her best friend in one way, her older brother, her best friend in another way. But it really has played into her life in the theater. I think having that sense of mortality and danger has left her altered and she's still, years later, grappling with it somewhat.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

Yeah, it was very moving. I really loved Aunt Julia. Giacomo is another important character, although he might not be as permanent in Julia's life as her brother. What is Giacomo's function in the story.

[Sarah Stone]

So Giacomo is a photographer. He's somebody who's really interested in the private life in public. He shows up in both the first and the second novella. And the novella, we're saying novella, we were talking a little bit about. There's a way in which it's like a novel that centers on different family members at different times. But he's somebody who shows Julia another way to look at the world. I feel like he opens up her sense of what's possible. He opens up the way that she sees other people. And maybe it has a part in freeing her. The book is about resilience from grief, like how people inhabit grief, and also how we move through grief over time.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

Let's talk about Robert and Julia's brother, Uncle Robert, I guess. Robert.

[Sarah Stone]

Oh, he's a problem. Robert and Julia are very close. They worked together for years doing experimental theater. He's dictatorial, he's mischievous. He comes into her life, she gets married unexpectedly.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

And.

[Sarah Stone]

And as she's trying to work that out, he has a dream about her when he's in the US and he also impulsively gets on a plane and comes to Venice to find her because he has a sense that she's in danger. So he's both interfering in her life and in a certain way, trying to help her while helping himself, because he would really like her to come home and work with him again.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

Money is a big issue. Having it, not having it. Well, there's a side story about a financial scheme that suddenly leaves Julia penniless. It's sadly not an unusual story, but Julia, who's heading towards 50, just tells herself that, okay, she'll go back to work. I thought that was pretty admirable. What about you?

[Sarah Stone]

She had never had money before, but she had this Hollywood money, and she has tried to give a lot of it away. You know, she gave some to nieces and nephews, she gave some to causes. The more she tried to give away, the more the needs of the world seemed enormous to her. And she got a little cautious and she kept a chunk of it. So when she loses it, there's this awful regret, like, why didn't she just give it all away? She is going to have to change her life. She's really left with almost nothing, and she's a little bit up against it because she is injured from the accident and she can't do everything that she used to do. So puts her in a tight position.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

Can I ask who? So you said you felt really close to Katya, right? That was the character that you bonded with.

[Sarah Stone]

Well, I feel love for all of them. I enjoy Julia. These characters are very performative, so they all have their dramatic sides. And that includes Katya. She's a performative activist. Just as her sister is a performative. She's a performative activist. Her sister's a performative actress. I really feel close to them in different ways, but I feel like Katya is the person who, if I had been braver when I was young, I would have been more like Katya than like some of the others.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

But Ariel is such a deep, wonderful person who thinks. Who just feels so strongly.

[Sarah Stone]

I love her very much. I feel protective towards her. I feel. I don't know. She's precious to me. Yeah.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

And then they talked about their sister, St. Jenny.

[Sarah Stone]

St. Jenny, yeah.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

Yeah. Can you say a word about her?

[Sarah Stone]

Yes, I will. This is really each of the books, I hope, stands Alone. But there was a book before this Hungry ghost theater that had these same characters, and they were 10 years earlier at a different moment in their life. And the next book, which I think I'm close to finished with, is the story more of Jenny and her children. And she's a herbalist and a witch and a farmer. And she's so good that I actually haven't been able to write her from the inside. I can only write her as seen through other people's eyes because it's hard for me to imagine being that completely generous.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

Wow. So I look forward to the movie version of all the books.

[Sarah Stone]

Thank you.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

Usually at this point, I'd say, what are you working on next? But I think you just told us you're working on the next book of this. Is it going to be a novella again?

[Sarah Stone]

Actually, it's. The first book is made up Hangry Os Theater is made up of stories and plays and a novella. This is two novellas which you could potentially think of as a novel. It reads kind of like a novel that changes course. And then the third one is it's really a novel, but it's got different points of view. So from chapter to chapter, we're threading through. And it has a timeline in 2017 and a timeline in 2030. And when I first started working on it was well before 2017. So 2017, I imagined was very different than the 2017 that I experienced. And it may take me long enough that it'll be 2030 before it comes out. We'll see.

[G.P. Gottlieb]

Wow. So interesting that you are sticking with this, that these are people you love. Thank you so much for joining me. Sarah, it's just been a pleasure talking to you, and I wish you the best of luck look on the whole series.

[Sarah Stone]

Thank you. It's been a delight to be here. I've been looking forward to it, and it's just great to have this conversation. Thank you for having me on and

[G.P. Gottlieb]

thank you for joining me again. This is G.P. gottlieb, author of the Whipped and Sipped Mysteries and host for New Books and Literature, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. Today, I've been talking to Sarah Stone. I hope you all have something intriguing to read today. And always happy reading.