← The Stacks
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- [00:01]
A
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B
All of the good family stories come through whispering the details that are not part of the official story, Right?
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A
Right.
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B
Like some of the most interesting stuff to write about is in that delta between what people are actually saying and doing versus what they are thinking and feeling. I always want to include gossip in my stories and with the Ghosts it's just fun because they have no rules of polite society. I want to talk to the reader as much as I can and the reader getting to feel like they have ins that the characters don't. I think that it's it's so much fun.
- [01:11]
A
Welcome to the Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I'm your host Tracy Thomas and today we are joined by author Shannon Sanders to discuss her brand new book, the Great Wherever. This book follows Aubrey Lamb, a young black woman who inherits her late father's share of a Tennessee farm filled with family history, secrets and gossipy ghosts. Today Shannon and I talk about first and third person narration, why she wanted to follow up her award winning debut short story collection Company with a huge sweeping family novel, and how she came up with all of the names. Our book club pick for July is behind the Beautiful Forevers Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo and we will be discussing the book on Wednesday, July 29 with Juliana Hobner. Everything we talk about on each episode of the Stacks is linked in our show notes. If you like this podcast and you want more bookish content, are looking for a community full of readers? Consider joining the Stacks Pack on Patreon and subscribing to my newsletter unstacked on substack. In each of these places you can get different perks. Over on the Patreon you can have access to the Discord, attend our monthly virtual book clubs, be part of the Mega Reading Challenge and then over on the Sub stack you're going to be reading my hot takes about sports, pop culture, books and whatever else I'm into. And in both places you'll have access to the non fiction reading guide that is only available during the summer and monthly bonus episodes. Plus by joining either The Substack or the Patreon. You make it possible for me to make this podcast every single week. Head to patreon.com thestacks to join the Stacks pack and check out my newsletter@tracy thomas.substack.com all right, now it is time for my conversation with Shannon Sanders. All right, everybody, I'm so excited. Today I am joined by Shannon Sanders. She is the author of a brand new novel. It is called the Great Wherever. You've probably seen it everywhere. It's on just about every list. I was nervous. I thought, you know, it's never good to be on every list because that means that the book has to live up to the hype. But unfortunately for all of us, added to your tbr, it is a quite good family novel. So, Shannon, welcome to the Stacks.
- [03:35]
B
Hi Tracy. Thanks for having me.
- [03:37]
A
I'm so excited. Okay, why don't you do your authory thing in 30 seconds or so, tell us about the Great Wherever.
- [03:47]
B
Okay. Elevator pitch. The Great Wherever follows Aubry, who's a woman in her early 30s who's going through some life stuff and not really thriving at the moment. She is on the sort of on the the heels of a recent breakup. She has also had some loss recently and she has inherited a piece of family property or a share in a piece of family property. So she goes to sort of investigate it and meet some relatives who are co owners of the property. And her journey to kind of understand that land is narrated by a ghost of an ancestor who should have gotten to inherit that land but didn't get to and has all sorts of opinions on what Aubrey is doing.
- [04:30]
A
I was nervous about this book because as you know, I don't like anything scary. And I DM'd you and was like, tell me a little bit more about this ghost. I was like, is it even a little bit scary? And you were like, no. But I asked my editor and she was also like, no. So anybody who's scared of anything, let me just. As the scaredy cat, resident scaredy cat of all of our reading lives, this book is not even a little bit scary. Like there's nothing. They're not haunting ghosts. They're like observant, gossipy, hangout ghosts.
- [05:03]
B
Yeah, fully. Okay. I'm so glad to hear a scaredy cat validate that because I am a huge horror fan and I know that my calibration is probably a little off. So what I think is not scary. I know that's not necessarily the. The universal standard.
- [05:18]
A
Oh no, this isn't scary. The ghosts are more like. I would say the ghosts are more like watching their favorite sitcom ghosts, as opposed to haunting a piece of land. Ghosts.
- [05:31]
B
Totally. Yes. Agree.
- [05:32]
A
Like, they're. They're like me, the reader. They're passing judgment. They're doing chit chat. They're filling in the blanks. It's like, oh, here's what you missed last week on our life down here on the farm. It's definitely not like I'm gonna, you know, trap you in a spiderweb and then have a tarantula suck your blood or whatever. I don't know. I don't even know what happened. I don't even know what scary goes to. I just know they're not these people.
- [05:58]
B
No. Yeah. They're not slamming doors and kind of like being, you know, boogeymen or anything like that. They are definitely more of a Greek chorus, I would say.
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A
Yes.
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B
Who are there to sort of establish what's going on. And like you said, be kind of the proxy for the reader and make sure that everybody is on the same page.
- [06:14]
A
Talk to us about the ghosts. How did you. How did you get to Ghost? Ghost as narrator?
- [06:20]
B
Yeah. Well, I had the idea for the story, kind of the through line of the story, which was, young woman inherits family property and has to rise to the occasion of receiving that legacy. And I started working on the book. I wrote the first scene, which takes place at just a restaurant in the D.C. area. And as I was drafting it, this is the scene where she goes through this breakup, which is not a spoiler because that's like, the very first thing that happens in the book. And I found that I was writing sentences that were kind of like, in the time I had been watching her, this kind of thing happened to her all the time. And I just sort of found that the narration came from a place of kind of gentle criticism or maybe like, loving, oh, my gosh, what's about to happen to her. And I do feel like, as a writer, the voice kind of usually announces itself and the POV usually will inform what the book is or vice versa. Those two things kind of work together. So it felt like it sort of made sense with the story as I was starting to see it, which was, look what this child is doing. Which is sort of the tone that the ghosts relate to Aubrey through for the most part.
- [07:32]
A
Yeah, you. So basically you kind of had that. That was already happening inadvertently. And then you were like, okay, I need to name this or, like, make this. I need to make this voice that I'm getting make sense for the story.
- [07:47]
B
Yeah, yeah. And I guess because then the character who is that ghost becomes such a part of the story too. Yeah, that wasn't clear to me right away. You know how there's that meme that's like, okay, I'm gonna wake up. Question mark, Question mark, Question mark. It's over for you hoes, you know, and there's sort of like a what's gonna happen in the middle?
