May 01st 2008 Posted in
Books We are pleased to have with us Alycia Ripley as she chats about her Mystery novel that is a combination of mysticism and paranormal experiences. Welcome to Reader Views Alycia.
Juanita: Alycia, thank you for sharing your thoughts with your readers today. Your book “Traveling with an Eggplant” is getting rave reviews and we are very delighted to have the chance to hear more. Please tell us how long your book was in the making, and what was your inspiration?
Alycia: The basic concept and the title, I’m obsessed with titles and always come up with them at the very beginning, emerged in the fall of 1999 when I was a senior in college because of someone I met there at that time. It’s a strange time for men because they aren’t boys but aren’t men either- they’re guys, and that’s what he was. From the first time we met there was a strange sort of chemistry that was difficult to explain, a real kindred sense - he was just very unique and intuitive and sweet and bizarre and I loved being around him- there was just a spark in the air and this sense of anything could happen.
The title comes from a time he drove me to my English class when I was late and couldn’t wait for the next bus- he had the passenger seat belt buckled because he had just brought back an eggplant from a wedding and I thought it was so fantastic that he traveled with it that way. Most people would put it in the trunk or in the backseat but this guy kept it next to him and buckled it in like you would a person or a child. I loved it- that summed up his unique qualities and the phrase ‘traveling with an eggplant’ took on several meanings- not just his car trip but the whole adventure of the story, the life lessons, and the concept that both the male and female main characters are such interesting, unique people. Think about it- if they were vegetables they wouldn’t be something common like corn or carrots or celery- they’d have to be eggplants!
From the second month I met him I just thought, ‘I’ve got to tell a story about he and I someday…I don’t know quite how or in what sense I’ll do it but it just needs to be.’ And then the longer I knew him, the more necessary it was because the twists and turns were just unbelievable and I knew it was a relationship that people would enjoy hearing about because it was ridiculously funny, hopelessly sad, optimistic, doomed, totally absurd and yet really relatable.
Juanita: Are any of the characters reminiscent of someone you’ve crossed paths with?
Alycia: Besides Alison and Seymour which are definitely based on me and the aforementioned male, the character of Tara was based on two good friends of mine- one was my friend Kathy who is a platinum blonde, super organized, Polish lawyer from the suburbs of Albany as Tara is in the book. The other half came from my friend Baiba who was like a second mother to me - Tara has a lot of her adages and attitudes.
The really sad part is that I began writing about Tara’s brain tumor and two months later, found out Baiba had one and was in the hospital. I couldn’t write at all for a while after that because I felt so oddly and irrationally responsible. She passed away in 2003 and I knew then I had to continue- I could use my heartbreak to make this character and her situation come alive in a greater way and seeing as how Baiba was the biggest fan of my writing and becoming an author, I knew she’d want me to do so. It was a chance to save them both. The rest of characters are all inspired by people I knew or came across but are not exactly them- they are the essences of people sponged up and tossed into these characters. I don’t think there is anyone I completely made up- they are all based in someone and I tossed in some close homages to my friends as well. And of course, the character of the grandmother in the book is my grandmother to a tee. She was incredibly important to the novel in a way that I hadn’t been aware of until I began writing and she influenced so much of it- she really is the heart of the novel and its sense of justice.
Juanita: Will we find any of your personality colored into the characters in your book?
Alycia: Outside of our occupations being a bit different, Alison is as close to me as you can get. That was a bit scary actually- even though it’s a fictional novel and thank God FICTION is in bright green letters on the back cover, I don’t need any of this nonsense surrounding James Frey to come anywhere near me, I won’t even get into how ridiculous I think that brouhaha is- I’m glad I said explicitly that it’s not a memoir- its based on people and events but it’s a large hodgepodge of magical, surreal fiction, an adventure story. This is my statement to the Smoking Gun- if I said someone was wearing a green t-shirt and it was actually aqua, it doesn’t matter.
It’s a book, not a political manifesto…stay away from me! Now that I got that out I can get off my soapbox…it was a scary thing even if it IS fiction to put Alison out there because her personality is all me and it was like saying to people- here I am in all my strange contradictions- the people pleasing, the defiance, the inability to let go and the strange ability to make things happen, the past demons, the goals and semi-mistakes (I don’t see anything as a mistake, only a learning experience and I never regret anything) so here I am- write what you want about her/me. It’s definitely a strange thing to put yourself out there like that. And oddly and ironically enough- the character of Chloe is a tad like me in her dialogue style and blatant, twisty desire to help the situation.
Juanita: What kind of research did you do for “Traveling with an Eggplant?”
