Rachel Stolzman: The Sign for Drowning
Book Club Discussion

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Rachel Stolzman

The whole time I read the book, I felt as if I were reading a memoir. Does this story have any personal connection to your life? If not, where did the idea originate?

I've been asked that before and I think it feels that way because of the very internal and confessional first person voice of the narrator, Anna. The book is not a memoir or autobiographical, but the seed of the story came from a real life experience. The prologue of the novel describes Anna's younger sister, Megan, drowning at the beach, while the parents try to find her in the water. Before I was born, my older sister, was washed out off a raft in a similar way and she was underwater for half a minute or so, before being safely recovered. This experience must have been scary enough to my parents that they told me the story. My novel began as a short story based on that event, but in my story it's the younger sister who is lost, and the older sister who watches. Later I became curious about what happened to the family afterwards and I decided to turn the story into a novel.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Rachel Stolzman

Tell us a little bit more about the title. In the literal sense, there is no sign for drowning in sign language, but I have a feeling its meaning runs deeper. How does it connect to the overall story?

That's right, there is no one sign for drowning. In ASL you would sign drowning as four separate signs: person, water, sinking, dead. I kind of liked thinking that this tragedy was unspeakable for Anna in any language.

But on a deeper level, it wasn't part of my initial concept for the novel that Anna would try to speak to her dead sister through sign language. I was writing scenes about the family in the aftermath of this terrible loss, and I imagined that Anna couldn't stop herself from imagining what happened to her little sister and what Megan experienced as she died. In these imaginings, there was always that incredibly peaceful silence that I love about being underwater. I was learning ASL at the same time I was doing my MFA in creative writing and I found a job working with deaf people. I felt like I had an epiphany about my character Anna, when I brought together her experience of losing her sister and her discovery of sign language as a way to still communicate to her sister who was underwater and couldn't hear. I found my own hook. I also thought the designers at Shambhala hit on this connection with the cover image. I myself had never thought of a girl listening to a shell- what a perfect way to capture the intersection.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Rachel Stolzman

Forgiveness is, in my mind, the most major theme of the novel. Rather than working on outward forgiveness, Anna's family struggles to forgive themselves. For some this is impossible. How do you think a person living this close to a tragedy can learn to forgive themselves and move on?

I was definitely asking myself questions about forgiveness in this book. Forgiveness of self, others and of life. Anna and her mother suffer a terrible rift after the death of the younger daughter. The mother no longer feels capable of being a mother and therefore becomes very distant, entrusting Anna to care for herself. Anna grows up in a state of wanting and needing more from her mother and eventually feeling an unbridgeable gap. In addition, each character feels they could have saved Megan had they acted differently on that fateful morning.

I think the central themes of the book are forgiveness and the impermanence of life. I used The Little Prince as a parallel tale in the book, and I really latched onto the idea of the prince protecting an ephemeral flower. I myself think the most precious parts of life are all ephemeral-living beings and the natural world- and that is the human struggle- to accept that impermanence and still say yes to life.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Rachel Stolzman

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Rachel Stolzman

Can a parent truly find happiness after the death of a child?

You ask an impossible question! Having never experienced that myself, I can't answer the question. But, through publishing the book, I've gotten to speak to a number of parents who have lost a child. I have been deeply honored each time someone has chosen to share this experience with me- it is so moving and also gives me such a strong feeling of connection and respect for their courage. From what I've observed talking to people who've lost a child, is that it's a pain that never goes away. Yes, there is happiness that can still be found, but that sadness is still there.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Rachel Stolzman

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Rachel Stolzman

Anna and Adrea's lives connected perfectly because each really needed the other. As the story progressed, I felt like Anna was doing more of the needing than Adrea. Was she becoming like her own mother or just learning the ways of motherhood and letting a child grow independent?

Anna adopts Adrea, a deaf foster child she works with, when Adrea is five years old, the same age Megan was when she drowned. Their bond is very strong and it's a relationship full of love, but Anna struggles with her motivations for adopting. And as a new mother, she begins to face the loneliness and abandonment of her own childhood. Without giving away the plot, I'll say there is also a turning point towards the end of the book, where Anna deeply fears that she will repeat her mother's mistakes.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Rachel Stolzman

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Rachel Stolzman

I loved Anna's father. I felt that he was the real survivor of the family and I was sad that he always seemed so forlorn. Would he have been better off to divorce Anna's mother and move on?

Thank you, I like him too! The father is the consistent element of this family. There's a section in the book where Anna describes her family as geological layers of earth, showing changes in time. The layers she describes represent the family before they lost Megan, the three of them afterwards, a period of time when her mother leaves the family, then her return, and later, Anna's life with Adrea. The father is always present for Anna.

BCQ: One last question about her parents – I just couldn't mesh their "before" personalities with what we know of them in the book. Hippies don't fit. Was this extreme difference meant to show how absolutely personality-changing this kind of devastation can be?

Rachel: They were a free-spirited family and I chose to make music a big part of their lives as well, which disappeared after the tragedy. Their lives did utterly change. One way I looked at their transformation is that they were people who expected good things from life, and were free and incautious. Then of course they were terribly hurt, and lost their confidence. There isn't a message from the author here, but I do feel it's best to be a little incautious and very hopeful in life.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Rachel Stolzman

Can you tell us anything about your current projects?

I am working on a second draft of my next novel. It is about a pair of twins, one of whom is born an enlightened bodhisattva. The Dalai Lama is a character as well. The book includes the themes of Dharma wisdom, compassion, terrorism, suicide, our modern globalized world, and responsibility to and for others. I'm excited about the book and I have my hands full!