- [08:06]
A
What's gonna happen?
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B
Yeah, I knew I had the setup, I always had the ending, and it was just like such a, I had, you know, there was such a journey that had to happen for me to figure out what the substance of the actual story was, but I did not necessarily have the answer to that as soon as I had the voice that I wanted to tell the story through.
- [08:26]
A
I see. Yeah, I see. So are you one of those writers that like, like, how did you come up with the answer? Like, what's your process? If you're like, I know the beginning and the end, do you write like a thousand different versions of the thing or are you like, you know, some people are like, I'm waiting for the voices to talk to me. And then some people are like, I plan out every single thing and I have a post it for every single thing. Like, how do you actually turn the beginning and the end into a 400 page novel?
- [08:56]
B
No. Yeah, I, I would never be able to write a thousand different versions of a story to settle on the one that I liked best because I just, like, don't have time. I, I, I am sort of in between a plotter and a pantser. I usually do have an outline of some sort. Like I said, I always start with an ending because I know that I want to be working toward that ending at all times. And so I really want.
- [09:19]
A
Would you ever change the ending? Would you ever, like, have an ending and then be like, oh, shit, this isn't even that good anymore once you get there?
- [09:26]
B
Yeah, sure, I would. I think, I don't know that that has ever happened to me, but, but that would be like an exciting development that could happen during the writing. Yeah, no, no worries. Yeah, but so you and I have in common. I have twin sons who are pretty little. I also have an older child who is, like, still pretty little. And so I am just usually up against kind of this. I have to get this idea out while it's still really exciting to me and also while I still have all of the, you know, all of the pieces of it working together. And so Rather than doing a bunch of aimless drafting, I usually try to set little lily pads for myself. And so it'll be okay. I really want this to happen. I really want there to be a scene where they're all having dinner together. I really want, you know, to get her to this location. And then the fun part is getting to figure out where we go in between to find our way to that next lily pad.
- [10:24]
A
This is a huge intergenerational family story. Why did you want your first. I should say this, your first book is a short story collection, and it's a teeny tiny one. It's a very short short story collection. This next book is. Is a big boy. It's 400 pages. It's a lot of people. It's all, you know, it's fan. It's intergenerational. So it's all connected. We go back, I think, as far
- [10:48]
B
as Aubry's great, great, great grandparents, I think seven times. Yeah.
- [10:53]
A
So like, we're giving. We're. We are back in slavery. We are coming up to the very much present. Like we get to at least a little past. Covid, why did you want to tell such a big story? What. What was it about that that was exciting to you?
- [11:11]
B
Yeah, I mean, okay. And so caveat for my first book, because it is. It's a much slimmer book, but it's 13 stories. There's bunches and bunches of characters in it. That has always been a little bit of a weakness of mine is that I really want to fan out. I really want there to be as much of a community as possible, both because, you know, for authenticity and then also because that makes so many more dimensions that are exciting. I get to see each of the characters through each other's points of view. And I always knew I wanted this to be very multi generational because. So I should start by saying this is like part partly inspired by family history from my maternal grandmother who co owns a piece of land with her siblings, and then now some, like, nieces and nephews. But one thing that was really striking to me about that piece of family history is that my grandmother's great grandmother was enslaved. And then her parents, my grandmother's parents, they both were college educated. They had kids who were all college educated. They own this land. And so there is so little chronological distance between one state of being and then this other one that looks so different. And I, you know, I was writing this around the time period when we were kind of in like our hangover from the great reckoning of 2020, and DEI was beginning to be a naughty word again. And I just felt like there were so many forces where I was having to hear every day, you know, that, like, merit this and that about not deserving of different advantages or not deserving of different opportunities that people had been coming to finally get to experience. And I just really wanted to be like, no, this is such a short distance from this time period where there was nothing available to this family. You know, this is really like three generations are like a stone's throw. And so I started to sort of think about that in. In terms of being a person of a generation, able to look across a pond and see a person of another generation. That's the distance in terms of chronology and generationally. So, yeah, so that was exciting to me. And then I also just really enjoy getting to tell lots of stories. And if a book has, as I think this one does, I think there are something maybe 47 named characters or something like that is what I was told.
- [13:44]
A
And who tells you that? Your copy editor.
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B
Yeah, because they have to send you a style sheet where they list all the names and make sure they're all, like, spelled. Spelled right. But so that many people just means, like, that many more opportunities to come up with good gossip and to get more little bits of story in there, even if they're not part of the main story.
- [14:04]
A
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, this about me. I don't read a ton of novels. Like, I'm not really a novel person. I do like, a family novel. I do like, like, in my family. I can tell you how all of my cousins are first. First cousins once removed, second. Like, I know all of that, like, family tree stuff. I just call everybody cousin, but, like, I can actually do it.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And so I was thrilled by the sort of challenge of that in this book because there's lots of siblings. And then who has these kids and these kids? And how is this kid related to this kid? Because the. The way that the book. I don't think this is a spoiler, but the way that the. That Aubry, our main character, kind of comes into this land is that she shares ownership of it with different cousins. And some of them are of her generation, and some of them are of the older of her father's generation. And so I. I really found that also really exciting about the book, that we have this sort of intergenerational story in a way that felt not like. It didn't feel like forced, in the way that so many intergenerational stories Are like mother to daughter to grandmother. Like, yes, it felt more dynamic than that and like, sort of like weirder than that. Right. Like, so much family can be. Sometimes family can be awkward, like if you live away from family that lives together. And I really feel like you captured some of the more awkward bits. I don't know. Is that something you were interested in always?
- [15:38]
B
Yeah, I love that. I really am interested in like aunt niece relationships and like uncle nephew, because. So, yeah, like you said, there's a lot of books that are. You know, this was passed down to me by my mother, which actually this book does a little bit of that too. But sure, there is. I think there's something really interesting about being a step removed from like that direct line, so you get a little bit of insight into what your parent was like when they weren't your parent, you know, and you get to relate to this child who belongs to someone else but has. But it's kind of like an expression of family values that you yourself were raised with. So, yeah, I think that's really always fun to play with. And in this book there is quite a lot of like Auntie Niecy kind of stuff that goes on. Yeah.
