BETWEEN THE TIDES

Susannah Marren’s debut novel crackles with the tensions of real life—rivalries, betrayals, shaky marriages and the challenges of mothering—in a way that simultaneously resonates and illuminates. It’s no surprise that BETWEEN THE TIDES (St. Martin’s Press; July 2015) has such insight into the lives of women: their challenges, their triumphs and their inner yearnings.

 

Told against the backdrop of the Selkie legend – enchanted seals who shed their skins to live on land as women – Marren’s unique style peels back the layers of a ‘ perfect world’ to reveal the shifting tides of marriage, family, career and friendships. Her protagonist, Lainie Smith Morris, moves against her will out of her beloved New York City for the affluent suburbs of New Jersey with her surgeon husband and four children. The dark side of the American dream begins to consume her as Lainie starts to unravel.  Does Lainie depend too much on her twelve year old daughter, Matilde, and her art work as her only comforts?  Her isolation is interrupted by the serendipitous meeting of an old friend, who at first seems like a godsend, but proves to be anything but. Will the earth-shattering consequences of her friend’s betrayal drive Lainie past the breaking point? Readers should prepare themselves for a shocking surprise ending to this original, fast-paced novel.

 

SUSANNAH MARREN is originally from Long Beach Island, New Jersey. She currently lives in Manhattan with her family and still spends her summers on the Jersey Shore. BETWEEN THE TIDES is her first novel.

 

BETWEEN THE TIDES

By Susannah Marren

St. Martin’s Press; July 2015

304 pages; $25.95

ISBN: 978-1-250-06673-2

The selkies are sea creatures, half woman, half seal. They wiggle out of their seal skins on the rocks to lie in the weak winter sum. One fisherman watched with his binoculars from his fishing boat and waited."

 

"He loved the prettiest one!" Claire interrupts. "That's right, darling girl, " I say.

 

Jack sticks out his tongue. "Who cares about some stupid sealy lady? He shouts.

 

I stop the story "Jack please seat down."

 

Jack returns to the couch beside Tom, his big brother, who is on his iPad. Jack yawns and props his eyes open wide with his fingers. "Boring Mom!"

 

"More! More!" Claire screams, She jumps of the couch and starts dancing around the den, waving her hands like flippers in her crazy water dance on land. "More!" she screeches. Matilde, my solemn child, interrupts, "Mom, are you a  selkie?"

I laugh and look out the den window that faces west. It is too dark to see anything. "No, darling girl, I’m not a selkie."

"But you love the water and you swim every day. When we go to Cape May you lie on the jetties just like the selkies. You never answer us when you’re on the beach . . . it’s like you’re not even there. . . . Remember last February when—"

"Matilde, I am not a selkie."

"Mommy," Claire cries, "the sealy skin! The fisherman! Finish the story."

 

Perhaps Charles is right and I ought to quit the tale. It isn't Cinderella or Snow White; there is no prince with whom to live happily ever after.

 

"Mom?" Matilde is waiting.

 

"Okay...well...the beach is empty in December when the fisherman sees his chance. He sneaks up near the rocks and comes close to the prettiest selkie."

 

"He takes her skin, Mommy!" The man takes her seal skin!" Claire begins to sob as she always does at this part in the story.

 

"That's true, Claire darling. The man takes her seal skin while she is in the icy sea. When she comes back to the shoreline, frantic to find her sealy coat, he is holding it in his hands. He tells her she has no choice but to go with him, without her coat she will drown. Be he promises to love her forever, that they will marry and have a family. That's the deal. The "forever" part gets to me.

 

"And she marries him!" yelps Claire. She begins to dance again. "She marries him and they have babies! "Claire is the cheerful one, she bounces from one side of the room to the other. She passes Tom and Jack, who watch her as if she were an alien creature. I wonder if Jack and Claire will ever share a thought , an interest. Fraternal twins are not a matched pair.

 

"Until one day..." I look up. "Jack are you listening?"

 

Jack covers his ears. "I don't care about seals and babies. It's gross.

 

"A dull story for the boys," says Charles. He is in the doorway, appearing out of nowhere, as usual. He is so stealthy, Charles, more burglar than surgeon.

The children race to him and grab at his arms and hands, his legs, anything that is their father. Except Matilde, who stays close to me. "Lainie, how about another story? Something more realistic?

You could read to them from Tom Sawyer."

Matilde leans in toward my ear. "I know why you like the story. I

know you’re a selkie. I saw your sealy skin." Everyone is waiting.

"What sealy skin? What are you talking about, Matilde?"

"In the hall closet, hanging in a zippered bag. A black, thick coat,"

she answers. "Hairy."

"Oh, that. That’s from my grandmother. You’re right, it is made of seal, a long-dead seal. I wouldn’t wear it. I don’t have the guts to ditch it. I guess I’m sentimental."

No one else speaks. Claire is frozen in mid-dance. Matilde says, "The sealy needs her coat to go back to the sea. She has a land family now but she misses the sea.

 

"That's right. That's how it works," I whisper. "The days become flat for her, days without any sun."

 

 

 

A Conversation with Susannah Marren

 

1. What inspired you to write Between the Tides?

 

I have long been interested in the female experience in our society – as a mother,  a  daughter,  a  wife.   I’ve  also  been  intrigued by   the dangerous elements in certain female friendships and how they play out.  I believe that environment informs our relationships. The idea of city life versus a suburban existence and the pitfalls and rewards inherent in both became a theme of  the book. The fact  that a wife/mother (Lainie) did not  fit  in either place was very compelling for me. The question lingers: what is the price of motherhood?

