CONVERSATION GUIDE
A Conversation
with Erin Celello
Q. It took you ten years to write your first novel and you were determined to write this second one faster. How long did it take?
A. This book took me a year to write, and another year to rewrite and polish for publication. I think part of the reason that the writing went more quickly is because I learned so much in the process of crafting
Miracle Beach
. But another reason, equally important, is that I learned to be a much more dedicated writer. I used to wait for my muse to announce her presence before I would sit down to write. Now I’m better at stealing scraps of time to write whenever and wherever I can. I had a full-time job while writing
Learning to Stay
and learned to be disciplined about writing on my lunch hours and for another hour or two either before or after work—sometimes both. That kind of schedule can mean a diminished social life at times, but it’s so worth it to see the finished book hit the shelves.
Q. This novel is quite a departure from Miracle Beach. What inspired you to write it?
A. It is definitely a departure, but a journey I was excited to take. Years ago, I read
Where Is the Mango Princess?,
Cathy Crimmins’s brilliant memoir about her struggle to come to terms with her husband’s traumatic brain injury. The story stuck with me, as did the central question it posed: What do you do when the person you married is no longer the person you’re married to? I knew I’d eventually play with that same question in the realm of fiction, but I didn’t know how—partially because Crimmins’s story was so powerful. But during the years that followed, I started to see and hear stories about TBIs everywhere. I had an opportunity to edit a PhD thesis on students with TBI intersecting with community colleges, which gave me a deeper understanding of that injury. Then, when TBI, along with post-traumatic stress, started to be termed the “signature” injuries of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), I realized I had a backdrop as powerful as Crimmins’s in which to explore the central question she raised as well as these ancillary issues.
Q. What kind of research did you do?
A. I don’t come from a military family, nor have I served in the military, so I had a steep learning curve. I started by reading anything and everything I could find about OIF and OEF, as well as books about traumatic brain injury (a comprehensive reading list follows this guide). I also watched endless hours of documentaries and films about the wars in an attempt to take in the details that I hoped would make this story compelling and real. I also relied heavily on blogs. One huge benefit of writing
Learning to Stay
when I did, as opposed to five or ten years earlier, is the access I had to veterans and their families who have chosen to publicly record their thoughts and feelings
through blogging. Even if I were to have interviewed as many veterans or spouses as I could find, my knowledge would not have been as thorough and informative as it became by reading these online journals.
Finally, I gave drafts of the book to a few veterans I knew for feedback, to ensure that each and every detail was as accurate as possible. Their input was invaluable. Any remaining errors are mine and mine alone.
Q. There aren’t many novels available about military veterans of recent wars, and their families. Why do you think that is?
A. Honestly, I’m not sure, though I suspect the reasons are many.
Part of the reason might be that it’s just still too new. The United States has been at war for more than a decade, but OIF ended only about a year ago and OEF is ongoing. I think it often takes society a long time to gain the perspective necessary to put events like these in context so that they can begin to be analyzed and explained. I also suspect that maybe people who haven’t been on the front lines of the war, so to speak—whether veterans or their families—are hesitant to tackle some of these issues before veterans themselves have had a chance to. Often, throughout the writing of this book, I feared that it was an audacious endeavor—one that I had no business undertaking because I hadn’t personally experienced any of the issues facing Brad and Elise, and because I didn’t have much more than a passing familiarity with the military. But many veterans who read drafts of the book, and others to whom I gave my elevator pitch, expressed gratitude for my effort to do their struggles justice. I don’t know if I succeeded or not, but dang, did I ever try.
I hope I’m wrong about the final possible reason for the dearth of stories about veterans of recent wars: that the American public has been slow to come to terms with the fact that we’ve actually been at war for the past ten years. It’s been easy to dismiss OIF and OEF as something happening clear across the globe from us, as something that only takes place on cable news, because only one-half of one percent of the U.S. population has fought these two wars on behalf of the rest of the ninety-nine-point-five percent of us. It’s important to remember the very real sacrifices made by each and every one of our service members. Many have made the ultimate sacrifice, and many have come home with a range of physical and psychological injuries. The sacrifice is great even for those whose service does not take them into war zones. Enduring constant relocations due to deployments, suffering disconnects between civilian and military life, and juggling the demands of military service with family commitments—these are all daunting challenges that the men and women of the armed forces face every day.
Q. What do you most hope readers will take away from reading Learning to Stay?
A. I hope that this book gives readers a glimpse into the very real difficulties faced by so many veterans and their families. Many situations are not as extreme as Brad and Elise’s, but some are even more overwhelming. There is no average or typical experience for a returning veteran and his or her family. Our efforts as a country to support our troops need to go far beyond tying yellow ribbons on trees or sticking a picture on a car bumper.
Q. What can we do to help veterans who are readjusting to life stateside?
A. If you live near a military base, you can reach out to the base’s Family Resource Center, or contact your state National Guard’s Family Readiness Group for ways that you can help. First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden’s initiative, Joining Forces (www.whitehouse.gov/joiningforces), is also a wonderful clearing house for volunteer opportunities. Employment and mental health services for returning veterans are in great demand and homelessness among veterans remains a serious problem. Widely varied programs aim at helping veterans secure the services they need, and the organizations that run these programs welcome volunteers. Efforts can be as simple as donating magazines or board games to VA hospitals, to as complex as volunteering for veterans’ suicide prevention hotlines. (According to a 2012
New York Times
article, more than 6,500 veterans commit suicide every year—that’s more than the total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq
combined
since the beginning of those wars.) Chances are, whatever unique talents or interests you might have, there’s a way to parlay that into providing help for our nation’s veterans.