- [16:27]
A
Because like, siblings, I don't know, I think siblings are more interesting than parent child to me.
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B
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
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A
Like, I just think sibling is so much more dynamic of a relationship because I think there's so many rules about parent child. Right. It's like there's a. There's a hierarchy of respect. There's like an obligation on both sides of behavior. But I feel like sibling can change quickly. Sibling can. You can be a bigger. To your sibling.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You can also be like more intimate with a sibling. And so I feel like this book is. While it's definitely a family book, a lot of it is like a sibling book and the relationships of siblings to their offsprings, each other's offspring. So I really. I don't know, I really like that.
- [17:17]
B
Yeah, you can be. I mean, you can be really mean to your sibling because there is no veil of respect or there's no hiding from a sibling. A parent has to hide a lot of things from a child and a
- [17:32]
A
child has to hide a lot of things from a parent.
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B
Yes, exactly. Yeah. Your siblings know you in a way that is different and that makes you like, way more vulnerable to them. Yeah.
- [17:41]
A
Yes. There's a great scene later in the book, which I won't spoil, where there are three siblings sort of like fighting. And I was like, this feels so right. This feels so Correct to me. I'm curious. You mentioned in your acknowledgments about your own family story, and you said, like, I hope it's, you know, half as dynamic and rich as their lived reality. He's like, this is not your family story, but you hope it is that. Would you ever write your actual family story, like a non fictiony family memoir? Have you ever considered that?
- [18:14]
B
You know. Well, because I just. Fiction is so much more exciting to me as a writer than nonfiction. I did help my grandmother, who is really into genealogy. I helped her do some compiling of stories and helped her put together a book that was about the. The stories. But I. I'm certainly not like a. A journalist and I'm not gonna do like a Cane River, Red river type thing, but I would be. I mean, I would be interested in writing like essays about them, for example, because there are so many. Even just looking through my family tree with my grandmother, seeing these little details like that this one from father had children by his wife, and then these two children at the end who were by a different lady who, like, lived next door or something. And there's just so much there that I think would be so exciting. But I do feel like if I can't give it the depth that actually exists in the story, then I would rather just be inspired by it. That's kind of where I fall on it.
- [19:11]
A
Yeah.
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B
But, yeah, maybe one day I can. I can certainly. Yeah, I can see.
- [19:15]
A
It just felt like such a tease, you know, it's like we read this great, interesting book and you're like, I hope this book is half as exciting as you guys. And I'm like, well, wait, wait, wait, wait. I need to know the story. I'm a gossipy, alive ghost.
- [19:28]
B
Yes. Yeah.
- [19:31]
A
Like, let's talk about gossip a little bit. Because I, I just, I love, I love the gossipy nature of this book. And I'm wondering, like, what does that free up for you, if anything? Why go that route? There's so many routes you could go with the gossip with a ghost doesn't have to be gossipy. So why. What was that tone about for you?
- [19:53]
B
I. It's just so much fun. Like, I think that it is. All of the good family stories come through whispering the details that are not part of the official story. Right, right. So, like, we always had family reunions and there would be, you know, we would all go to church together. We would all have a picnic. We would all go and visit like the historical society together. But then like later in the hotel room, My mom would tell me more stories about her cous when they were kids or I would, you know, go out with my cousins later, we would go and get drinks or whatever and I would get all these details that were so oppositionally not what their parents had presented necessarily at the family function. So I just, I think that, you know, like, some of the most interesting stuff to write about is in that delta between what people are actually saying and doing versus what they are thinking and feeling and you know, the difference between like what they believe and what they present that they believe. So I, I just always, I always want to include gossip in my stories. And with the ghosts, it's just fun because they have no rules of polite society that are right acting on them. So they get to be, you know, they get to be even more gossipy, especially if they are young as some of the ghosts are in this book. And they have a little bit less, um, they might not have as much propriety or decorum that's, that's binding them.
- [21:22]
A
And also I feel like what it sets, like tension wise, what it set up for me as a reader is like the ghosts have all this information, but they can't actually communicate it to our alive people. And so that also is sort of fun. It's like there's this tension or like this dividing line between what they know and what our alive characters know. And how does that information cross the gulf? And I really liked that too because it's like, oh, I'm in the know. Like I know something Aubry doesn't even know. And I was like, this is great. This is. I'm in on the gossip.
- [22:00]
B
Yeah, that, that part is really fun because like it's, it's a way to play with the reader. I really always want to be. I want to talk to the reader as much as I can. And the reader getting to feel like they have ins that the characters don't. I think. Yeah, you know, readers like really hate being confused or alienated and I think they just as much love being drawn in and whispered to. I think that it's, it's so much fun. Yeah.
- [22:28]
A
Well, you also found sort of a loophole to my current pet peeve, which is first person, because you have a first person ghost narrator, but a first person ghost narrator is sort of omniscient. So I'm still getting sort of a third person. Like there's so many parts of the book where I was like, oh, this reads like third person. Because our narrator knows, she knows enough. She doesn't know everything. There's a few, like, disputed facts that come up in the book for the ghosts. But, like, she pretty much. She can see everything. She's in people's thoughts and feelings. So I'm like, this is the greatest first to third workaround. I was personal. Just like, my personal. I just. I get. I'm, like, anti first person right now. I don't know why this happened to me, but it's my new thing this year. I'm just like, I hate it.
- [23:17]
B
Yeah. No, I know. I saw that you've been on a crusade against first person. If it's used to. To be sort of like a crutch and let things be. To take away dimension from them somehow or to make them more sparse or to take away the responsibility to develop the world beyond what the one character can see. I think, um. Yeah, I. I mostly don't write in first person for that reason, because I'm just too nosy about what's going on over there, you know?
- [23:45]
A
Yeah.
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B
Yeah.
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A
But I think part of the thing I don't like about first person right now is a. I feel like everyone's doing it, but, like, for no reason aside from everyone's doing it.
- [23:56]
B
Yeah.