 

2. The yin and yang of Lainie and Jess’ friendship and long history of competition was convincing. 

 

 Do you have any ‘toxic’ friends?     For Between the Tides I liked the idea of an ongoing competition ­­ one that invoked events of those early years at the shore for Lainie and Jess. I carried that   competition   into  adulthood—motherhood,   life   in  Elliot,   career   (or   lack there of) and marriage. How many of us get to revisit such a friendship and still   be   in   the  game? While  writing   this   I   thought  a  great  deal  about the summer friends of my youth and how the ‘it’ girls—who were toxic ­­ were not always the ones everyone followed later in life.

 

3. In  the novel  there are triangles everywhere. 

 

We have the Lainie, Charles, Matilde triangle; the Lainie, Jess, Charles triangle; and the Matilde,   Claire,   Lainie   triangle.  What   are   you   saying   about   the nature of threesomes? I felt very strongly in writing this book that power shifts even when there is trust within the relationship. For example, Lainie and Charles are never truly  secure  as  a   couple  despite   that   they  have   real   feelings   for  one another.  As a result, Matilde becomes a wedge between them. In the Lainie, Jess, Charles triangle, we have a marriage that is not whole and thus Jess seeps into the equation. It becomes a messy and tricky triangle because Lainie and Jess share a history of rivalry for the ‘glittering prizes’ from when they were young. The prizes were popularity, beauty   and  winning   the   right   guy.  

 

Jess,   as   a   young  woman, wanted whatever Lainie had – she wanted Lainie’s boyfriend Clark, not because she actually liked him but because he was Lainie’s.   When Jess falls for Charles,   it’s   actually   about   Charles,   not   about   winning.     This   is   a departure.    The Matilde, Claire, Lainie triangle is about birth order and Matilde, as the  older   daughter,   is   very   connected   to   her  mother.  This   connection keeps Matilde from her own life and her own experiences. Claire, at the age of five, already longs to be a part of Lainie and Matilde’s world. Lainie is  vaguely  aware  of   this  while  Jess  is  completely  conscious of  how  it occurs. And so we wonder at the end,  is Jess actually a better mother figure for a ‘normal’  family?   Is love alone ever enough or do we need other ingredients, such as the ability to survive the challenges of modern life? 4. The voices of Lainie and Jess are distinctive and both narrators are‘types’. Why did you tell the story this way? I thought that some readers will identify with Jess and others with Lainie and  perhaps ask the question, am I a Lainie or a Jess?   I was in both characters’ heads and I felt the friction between them combined with the intensity   of   their   attachment.   Someone   asked   me   why   Lainie   didn’t appreciate her  situation while  Jess had  to cover  up a  terrible secret—William’s abuse. Lainie wasn’t a fit for the life she had and longed for the shore  and  freedom.  In  contrast,   Jess  embraced  the  Elliot   lifestyle  and went to great lengths to sustain her image and position in that world.

 

5. Did   you   find   it   easy   to   switch   from   Lainie   sections   to   Jess sections?

 

I found it fluid in terms of Laine’s point of view and Jess’s point of view. I thought about both characters for months on end. I have always known how the book would end  ­­ since the earliest drafts and for that reason, I was able to shift gears as the story unfolded. Jess is tough minded and a survivor – that’s very obvious from the outset. Lainie, in an other worldly way, is a survivor too.

 

6. When Charles announces that he can’t commit to Jess why does she believe she can keep the affair going?

 

Jess never loved a man as she loved Charles and it threw her for a  loop  and changed the nature of love for her. She respected Charles and was  drawn to him, For once it wasn’t about getting ahead or being the victor, it was about being  in  love. These feelings sobered her and gave her a  kind   of   humanity   she   never   had   before.  Not   that   she   stopped   being manipulative or looking out for herself, but that her emotions drove the    Charles relationship for her. She almost cannot accept Charles’ situation –his commitment to his wife and family. Jess soldiers on—seeking what  she can get from Charles.

 

 

7. Did you purposely leave the ending of Between the Tides open to interpretation?

 

  What are you asking the reader to consider? Yes, I did leave the ending open to the reader’s interpretation. Part of what I’m asking the reader to consider is that not everyone fits into a societally prescribed role. Lainie loves her children but is it possible that Jess is the one who can make Lainie’s family happier– and on some level does Lainie realize this? What constitutes family – what is fictive family? I’m asking if we   are   able   to   forgive   and   understand   those   who   don’t   embrace motherhood or wifehood.

 

8. Do you consider this a romance novel or women’s fiction?

 

I consider this novel to be a bit of both. Surely there is a romantic element and it is part of the tale. Yet it’s also a story about mothers and daughters, and female friendships ­­ and how singular is the search for happiness.

 

9.   What sorts of fiction and nonfiction do you read? Who are your favorite writers?

 

 I am a fan of both novels and nonfiction. As far as fiction goes, I love the classics,  Buddenbrooks  by   Thomas  Mann,   Jane   Austen’s   work,   the Bronte sisters.    For  more current  novels,  Sophie’s  Choice  by William Styron, The House at Riverton by Kate Morton, The Goldfinch by Donna Tart,  All the Light We Cannot See  by Anthony Doerr,  BelleFleur  and other fiction by Joyce Carol Oates.  When it comes to nonfiction, I love to read about  Anne Boleyn, Mary Todd Lincoln,  and books about  gender roles throughout various cultures.

 

10.What is your next project?

 

 I’m  currently  writing  a  new  novel.   I’m  quite   excited  about   it   and   very involved with the story. Most days it fills my head – and I already know the plot.