Alycia: I studied my journal for the first part- I’ve kept journals from very early on. I studied all of them to help me articulate myself into a character and provide her with the attributes I needed to make apparent. Luckily I kept a journal of my experiences and friendship/relationship with the person who inspired Seymour so that I could look back and really feel the good times and bad times and make the story as vivid as possible. The other thing that helped was that I had his exact words written down. When writing you usually have to change the dialogue of real life people because once written down it looks boring and uninspired, it’s a lot of “Yeahs” and “Ands” and whatnot. But this person, the soon to be Seymour, had such a wonderful, stylized way of speaking that I couldn’t have ever improved upon it or changed it one bit. He made my life easier and really was such a wonderful character before he ever hit the page.
I had to do A LOT of research on music journalism as I had only a vague sense of what it was. I always read Spin and Rolling Stone and even had some vintage copies of Creem, but I read at least twelve books written by or about female music journalists through the years so that I could get a sense of how they spoke and what positive and negative experiences they had, in particular, because they were women. It was a really enlightening experience- doing that research, reading the books, shadowing people at rock magazines. It’s definitely a male-based journalism and to stand out as a woman you have to stand by your values and find a way to be one of the guys and cool without losing sense of your femininity and self and navigating your way around rock stars and the craziness that comes with them.
I did a lot of research on brain tumors and neuroscience, even visited the lab of one of my neuroscientist friends, to get a feel for Seymour’s life that I wasn’t a part of and get the details right for certain scenes. The concept of audiokinesis is something I made up but having done research on similar kinetic abilities made it easier to bring it to life in a realistic way. And oddly, right after the book was sent to the publishers, the New York Times did an article about musical hallucinations and how they’re a valid problem and what it’s like to live with them…I couldn’t have been more thrilled. It made me feel the book was meant to come out, like I got a karmic sort of thumbs up!
Juanita: Readers really like to know more about the authors that pen such creative works. Please give us a little more insight into Alycia Ripley. Where were you born? What are you passionate about? What is your underlying philosophy of life?
Alycia: I was born and raised in Buffalo, New York, a city really close to my heart that I will always consider home no matter how much I move around for work or whatever state I settle in. My parents divorced when I was an infant and I was raised by my mother and grandmother. We had a small family of my mom, grandmother, aunt, uncle, and two cousins but our extended family was huge- family friends, adult friends that took a interest in me and my future, etc. When I was twelve my mother met a wonderful man who helped raise me from that point on. Before twelve, things were a tad rocky and if you read the book you’ll see in what sense I mean, but that soon came to an end. I blame no one for it because like I said earlier, everything happens for a reason and influences our character and I was provided with a great villain for the story- so no worries there. But my childhood and adolescence was happy and there was a lot of love around me- I was always treated as an adult and encouraged to be who I was- imaginative, crazy, and a little different. Definitely an entertainer. I always wanted to be an actor and a writer- nothing else. No ballerina stage, no firewoman, just acting and writing. Luckily both of those things have started happening or else I’d have lost my mind by now.
I suppose that leads into my philosophy of life- that we can become who and what we want to be, what we’re supposed to be if we really try and really want it and believe in ourselves. We can always improve and change. When I was about ten I said to my mother, “I’d rather die than be mediocre.” That was it- that sums me up perfectly. I wanted to be somebody- getting married, having children, that was all great, too- but above all- I wanted my work to mean something, to touch people, to stand out, to matter, to be known for something great and unique. To really validate my life and being here- my mother didn’t have it easy raising me as a single parent- she gave up a lot. So I felt that I needed to matter in a way that would make all the sacrifices done for me really WORTH it. I was capable of so much, she encouraged me to do so much and stand out- I wanted to be special- I wanted to matter and do good work and influence everyone else to be creative and colorful and do something different and fantastic that only they could do. God, I’m going to come off so hippie-dippy with this but I guess that’s how it goes.
My philosophy is that we should strive to be special, to do work that is unique and different and matters and helps people and the human condition in some way, to not sit back and just live, what a waste! To color outside the lines and break some rules!
Juanita: And of course, we all want to know, are you really a fan of 80’s music?
Alycia: Absolutely! Even before I consciously knew it, music played a very important role in my life- I never had real allegiances to singers or bands - I saw them more as soundtracks and scores to images, stories, characters I was writing or watching in my head. Being so obsessed with films and books from such a young age, I saw music as a perfect accompaniment to words and people and scenes and so it became integral to everything I wrote. I’m actually sort of freaky in that sense- my headphones are always way too close to me at any given time. I grew up in the 80’s and so that music is especially important because I remember these albums and their singles in a really tangible, vivid way. There was something about the 80’s I don’t feel can be repeated again- a real sense of fun and heart and individualism, funkiness, and groove that had nothing to do with being ‘alternative’ or holding some greater importance or allegiance to anything other than exactly what they were.