- [23:57]
A
Like, I don't have a problem. Like, Hunger Games is some of my favorite books, and those are all first person. And I love that because they feel like, in my mind. And I guess this actually, your book passes my, like, Bechdel test of first person, which is like, either the person has to be so unreliable, like, like Amy Dunn in Gone Girl, or they have to be living through something so exceptional that the only way to truly understand how intense it is is to be inside someone's head or body. So, like, that's, like, to me, Parable of the Sower or. Or Hunger Games. It's like you can't really understand what Katniss is experiencing unless you are with Katniss.
- [24:43]
B
Yeah. Yeah.
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A
And in your case, I feel like it's such an exceptional premise to be inside a ghost that it works, but it's also a workaround because we still are sort of getting third person.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Anyways, this is my whole rant. This isn't about your book. But to say that your book is. Does it. Did it. Well, it felt earned. Like an earned first person.
- [25:06]
B
Yeah. The rule I always was taught, which, like, rules are not a real thing. And I don't actually think that people have to follow this if they don't want to. But I was always told you start with third person. Unless there is an. Unless an irresistible first person presents itself to you. And so I think that's kind of like echoing what you're saying. If there's something so intense about being with the character that you really have to do it. Yes. Um, if there's no other way to tell the story, or if there's no better way to tell it, then go for it. But otherwise the story itself, enough should be happening that you can tell it in third person and it's dynamic and exciting. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [25:45]
A
But maybe I'm old fashioned. I don't know. I. I've been asking around about this whole first person thing and apparently everyone else loves first person, so I guess I. That's what I've been told. Like when I brought it up online, everyone was like, ah, first person's the best. I was like, oh, okay.
- [25:59]
B
I don't know. I don't know.
- [26:01]
A
And you know, I do have really intense opinions that are sometimes useless. So anyways, I want to talk to you a little bit about food. Okay. Because there is a meal. Chicken and dumplings. It comes up in this book all the time. I love it. It's. It's an intergenerational food. It's a pass down recipe. Do you cook?
- [26:21]
B
Yeah, I love to cook.
- [26:23]
A
Do you make chicken and dumplings?
- [26:24]
B
I have made chicken and dumplings. It's not one of my staples, the way it is for, for these characters.
- [26:29]
A
It's not one of your family recipes?
- [26:31]
B
No. And. And honestly, I don't have like a legacy of cooking from my mom and my grandmother, even though they both cook and they're. They're totally great cooks. But. Yeah, yeah.
- [26:41]
A
So why chicken and dumplings?
- [26:43]
B
You know, because there are some things that happen with the recipe that gets kind of contorted because a new generation had different values. And I kind of was thinking about, you know, what is a food that is. What's a food that appeals to different people for different reasons. And so there's one character who is vegetarian for a period and so she wants to swap some stuff out. I thought it was a really good, easy, kind of like motif for showing how people's values change. And then there's also opportunities to see people shopping for the ingredients to show kind of like the change in this town over time. I don't know. This is, this was me overthinking the chicken and dumplings greatly. But I.
- [27:25]
A
Well, obviously it was enough for me to be like, let me ask about chicken and dumplings.
- [27:29]
B
I did talk to my grandmother because I just, you know, I got like, very Overwhelmed with research at one point about trying to make this town have some accuracy. And I asked her about what kinds of things they would have for dinner. That was not one of the answers, but she did talk about having chickens around. She talked about, like, going with her mom to the market and stuff and getting like, these different pieces of meat. And so I sort of started there. And yeah, I wanted. I. I just really, like. I wanted people to feel like something delicious was happening when. When it came up. And I think people respond to sensory input in a book.
- [28:09]
A
I don't think I've ever had chicken and dumpling. What?
- [28:13]
B
Not even at, like, Cracker Barrel?
- [28:16]
A
Oh, I've never been to Cracker Barrel. You're on the West Coast?
- [28:18]
B
Yeah. Yeah. Dang.
- [28:20]
A
Yeah, I never, I never. I don't think I've ever had it in my mind. It's like, I don't. Anyways, I don't think I've ever had it.
- [28:27]
B
It's good.
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A
Sorry, everyone. Don't, don't. I've had other food. I swear I've eaten other things. Speaking of the research, how much did you do? What were you researching? What were you trying to, like, get right?
- [28:41]
B
Yeah, this is sort of the really hard. This is like the womp, womp part of the story of writing this book, which is that I, you know, the beginning section is mostly in. It's set in the present day, and it mostly follows that character Aubrey, and she's going through some, you know, stuff that is like, very relatable, I think, to a lot of millennials. And then I, as I discovered that this was going to have a big historical component. I, at this point had. My twins were like. I think they were maybe 18 months old or something. And I got to the part where I needed to go back and lay out some historical details about this town, which is in Tennessee, near Memphis. And specifically the history going back to pre emancipation, like sort of the era that, you know, and then through reconstruction. There's a lot of reconstruction stuff in there. And I got so overwhelmed that I set the draft aside for like a year and I was like, I cannot. I have these babies. I can't get to a university library right now. I can't lock myself away at a residency right now. And I truly, you know, at one point I was just like, oh, okay, well, I'm just not going to finish this then. And then I. Partly because I was less sleep deprived a little bit later, and then partly just because I sort of just found some willpower and made myself do It. I started researching little pieces of things. And so one was there is this real, historically black town called Orange Mound near Memphis that was. I think it had its beginnings in the Dedrick Plantation, which is like a very famous, sprawling Tennessee plantation that eventually began to be a home for some freed people. And I started to read about that, and that felt manageable. Like, that was one thing I could do. I looked at pictures and I read some of the accounts. I read about, like, what some of the professions were in that town, because I just needed to have enough detail to provide texture. And I knew I was capable of writing the family story. And then I made myself, you know, like, again, back to the lily pads. I was able to leap over that. That bit of it and then get to the point where I wanted to research about types of homes people would live in. And so I did some research into Sears kit houses, which were the. The like, mail order houses that people would assemble in the early 20th century, which I had done some reading about already, because I just found that really interesting for some reason. And that kind of opened doors to reading a little bit more about the auto industry. My dad's from Detroit, and so I had a little bit of interest in that anyway and knew a few things about that. But it. It sort of different little doors kept opening between these small pieces of what was going to go into the text. And then, of course, the classic thing that I think happens to all writers is that I would read about something for like a day and a half, and it would end up being four words in one sentence, you know, But I do think that, like, the sentence itself feels more accurate because of that. That time spent researching. So it was. I would say it was like not immersively researching. It was ad hoc research as. As pieces as I had to. Yeah.