However, there are two very simple and direct steps that each and every one of us can take. Making ourselves more aware of the circumstances facing returning veterans is one of the most basic tools we have at our disposal. A 2011 PEW Research Center study found that eighty-four percent of returning veterans feel that their fellow Americans do not understand the myriad problems they have had to face, including long separations, physical and psychological injuries,
and stress. The better understanding we all have, the better position we will be in to help.
The second thing each of us can do is to express gratitude when we see a service member in uniform, or one who has identified him-or herself as a veteran. It might seem awkward to approach a stranger in an airport or restaurant, but a simple, “Thank you for your service,” can mean a great deal. It lets the service member or veteran know that his service is not forgotten, that his efforts are appreciated, and that the difficulties that so often accompany those efforts are understood and acknowledged.
Q. Your personal life has changed significantly since you wrote Miracle Beach. Did those changes have an impact on the writing of Learning to Stay?
A. While writing
Miracle Beach
, I had similar reservations as I had during the writing of
Learning to Stay
—mainly, the question of how in the world do I think I have any business writing about this? With the first novel, I was a single twenty-something, fresh out of graduate school, tackling in fiction the inner workings of two complicated marriages and the death of a spouse and child. Since then, I’ve married and had my first child, and those life changes did help in gleaning some of the subject matter for
Learning to Stay
, but the book was still a stretch for me. However, that’s less problematic, I think, than it sounds. I’ve never ascribed much to the old adage of “write what you know.” Instead, I’m a proponent of starting with what you know and then pushing your limits as a person and as a writer. That kind of writing is more interesting for me, and I hope by extension, for the reader.
I also firmly believe that no two stories are alike, which is a remarkably freeing belief. I was often asked how I could have written
Miracle Beach
without ever having personally experienced the loss of a spouse or child, but by the time you immerse yourself in the lives of your characters enough to get their story on the page, it’s not about you anymore. It’s not about what you’ve experienced or the choices you’ve made. It’s about what they choose to do, who they are as people, and the hopes and dreams they have. I often reminded myself of that in the course of writing
Learning to Stay
when doubt started to creep in: Even if I had been a veteran or had lived a similar experience to the characters in the book, their unique story would still have evolved, and even among real-life veterans and their families, there is no typical or average story. Each is unique. So, too, is Elise and Brad’s story.
Q. Is using service dogs to help veterans an actual idea or program? Does something like PAWs exist?
A. Yes and yes. I originally got the idea for the PAWs program after watching a
60 Minutes
program about dogs trained by inmates to help those suffering from PTSD. I was surprised, and heartened, to find a whole host of programs that match therapy dogs with returning veterans.
As it turns out, Senator Bernie Thorne of
Learning to Stay
was a little ahead of his time. In 2009, real-life Senators Al Franken (D-MN) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA) cosponsored a bill—the Service Dogs for Veterans Act, which was part of the Defense Authorization of 2010—that helped provide disabled veterans with service dogs to “help keep America’s promise to returning soldiers and improve their quality of
life after service.” As a result of senators Franken and Isakson’s efforts, programs helping to train dogs and match them with physically and mentally wounded veterans have recently cropped up around the country. Psychiatric service dogs help veterans overcome their social isolation simply by needing to be walked outside, forcing many veterans to venture out into public. The benefits they provide in reducing the fear and anxiety of many veterans suffering from issues such as PTSD has been well chronicled, and programs pairing dogs with veterans continue to crop up across the country.
Q. What’s next for you?
A. That’s a great question! Veterans’ issues remain very top-of-mind for me. I’m hard at work designing a veterans-specific English composition course at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where I am an assistant professor. I am also in the very early stages of working on a nonfiction project about a Marine who returned home from Iraq with a severe TBI and the horribly difficult decision his wife had to make in order to honor his end-of-life wishes. And in all of the spare time remaining after those endeavors, and after chasing around my now-mobile (and incredibly active) son, I’ve been tinkering with the beginning of a third novel as well.
CONVERSATION GUIDE
Questions for Discussion
1. What was your general reaction to reading
Learning to Stay
?
2. Did you know anything about post-traumatic stress syndrome and traumatic brain injury before reading the book? What did you learn that most surprised or shocked you?
3. Discuss the company culture and expectations at Elise’s job at the law firm, within the context of the novel and from your own job experience. Are they unrealistic expectations, or necessary ones? Do they exact too high a price? Is it a price you would be willing to pay, especially during this time of high unemployment?
4. Discuss Elise’s efforts to get Brad help. Does she do enough, or does she pack him off to his dad too soon? Not soon enough? Would you have handled the situation differently?
5. Should more tax dollars go to supporting U.S. veterans? Have you seen indications that more services are being made available? What additional programs would you like to see?
6.
Learning to Stay
is, at heart, about a marriage in crisis. Is it fair to say that the marriage is saved by the dog Jones?
7. Animals can perform amazing services for humans. Discuss the stories you’ve heard, or personally experienced, in which an animal enriched, or even saved, a human life.
8. Darcy thinks Elise should stand by Brad no matter what. Sondra urges her to leave him. If you were in Elise’s situation, what would you do?
9. Do you think Elise should go ahead and have a child with Brad? What kinds of questions should a couple consider when deciding whether to have a child?
10. Compare the life Elise might have had with Brad if he hadn’t gone to Iraq versus the life she expects to have with him at the end of the novel.