Nicole Dickson: Casting Off
Book Club Discussion

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Nicole Dickson

Are the ganseys real? Is the island real? What, if any, of this story is based on actual people and places?

Yes, ganseys are real and are referred to by many names such as Arans, Aran sweaters, Fisherman's knit, to name a few. It is also true that there are traditional meanings to the stitches from which the Fisherman's knit is composed - zig-zag means "cliffs," double zig-zag, "marriage," etc. I designated in the novel where the stitch patterns had traditional meanings. But Casting Off is a work of fiction, so I also invented many of the stitch meanings.

As for the island in the novel, Sharon's island, that is actually a combination of two of the Aran Islands - Inis Mor and Inis Meain Islands. The Aran Islands sit off the west coast of Ireland, close to Galway. Much of the history of the island I pulled from the collective memory of the Aran Islands and you'll find many of the surnames from the novel in and around that area in Ireland. But as for the specific island, Sharon's Island, that place does not exist.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Nicole Dickson

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Nicole Dickson

This was not a lighthearted read. Why is the book filled with so much tragedy?

In my writing, I tend to explore things for which I can find no answers - where the resolution is unclear and people are pushed right to the edge by the struggles of life. Take for example Sean and Rebecca. There can be no resolution for them. The other people in their unsettled relationships are dead. Also, the nature of domestic violence seems to necessarily grant no resolution within the relationship. All healing from that kind of trauma tends to happen beyond and outside of the situation. It was not my intention to write a lighthearted read, rather to explore what the resolution, if any, could look like for a person like Sean, who had done what he had done and Rebecca, who had lived through the relationship she had. Two completely different people in two separate relationships who face each other as two sides of the same coin. If I look at the general pattern within all my work, people are at that edge of nothingness, either literally, to give up on life, or metaphorically, to die in soul. I linger a great deal at that crossroad - to choose to slip over the edge or to choose to claw back away from it.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Nicole Dickson

Sean was an intense character. I was moved to tears several times during the course of his story. He seemed remorseful over the way he had treated his family, but he also couldn't let go and move on with his life. Why?

Sean is so blatant in his brokenness. He tries to hide none of it and cares not an eyelash for anything but his own pain. He is the proverbial Narcissus - living in his own past, seeing only himself there, watching the events roll across his mind again and again. The loss he has endured, the confusion of working so hard not to be his father but inevitably stepping right into the shoes provided for him by his early family dynamic, are all that he sees. Nothing new is experienced. No day is fresh. When eyes are perpetually focused inward or upon a reflection of self, there is no newness and so, Sean is simply trapped in his own vision of what was. The fact that he lives alone and away from everyone else then means that no one can mirror what they see back to him from a different perspective. He's a prisoner of his own reflection.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Nicole Dickson

What is it about Rowan that brings Sean back to life?

Rowan is actually a tree called witchwood. In the pagan traditions, certain trees hold certain powers, ergo wands made of wood. Wands, from that tradition, move things from one state to another. Yes? So Rowan is a little wand - a conduit for change. When Sean yells at her from his self-inflicted prison, expecting to get what is always returned to him, she holds up her little mirror, so to speak, and reflects back to him what she sees in him. Sean is forced to look at something new. He has no idea what to do with it, so, being highly uncomfortable, he leaves. Then he meets up with Rowan again, begins to act in the same, ole Sean way, and Rowan just lets him have it once more. In this way he sees "out" and his eyes focus back into the world. All things new draw attention, don't they? Rowan is new, so he follows her, touching and feeling all those spots within his soul where he experiences the loss of his family. Now, he sees the value of his loss and wants to get it back in the present. He doesn't want to look back and inside any longer.

I see that so clearly when he's on the beach, having pulled onto the sand after chasing the memory of Joe's pipe on the wind. He's about to fall inward, but he doesn't want to do so any longer. Thus, he grabs Rowan's hand gently, keeping himself looking outward. Now comes the hard part. How to stay in the present by himself? That is what we watch as Sean and Rowan continue. Change at this level in the soul is very, very hard, I should think, and therefore, painful. But wasting forty years of life is painful, too. With Rowan, Sean sees family again and he wants that above all else and that is worth the pain of clawing away from the edge of nothingness.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Nicole Dickson

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Nicole Dickson

Are there real places in the world like this little Irish island? The idea of a community knowing each other so personally and helping each other so frequently seems foreign in today's world.

I don't really know, but I will tell you what my mother told me time and time again and this book really is the lessons she left behind in me. When I grew up, we belonged to a church. I see it through a child's eyes - through Rowan's eyes. We had Thanksgivings at the church, we had talent shows at the church. We would go places - several families to the beach or camping. There was belonging, even though, I believe, the adults had to work out their differences. It was not overly "religious" in a loud, preachy way. Rather, it was quiet and everyone just was who they were, quietly contributing to the world. That's how it was, in my eyes anyway. I remember, as an adult, asking my mother why it was I could not find a place like that inside or outside a church. Her answer was simple. "YOU create that, Nicci." Can there be an island? According to my mother, absolutely! You have to build it.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Nicole Dickson

There are many underlying themes in this book - love, anger, redemption, forgiveness. What message do you hope your readers will take away with them at the end?

First, I would say, and if there was only one thing I could say, it would be this - love never, ever intentionally injures with a word or an act or a thought. Which doesn't mean love doesn't hurt. Of course it does. We are all imperfect. But the intention is never to do harm in anyway.

Secondly, dreams die and all death is painful. From a domestic violence perspective, this is the hardest thing to overcome, in my opinion. We hang onto the dream, even after leaving the situation, hoping we will live it, but really, it is dead already. That being said, though in the middle of or coming out of that kind of relationship, it is difficult to see there is another dream - a new dream. And in that new dream is wonder and life and fresh air. It is so hard to see, but it is there, just on the other side of the old dream. The old dream must be released, like a good friend who passes on. A little tenderness will always be there for the memory of that dream, but the new dream - unbelievable.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Nicole Dickson

Can you tell us anything about your current writing projects?

My current project is about a chef, the palette, and redemption. Those all go together. Difficult, I am sure, to see how, but they do - wonderfully!

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Nicole Dickson