- [32:07]
A
So I love that. I love that. Okay, wait, we're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be right back. Have a business idea, but don't know where to start. I know the feeling. I was there. When I first started this very podcast. I quickly realized it required way more than interviewing authors. And just like reading some books, there were scripts to write, brand assets to create, and eventually merch to sell. Luckily, by the time I was ready to sell, I had already discovered Shopify. If you've been sitting on a business idea, just know that Shopify makes it easy to bring it to life and start selling. Shopify checkout makes shopping a breeze for your customers. Offering a secure place for them to enter their information and easily complete their purchase, the process is even smoother after their first order. When they come back, their details are already saved, so they're only one tap away from securing a shiny new item or a comfy new sweatshirt. In the case of the Stacks. And since Shopify handles setup and checkout, you can focus on what you do best growing your business. With Shopify, nothing stands between your idea and a real business. So go make it one. Start your free trial at shopify.com/the stacks. That's shopify.com the stacks hello hello. We are in the midst of summer which is my favorite season and also a very fun season over here at the Stacks. As always, we are bringing you a ton of great new reads, author interviews and behind the scenes bookish gossip and chit chat. But if you find yourself craving a little more, consider supporting us on Patreon and Substack as well. On Patreon, which is our community focused bonus content hub, you can join our virtual book club. You can be part of our private Discord. You can read with us for our year long mega reading challenge. Plus there are monthly bonus episodes over on Substack. You can subscribe to my newsletter Unstacked where I give my hot takes on books and pop culture and sports and food and whatever else I want on both the Patreon and the Substack. You also have access to my non fiction reading guide, but it only is available through the end of summer so make sure you subscribe now to either Patreon or Substack or both to get access to that. And if you don't have a few dollars to spare right now, don't worry. There are free options on Patreon and Substack so you can keep up with the goings on around here. Making this podcast is a huge team effort and by supporting my Patreon and Substack you allow me to support my team so we can all continue to work together doing what we do best which is bringing you bookish content this very podcast. So if you or your friends are looking to meet other Bookish people, support an independent podcast, Come hang out with me, Patreon Substack or both. Go to patreon.com thestacks and Tracy thomas.substack.com and we will see you in the stacks. We're back. I want to talk about the names in this book. As you mentioned, there's 47 named peoples. There's also like a lot of place names and and just like there's names. Lots of names. So how were you naming how do you name? Whose name? Did you know for sure?
- [35:22]
B
Yeah.
- [35:23]
A
Talk about it.
- [35:23]
B
Oh, I. Names are so much fun to me. I used to be very, very obsessed with baby name trends over the decades, and so I have, like, a lot of now useless because I'm done having kids. Useless, deep knowledge about, like, names. But I.
- [35:40]
A
Well, not useless. You're a novelist, right?
- [35:42]
B
Yeah, exactly. Okay. I found a way to use it even though I'm done having kids. Yeah.
- [35:46]
A
You started a career around a passion. The passion was not writing. The passion was children's names. And you were like, truth. What's a job I could do where I use kids names?
- [35:55]
B
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yes. Thank you. I feel better about that now, actually. Yeah. And so, you know, like, I went into it. I always go into naming a character wanting to be true to the period, true to the class, true to the, like, kind of the value systems of the parents of the character. Aubrey and Bellamy. You know, there. There's discussion about how they're named in the book. They were also characters in my first book, and in that book, they're part of this sort of, like, slightly bougie black DC family, where it is the case that a lot of kids are given sort of gender neutral names that are supposed to allow them to blend in and, like, submit a resume and not have not be clocked immediately. I enjoyed. There is, like, a little bit of a lineage of names. There are a great grandmother, grandmother and so on who have names in conversation with each other. That was a lot of fun because I got to look and see what the top names were in each of those years and try to kind of work around that. There is, you know, of course, this is a Tennessee black family, and so the black church would have been a big part of their life. And it's specifically an AME church. And so there are a number of biblical names here. And then my editor, Emily Griffin, who's very brilliant, she pushed back on a couple of names that she wanted me to change. There's a character who was originally named Trip, and his name, she said that that sounded like a white preppy boy. But I have known a number of
- [37:30]
A
preppy black Trips, who was originally Trip.
- [37:33]
B
He became Trey. And so. Yeah, and so, because, like, you know, whatever. His name's probably Charles Houston iii. Right? Or something. Yeah, but so he's. He's Trey in the book now instead of Trip. And then there's a. There's a family that are. They're very WASP coded in the book, but they are also. I just Know, from writing them, they're partly Irish Catholic. And so there's a character named Brigid. My editor pushed back a little bit and wanted me to change that to something waspier versus Irish, but I was like, no, this has to stay. She used this.
- [38:09]
A
Interesting.
- [38:10]
B
Yeah. And then. And then other than that. Yeah. It was mostly about trying to keep the generations in mind. And it's always the most fun part. I really love that part of it.
- [38:19]
A
I. I loved the names. There's a few names that made me laugh. Like, Oliver obsessed. Oliver obsessed. One of the sort of, like, namey things that happens in the book is, like, there is a last name that is sort of connected to a lot of different pieces in the family. And the family's last name is Lamb. And then there's, like, the town is named after the plantation owner, and that's Lanier. And then there's, like, other versions of the name that sort of pop up. Was that something you discovered in your research, or was that something you sort of fabricated based on what you were trying to do with the story?
- [38:59]
B
Well, yeah, I mean, I did just happen to know that that happens a lot. But also when I was researching with my grandmother to put together her genealogy book, her family name is a Scottish name, and it belonged also to a lot of other branches of the family, both black and white in Tennessee, where she's from, but spelled in all different ways, and then also sometimes really changed in different ways so that it was almost not recognizable. But she. She has done a ton of genealogical research where she has, you know, she unfortunately, like, does the send your DNA sample thing and 23andMe, and then gets all these cousins whose names are so different that you would never realize it. But then you put it together and you're like, oh, that's the same name. It's just, you know, two and a half centuries ago, somebody changed it a little bit or couldn't write, and they said it a different way. Yeah, because.