Juanita: Your book has been suggested to be a re-imagining of the classics ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘The Wizard of Oz’. Please elaborate on these comparisons.
Alycia: I planned the structure of the novel as homage to these works because they are two of my favorite stories of all time. The beginning and end are like bookends and those are the sections that are most similar to these classic stories. If you read the very beginning up until the storm sequence, which is very similar to The Wizard of Oz, the events are a certain way. After that point, they change and it’s up to the reader to figure out what happened at the end of the book, after the second ‘bookend.’ Did the characters share the same magical dream or did they have a parallel life that Alison decided she needed to go back and change for the better? Either way- it’s a magical story with sci-fi elements that interested me as I wrote them. Alison is definitely a modern day Dorothy Gale and perspicacious readers will pick up on the fact that the college Alison attends is called Gale University. The theme of colors in the novel is also similar to Dorothy’s adventures.
In terms of Alice in Wonderland, it has that same bookend style where you have to determine if it’s a dream or if it actually happened and there are certain characters that are reminiscent of Carroll’s story- Seymour (and Alison’s career goals) are the White Rabbit, Seymour’s friends have characteristics of the Caterpillar, Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee, etc. Mostly, I think it’s due to the novel being structured in form and bookended like these stories, which was a very deliberate move on my part. Not only do I love the surrealness and magic of these stories, it was a subtle hint to readers to pay attention to certain passages and events. The stories are all similar in the fact that you begin in this definite ‘reality’ that changes and twists and turns into something still reality but warped and strange and odd and colorful and a heroine has to find her way out, and also decipher in what ways the adventure made her reality ‘better.’
Juanita: What is the underlying theme or message in “Traveling with an Eggplant.”
Alycia: That everything happens for a reason. Everything. That the journey of life is so much more integral to our character and to life itself than the destination. That negative things happen but ONLY if you look at them in a negative way. My pet peeve is when people say ‘Life isn’t fair’, ‘This shouldn’t have happened, this isn’t fair, why would God let this happen?’ My perspective has always been- life isn’t fair! That’s the point! The point is that God or Fate or Karma or whatever you believe gives us challenges and how we react to it and what we make of it is what shapes and forms our character. It’s all about our personal mettle and what we’re made of. Alison is made of much more than she ever thought- that her self-reliance and sense of love and sacrifice is HUGE and that’s character, not whether she ends up with Seymour or becomes a hugely known music journalist. Both may happen but that’s not the point. That who we are has less to do with our occupations than people like to think- that we have a destiny that has nothing to do with our occupations and everything to do with our character and what we can do and who we can help and maybe there’s this one major thing that only WE can do and this one thing makes us who we are.
Juanita: How can readers contact you if they have any more questions regarding your book?
Alycia: There is a website, www.alyciaripley.com that has more information about the book and myself than anyone could possibly want.
Juanita: Thank you so much for talking with us today. All the best with “Traveling with an Eggplant” and your future endeavors. We will undoubtedly be hearing more in the years to come from this creative new talent. Alycia, is there any last thoughts you’d like to share with your readers?
Alycia: I’m truly thankful for the reader support and thrilled at how they’ve been embracing the book and telling others about it. That’s the thing with indie publishing houses- you are awarded the creative control, the royalties, the copyright, but it’s up to you and any fans you make to push the book and get it out there- I don’t have a huge see all-know all publishing company behind me- I decided to go with the house that allowed me more freedom but the hard part is getting the book in the public eye. The readers have helped immensely with this. On that same note- I’d like to encourage people to write, all the time, anytime. So many people tell me in conversation that their work isn’t good enough, that they would never be able to get published.
My theory is- if you believe you have a great story to tell, write it down- don’t edit yourself or let self-doubt creep in- just write and then edit to the best of your ability. Show it to a friend whose opinion you value, edit some more, and contact an independent house and see if they’d be interested. Publishing is changing- it’s no longer dictated by these huge houses that publish only two new authors a year. I believe there are great writers out there with wonderful stories to tell who are now much more likely to be heard. I’m always reminded of a line from that movie, Sideways, where Jack the actor friend says to Miles, the writer, “I believe in your book, Miles, and I’ll help you publish it. The point is to get it out there, get it in libraries. Let the public decide.” That’s the whole point- let the public decide, not some huge publishing house that is just interested in moving a few units regardless of whether it’s creative or unique or good or not.
Often, they just want something that is a rip off of something else that was a hit- not original work. So don’t let them intimidate you- just keep writing and when you’re ready- go with an independent label and see what happens. I have a bit of a workhorse mentality- keep your head to the ground, one foot in front of the other, but it works. Color outside the lines, go outside the box, write what you love to read and I guarantee you- there’s an audience waiting to read it, too.
Juanita Watson is Assistant Editor for Reader Views
http://www.readerviews.com
