Ask the Author: Sarah Bannan
Answered Questions (5)
Sarah Bannan
Dear Nancy - I'm so sorry that it took me so long to answer! (I've admitted my uselessness at Goodreads in other places and this passed me by for some reason - usually my brain only comprehends criticism, so that's probably why I didn't see this:) ) YES, is the answer to the question - and the book is firmly adult - there's not a teenager in sight! Very different from WEIGHTLESS but I really enjoyed writing it...I'll reveal more when I'm permitted! Thank you again for your kind words!!!
Sarah Bannan
Dear Rachael - Thank you so much! Sorry for the delay - I am useless at Goodreads. Yes - you're exactly right about the narrators - it's Jessica, Lauren and Nicole, but I don't think it's at all essential for people to know that or get that - I just wanted to have an anchor and, in a sense, to place the girls narrating a little bit on the outside of the action. Thanks again for reading and for your kind words! Sarah xo
Sarah Bannan
Hi Diana! Sorry for such a late response! The publication date is 12 March 2015 for the UK/Ireland/Australia and 30 June in the US and Canada. And, yes, it's available on Netgalley!
Sarah Bannan
I don't wait for inspiration - I just sit down and do it. I write in the very early mornings in a teeny tiny space. Sadly, this probably isn’t particularly unusual for writers – as most don’t have much money or time – but I often think that even if I had a huge house and a beautiful, separate office, I probably wouldn’t use it. The fact that I literally have to crawl in and out of my writing space makes procrastinating difficult. Once I’m in the chair, I’m in the chair.
Sarah Bannan
In 2010, I became haunted by the story of Phoebe Prince – I suppose because she was Irish the story got a huge amount of coverage where I live, in Dublin. It was also one of the first cases about online bullying that really captured the public’s attention. And I remember reading the initial coverage and the story seemed very straight-forward – this beautiful girl was bullied relentlessly by a group of ‘mean girls’. Then I started following Emily Bazelon’s reporting in Slate –and she slowly began to reveal a more nuanced view of what had happened. Awful as everything was, it wasn’t clear or black and white; Phoebe Prince had a history of depression, self-harm and had been accused of being a bully at her previous school. The kids charged with ‘bullying Phoebe to death’ weren’t even all friends. The story that the mainstream media had presented didn’t entirely stack up, and that’s often where the fiction writer is most comfortable: where things aren’t black and white., where we don’t quite know what happened. It just struck me how complicated and messy things are when you’re a teenager – and how eager our parents and adults in general are to put everything in neat boxes and say ‘oh, this is because of social media’ and ‘this never would have happened when I was younger’.
Then I started imagining what my life was like in high school – we didn’t have Facebook or cell phones or any of that stuff and things were still really hard, cliques were really rigid, popularity was really important. I went to high school in Alabama, and I suppose I always knew I wanted to write about it in some way – it was a very, very strange experience (really wonderful in so many ways, but strange all the same). We voted for our cheerleaders, we had a school-run beauty pageant, the football players and cheerleaders were the most popular in our class, nobody had any desire to get out of the State for college. It was insanely hierarchical, particularly around things like looks and who had lived in the town for the longest. My school was probably 75% white, 25% African American and there were very few cross-racial friendships – even though racism wasn’t overt, it was definitely there. All that being said, my town was also a remarkably caring environment in a lot of ways - people were church-going, there was a strong focus on family and tradition, and faith formed a huge part of people’s lives. Sometimes this manifested itself as hypocritical, or scarily conservative, but more often, it made people kinder, more caring and compassionate. I actually loved my high school experience (partly because I had such a cool and interesting group of friends - I think once you decided that you were part of the group that rejected the hierarchies a whole new world opened up to you).
I wasn’t bullied in high school but I can remember being around when it happened, and not saying anything, and perhaps contributing to it in my own way. I suppose this led to how I arrived at the voice for the book – I wanted to convey that sense of ‘group think’ and the question of culpability when you’re just watching something happen. It also struck me that peer pressure, bullying and all those things that are so regularly covered in the media are all much subtler and more insidious than they are often portrayed. I wanted to portray that some way in fiction.
The decision to set the book in Alabama was simply because I thought there was such rich territory to draw from – and I could imagine everything happening so clearly in a town like mine. I suppose it’s important to stress that it isn’t actually the town that I went to high school in – it’s fictional, there are lots of differences between Adamsville and where I once lived. The decision to call it ‘Adamsville’ was very deliberate – I wanted to communicate that this kind of thing could – and does – happen anywhere.
Then I started imagining what my life was like in high school – we didn’t have Facebook or cell phones or any of that stuff and things were still really hard, cliques were really rigid, popularity was really important. I went to high school in Alabama, and I suppose I always knew I wanted to write about it in some way – it was a very, very strange experience (really wonderful in so many ways, but strange all the same). We voted for our cheerleaders, we had a school-run beauty pageant, the football players and cheerleaders were the most popular in our class, nobody had any desire to get out of the State for college. It was insanely hierarchical, particularly around things like looks and who had lived in the town for the longest. My school was probably 75% white, 25% African American and there were very few cross-racial friendships – even though racism wasn’t overt, it was definitely there. All that being said, my town was also a remarkably caring environment in a lot of ways - people were church-going, there was a strong focus on family and tradition, and faith formed a huge part of people’s lives. Sometimes this manifested itself as hypocritical, or scarily conservative, but more often, it made people kinder, more caring and compassionate. I actually loved my high school experience (partly because I had such a cool and interesting group of friends - I think once you decided that you were part of the group that rejected the hierarchies a whole new world opened up to you).
I wasn’t bullied in high school but I can remember being around when it happened, and not saying anything, and perhaps contributing to it in my own way. I suppose this led to how I arrived at the voice for the book – I wanted to convey that sense of ‘group think’ and the question of culpability when you’re just watching something happen. It also struck me that peer pressure, bullying and all those things that are so regularly covered in the media are all much subtler and more insidious than they are often portrayed. I wanted to portray that some way in fiction.
The decision to set the book in Alabama was simply because I thought there was such rich territory to draw from – and I could imagine everything happening so clearly in a town like mine. I suppose it’s important to stress that it isn’t actually the town that I went to high school in – it’s fictional, there are lots of differences between Adamsville and where I once lived. The decision to call it ‘Adamsville’ was very deliberate – I wanted to communicate that this kind of thing could – and does – happen anywhere.
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