- [39:54]
A
So I've tried to do Geno my own family genealogy, and I get stuck on my grandmother's maiden name, which is my middle name. We're from Baton Rouge and from New Orleans or, like, Louisiana family. And with the French and the spelling, I cannot find anyone with this name the way that my name is spelled. And I can't figure out what the other versions of it are. And so when this part happens in the book, I was like, this is what I'm dealing with.
- [40:22]
B
Yeah.
- [40:23]
A
Right now, like, and I also know, I think Van Lathan, who does the. Like show with Rachel Lindsay Higher learning hit. Lathan is his last name. He's also from Baton Rouge, and I believe he told me that the Lathans are connected to the Lawsons. L, A, S, S, E, N or something like that. And I was like, well, what is the one for my name? And he was like, I don't know. Or maybe he did tell me something. I can't remember. But anyways, so I was really taken by this as, like, there's hope that I could figure out what. What this French.
- [40:54]
B
Yeah.
- [40:54]
A
Creole name is.
- [40:55]
B
Oh, you totally can. You just have to, like, slur your name a little bit when you're saying it and see if it sounds like something else.
- [41:01]
A
You know, it's also because it's like. Like, it's like French spelling. So sometimes it has a T, sometimes there's no T. Sometimes it's nice. It's me. Anyways, this. It's just. I was, like, very. My, like, personal spidey sense was like, this is me. This is me. I can't figure out my name. Where's my family from? What about the title of this book? The Great Wherever.
- [41:24]
B
Yeah. So in the book, of course, the ghosts exist in this kind of liminal space where they are not able to interact with the living, but they're also not completely with the dead. And the. The narrator at one point refers to it casually as just kind of the Great Wherever. And so that's where the title got plucked from the current draft of. Well, I guess I should say the finished draft of the book only references that I think once. But I think I had them referring to it a little bit more often in previous drafts. And then I also thought it kind of echoed the fact that Aubrey is sort of in this wilderness of her own making of not really knowing what is going on. It did have a different working title. It was for a really long time called just Lanier county, which I, you know, I understand that is not as good. My editor pushed a number of times, and again, Emily is really smart and has really good ideas and was right about so many things that she said. And she pushed for the Great Wherever, which came from the text, and I think it works.
- [42:29]
A
So, yeah, Lanyard county just feels like such a different book. But also Lanyard's such a confusing word to the eye for me. I kept calling them laner. Like, I just kept flipping that. So I feel like Lanier also is, like, a hard word. But Lanyard county feels like a totally different book to me that's giving like. Like more about the town is that
- [42:53]
B
giving Cane river, like the Lolita Tatum. Yeah.
- [42:56]
A
Yeah.
- [42:57]
B
It's.
- [42:57]
A
I don't know, it's just slightly different. The great Wherever. Yeah, I don't know. I'm also influenced by it because I've said that so many more times in Lanier county, but what about. But. But I don't know. I just.
- [43:10]
B
It's a little more sarcastic, too. The great Wherever. And I think that fits the tone a lot better.
- [43:15]
A
Fits the tone. Emily was. Okay, so here's what was stunning to me about the book. I went into this book being like, ghost story might be scared, but I'm gonna try. Like, I don't know. And then from the first page, the tone, it's funny, it's sharp, it's sarcastic. Like, I knew that it was gossipy ghosts, but I sort of thought we were gonna be like 1840s. I don't know. In my mind, I had decided this was like a historical novel. And obviously we get a lot of that, but it's really a contemporary novel.
- [43:49]
B
Yeah.
- [43:50]
A
And I think the COVID was sort of giving me historical. So I sort of went in being like, oh, this is gonna be like. I thought the ghosts were gonna be old timey. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. I just. I was really like, the first, like, 50 pages, I was like, wow, this is not at all what I thought I was going to be reading. And, like, in a good way. But when I, you know, the job that I do, I read books early, so a lot of people hadn't read it or. And I also don't ever want to know anything about a novel. So I was, like, sort of pleasantly surprised by this book being, like, sarcastic and, like, jokey and super contemporary and in a lot of ways, like, urban.
- [44:30]
B
Yeah.
- [44:31]
A
Yeah. I mean, it's worth saying Aubrey's in cities.
- [44:33]
B
Yeah. Yeah. She lives in. In DC or. Yeah, in. Or around dc, but yeah, it's worth saying. I mean, you find out in the first two pages or something that the narrating ghost died, like, wearing a BCBG dress. So, yeah, she, you know, she's. She's of an age with a lot of the people who are going to be, I think, reading the book.
- [44:52]
A
Yeah.
- [44:52]
B
And, yeah, a lot of it is filtered through her perspective, so. Which was helpful to me because some of that old timey stuff had to feel accessible enough to write about it, so.
- [45:04]
A
Right.
- [45:04]
B
Yeah. So helpful to have her there to help process it.
- [45:08]
A
Yeah. What about the COVID I love the
- [45:11]
B
COVID Yeah, me too.
- [45:12]
A
So good. Did you have any say? Were you involved in it at all?
- [45:15]
B
Yeah. You know, it's funny because I published my first book with Gray Wolf, which of course, being a smaller press with a more curated list, they are really good about soliciting author input. And they send you like, this questionnaire. Tell us about the vibes, tell us what colors you think of when you think of the book. And so when I came to Holt for this book, I just assumed they wanted all my opinions about everything because Gray Wolf had. And they. They kept being like, wow, it's so great that you've thought about this so much. And I gave them feelings, I gave them senses of, like, what colors I thought belonged on the COVID And I gave them a couple of covers for reference that I really liked. One is Liz Moore's the God of the woods, which it ends up being like quite a. Almost like a, you know, fraternal twin with, with this. And then we did some work back and forth to adjust. There's a little human or maybe non human figure on the front, and we went back and forth on how gendered that figure should be and a few details like that. So I did come in with a lot of opinions and I hope they were helpful. So, yeah, I felt really excited by the result. I was so relieved because, you know, it's.
- [46:33]
A
It's really beautiful. You got a nice package. We love a good package. We love a good cover. What has been the big difference for you going from this indie press at Gray Wolf to going to a Big five at Henry Holt?
- [46:48]
B
Yeah, the biggest difference is Reach. So I. Well, I mean, I guess both, because of course a Big five publisher is. Is better resourced in a lot of ways. And so there have. There are financial differences. And then of course, like just generally Reach. I will say that the smaller press experience is so intimate. And I felt like I. I just always felt like I was sort of part of a family with that team. I feel that way in a lot of ways at Holt as well, but because it was like so much more grassroots in a way, the feeling was just a little bit more, I think, intimate. But yeah, Gray Wolf is super supportive and I had such a great experience there and I was really thrilled to get my first publishing experience there because it made me feel. It made me feel capable and competent, I guess, if that makes sense, because they were so nurturing. And then with Holt, it has been so exciting to see just the reach and the way that the ideas that they have, which are in so many cases, like, so far beyond what I would ever have thought of. Like, this book was on the Oprah Daily summer list this year, which. That was just very stunning to me. That's something really easy that I can tell my grandmother, and she's like, oh, that's so exciting. Versus almost everything else that happens in publish, which is publishing, which is so opaque to everybody who's not a books person.
- [48:19]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that makes so much sense. I love that. Is there anything that's not in the book that you wish could have been?
- [48:26]
B
Of course, after hitting send, I immediately was like, oh, I could have done this, this, this and that. Mostly, though, one of the really fantastic things about working with Holt and with Emily was that in. In one of our, like, very first conversations, she said, okay, listen, I know this book is 360 pages. Not every book needs to be a big book. I am okay with this being a big. As in, like, size wise book. It ended up being 400 pages. And so I mostly felt like I got to explore everything I wanted to, which I was really excited about. But there are tiny tweaks that. That I feel like I would have made. They're spoilery, though. They're about, like, other ghosts I could have added.
- [49:13]
A
Okay, you can tell me when we're done.
- [49:15]
B
Okay. I want to know.
- [49:18]
A
As you mentioned, you're the mother of three. I also follow you on social media, so I know you're a knitter.
- [49:23]
B
Yeah.
- [49:24]
A
You make, like, the cutest little things for your boys. And I'm like, I hope my kids never see that other moms are doing cute things like this, because that'll never be me. But how do you write? How many hours a day? How often? Music. Music or. No. In the home or out snacks and beverages? You know, that part's important.
- [49:40]
B
Yes.
- [49:40]
A
Rituals. All of it.
- [49:42]
B
Yeah.
- [49:43]
A
Okay.
- [49:43]
B
Here's where I have to call on so many writers who have been on this podcast. I don't know which one specifically, but here's what I know. I know lots of writers. I have hung out with them at AWP and at other stuff. I have listened to dozens, probably a hundred episodes of this show. I can count on one hand the number of people I have heard answer the snacks and beverages question with the word wine. And that is. That's like a number one writing food group for me. So, so funny.
- [50:17]
A
I feel like it comes up mostly with memoir.
- [50:20]
B
Okay, okay.
- [50:20]
A
That memoir is. And, like, personal essayists. Those are the people that are popping into my head who have mentioned either wine or whiskey or something like that.
- [50:29]
B
Okay. This makes Sense. Because I am mostly listening to the fic. To the novelists, I guess. And I know that a lot of career novelists are doing their writing, like, by day at a desk, and it's maybe one of the main things they're doing that day. So because I have a day job and because I have kids, I have, like, sort of two phases of writing. One phase is I have to get unstuck, I have to get started. I have to take advantage of, like, this chunk of time I have. And so that's where usually wine comes into play. I'm a red wine lover, and I. I just. I just love it so much. And so that's. That is, like, very generative for me. Once I'm on a roll, once I have, like, some momentum and I am starting to be able to write in a more sustained, systemic way, I'll usually get started by, like, taking a weekend and being, like, far away from the kids and stuff. And I'll try to get started. And then after that, I am writing every night after they go to bed. So this is like maybe 9:30pm to maybe 12:30 or something like that. Maybe five days a week, maybe six if I can. If I get to a point where I just am really stuck, stuck, then I have to stop and wait until I can go for a wine date again and start again. If I'm doing that, I usually have just room temperature water. I don't like for anything salty or sticky to get on my keyboard. So I'm usually not eating, like, a salty snack, but maybe something trashy like Twizzlers.
- [52:02]
A
Okay.
- [52:03]
B
Just for a little bit of. A little bit of sensory feedback while I'm writing. But if I do, then it's usually like, hanging out of my mouth while I'm trying to get through a paragraph or something like that. Not even being chewed. Yeah, got it.
- [52:16]
A
Okay. I love that you call Twizzlers trash.
- [52:20]
B
And black coffee. Black coffee is another big one. Yeah.
- [52:23]
A
Okay. I accept all of these very specific things. Thank you for presenting us with specific snacks. And I love you calling because now I'm gonna be like, shannon said you guys were drinking.
- [52:34]
B
I just know more of them are drinking than what are saying.
- [52:38]
A
They're. Yes.
- [52:39]
B
Yeah, I think so.
- [52:41]
A
Okay, now I know. Now I know to push back. I'm gonna be like, but what about wine? Yeah. What about a word you can never spell correctly on the first try?
- [52:50]
B
I am so narcissistic about my spelling, but the truth is the word resistant. Oh, I get it wrong.
- [52:58]
A
Can you do Resistance.
- [53:00]
B
Well, if I could, then I would. Yeah. Both of them. I tried the wrong. The wrong thing both times. Yeah.
- [53:07]
A
Got it. You know, I couldn't do either, so. That's a good one.
- [53:09]
B
Okay.
- [53:11]
A
Wait, can you tell us what your other job is? Your day job?
- [53:14]
B
Yeah, I investigate insider trading for a financial regulator. Yeah. I'm a lawyer too. Yeah.
- [53:21]
A
Wait, what? This is awesome. Write that book.
- [53:25]
B
Oh, oops. Yeah. One day. They have been supportive of the fact that I also do this. I had to get, you know, permission and stuff. But the arts are fine as long as you're not doing something to compete with the regular.
- [53:38]
A
I want to know about investing, investigating insider trading. I want that non fiction book.
- [53:43]
B
It's juicy. Also very. It's very gossipy.
- [53:46]
A
Yeah. Come on, Shannon, you're holding out on me.
- [53:48]
B
Yeah.
- [53:49]
A
Eventually you're like, yeah, not gonna do it. What comes next for you? Do you know? Do you have a next book, next idea?
- [53:58]
B
I do have a next idea. Yeah. Promoting a book is extremely consuming and the best wisdom that people give is that you should be working on the next thing while you're waiting for this to happen. But it's just so consuming that it's really hard to do that. But I really miss short stories. I'll probably be writing some more just to get that. That feedback loop going again soon. And then I do have my next novel idea and I'm gonna really try to get ass in chair pretty soon to start working on that.
- [54:29]
A
Wine, girl. Get that wine.
- [54:31]
B
There you go. Exactly. That's where it comes down handy.
- [54:33]
A
There you go. For people who love the great wherever, what books would you recommend to them that are in conversation with it?
- [54:39]
B
Yeah, I would say definitely. Honore Fanon Jeffers, the Love Songs of W.E.B. du Bois. Ya. Jesse's Homegoing, those two, for sure. I think Donnie Walton's work, the final revival of Opal and Nev, is in conversation with this because of the sort of historical journalismy kind of.
- [55:01]
A
And the tones are sort of similar.
- [55:03]
B
Yeah, there's.
- [55:04]
A
There's similar vibe. Like, like, like that feels correct.
- [55:08]
B
Yeah.
- [55:08]
A
Yeah.
- [55:09]
B
100. I'm a big Ann Patchett fan. And Commonwealth, which is a family novel that spans generations and has lots of sibling stuff going on. I'll just. That'll be my last one, but. Yeah, that too. Okay.
- [55:21]
A
I've never read Ann Patchett. I know. Yeah. Hot take. I. I don't think I'm gonna like it.
- [55:27]
B
I don't think I'd like it. Maybe Commonwealth. Yeah.
- [55:31]
A
I'm sort of just avoiding it. Because I'm like, I don't think it's for me.
- [55:35]
B
Yeah, I don't either, but okay.
- [55:37]
A
Thank you for validating this, the new book, Whistler, with the horse on it. I'm like, I know that's not for me.
- [55:42]
B
I'm not even sure that's for me, even though I love Ann Patchett, so. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah.
- [55:48]
A
I just feel like her covers are sort of signaling. Like her marketing and sales and art team are sort of signaling to me. Not for you, girl.
- [55:56]
B
Yeah.
- [55:57]
A
And I think that's okay. Like, I can, like, like her as an idea cleanly without having to actually grab gravel with the work that I probably won't like. And then I won't get yelled at.
- [56:08]
B
Yeah.
- [56:08]
A
Yeah. I won't get yelled at. I can just be like, she's a great writer. People love her. Never read her. Yeah. But maybe one day I will. We'll see. Okay, last question for you. If you could have one person dead or alive, read this book, who would you want it to be?
- [56:22]
B
I'm gonna say my grandmother, because she is alive and she has a copy of it. She doesn't do a ton of reading on the page at this point, but I would love for her to be able to experience it, the whole text. You know, I. Yeah, I would love that if she could.
- [56:38]
A
Can she do audio?
- [56:40]
B
She can do audio. Yeah. So. But I don't know that she does for novels, but I will try to get it in front of her.
- [56:45]
A
Yeah, the audiobook's quite lovely. I listened to some sections just to get a sense of it.
- [56:49]
B
Oh, great. Yeah, I got to listen to it, too.
- [56:51]
A
Yeah, it's good. I feel like it's, like. It's a good. It's an improve. Because usually for a novel with this many characters, I would never like. It's too confusing. But I felt like she does a really good job, your narrator, of, like, differentiating the voices and the writing is clear enough that there's not that many times where I'm like, wait, who's talking? Yeah. So I feel like I usually am very sensitive to fiction in audio, and this one worked for me.
- [57:18]
B
Yeah, she did a great job. Her name is Keeler Lee. I was very. I was very pleased to hear the samples that I got to hear. And I guess I'll also say I would love for Honore to read it. Honoree Fanon Jeffers. Yeah. Yeah. She's accessible.
- [57:31]
A
Yeah. I feel like she could read it.
- [57:33]
B
Yeah.
- [57:33]
A
Come on, Honore. Read the book.
- [57:34]
B
Yeah.
- [57:35]
A
You send it to her.
- [57:36]
B
I think my editor did. Yeah.
- [57:38]
A
So yeah, fingers crossed. Well Shannon, this was so amazing. Thank you so much for doing this with me. And just to say, Shannon is a member of the Stacks Pack so we extra love you.
- [57:51]
B
Yep, the Stacks are so fun. Thanks Tracy.
- [57:53]
A
Thank you for being here. Thank you and everyone else. We will see you in the stacks. All right y', all, thank you so much for listening and thank you again to Shannon for joining the show. I'd also like to say a big thank you to Abigail Novak for helping to make this episode possible. Our book club pick for July is Behind the Beautiful Forevers Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo. We will discuss the book on this very podcast on Wednesday, July 29 with Juliana Hobner. If you love the Stacks and you want inside access to it, head to patreon.com the stacks to join the stacks pack and check out my newsletter at Tracy thomas.substack.com Please take a moment right now to make sure you are subscribed to the Stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you're listening through Apple Podcasts or Spotify, leave us a rating and a review. For more from the Stacks, follow us on social media at the Stacks pod, on Instagram, Threads and YouTube, and you can check out our website at the stacks podcast.com Today's episode of the Stacks was edited by Christian Duenas with production assistance from Sahara Clement. Additional support was provided by Sri Marquez and our theme music is from Tagirijis. The Stax is created and produced by me, Tracy Thomas.