Mary Alice Monroe - WHERE THE RIVERS MERGE

[00:10] Cindy: This is Cindy Burnett. Welcome to my award winning podcast Thoughts from a Page, a member of the Evergreen Podcast Network. On this show I chat with authors whose books I have enjoyed about their new releases and others in the book world about the books they have loved.

[00:23] With so many books coming out weekly, it can be hard to decide what to read,

[00:26] so I find the best ones and share them with you.

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[00:46] The link to buy it is in my show Notes.

[00:49] Today, Mary Alice Monroe joins me to chat about Where the Rivers Merge.

[00:53] As soon as I saw the stunning cover on this one, I knew I had to read it.

[00:57] Mary Alice goes in a different direction for this one, writing all about conservation and climate change within a duology. This is book one and book two should be out next year.

[01:08] I really thoroughly enjoyed the book and she completely brings the area to life. Mary Alice is the New York Times bestselling author of 30 books for adults and children.

[01:17] She has earned numerous accolades and awards,

[01:19] including induction into the South Carolina Academy of Authors hall of Fame. She resides in South Carolina and North Carolina with her family. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

[01:31] Welcome, Mary Alice. How are you today?

[01:33] Mary Alice: I am lovely. It's a beautiful day. The sun is shining and it's spring. How can you not be in a good mood?

[01:40] Cindy: Exactly. I feel the very same way. I love seeing the sun and everything's starting to green up here.

[01:45] Mary Alice: It's lovely when the Carolinas, both South Carolina and North Carolina, everything's been in bloom.

[01:51] Cindy: That's lovely. I'm a little bit above that in Virginia, so we're just a little bit behind, but we're getting there.

[01:56] Mary Alice: Okay.

[01:58] Cindy: So I really enjoyed Where the Rivers Merge and I can't wait to chat with you about it.

[02:02] Mary Alice: Thank you. Yeah, speaking of beautiful places, that part of South Carolina is the ace.

[02:08] It's the ACE Basin, but it's also the ace, the crown jewel of all South Carolina landscape.

[02:14] Cindy: So I saw in the back of your book what ACE stands for, but would you tell my listeners so they'll know.

[02:18] Mary Alice: It's an acronym and it stands for three rivers that come together to form a really beautiful aquaculture where the great rice plantations used to be. And the three rivers are A for  the Ashepo, C for Combahee, and E for Edisto

[02:37] Cindy: Got it. I was not familiar with the Ace basin, and so I was happy that you included it at the end. And I thought everybody listening might enjoy knowing what that was too.

[02:45] Mary Alice: It's very important. It's actually one of the reasons I was driven to write this book, is because of what the Ace basin represents to so many people.

[02:54] Cindy: And I can't wait to talk all about that. But before we do, would you just give me a quick synopsis of Where the Rivers Merge for those that haven't read it yet.

[03:01] Mary Alice: This is an epic story. And I say that because it's multi-generational. It's a sweeping historical and it's actually two books.

[03:11] So it's the first time that I have written what is now called a new word for me, a duology,

[03:17] as opposed to a series, which I've written a couple of series.

[03:20] But a duology is one continuing story.

[03:24] And this story takes place between 1900 and 1988, and it's the story of Eliza Pinkney Rivers Chalmers Delancy. She's 88 years old at the beginning of the book,

[03:39] and she is passionate about her family's land in what is now known as the Ace Basin between Charleston and Beaufort. The old rice plantation has been in her family for generations.

[03:51] And she is a scout of a girl. As a young girl, when we meet her, she breaks the mold. She's what we call today a tomboy. And it breaks her mother's heart.

[04:02] It's her eternal frustration. Her father encourages her love for horses and managing this big farm.

[04:09] And as we journey with her throughout her first 26 years, in book one, you come to understand this headstrong girl who sees the world as she wishes it to be.

[04:22] She's colorblind, she loves the land. She's fiercely protective of it. She eschews all the female expectations of the 1900s. And as a result,

[04:33] the conflict is she headbutts both primogeniture, which is, you know, passing furniture, passing land from one generation to the next only through male lines. And of course, being able to run the farm, run the plantation.

[04:49] No, she's a girl.

[04:50] And it's her spirit that carries the book.

[04:55] And what I love about this epic story, even though it's very long and takes two books, is that it carries. It's the history of the South after the Civil War. Everyone knows what goes up to the Civil war, but from 1900 to the 2000s was probably the most remarkable period in our history of the South,

[05:13] but in particular South Carolina. You have two world wars, you have the Great Depression, and you have a woman who lives from the days of horses and carriages to space,

[05:26] and in that time is the Charleston Renaissance.

[05:29] And most people don't know why. So much land is in conservation in South Carolina, and it's because of what happened in the 30s.

[05:37] It is what’s called Rice and ducks. The great rice plantations went fallow,

[05:43] and as they went fallow, and that whole industry died,

[05:47] what happened was that great land,

[05:49] all that water area, became a perfect habitat for ducks.

[05:55] So all the robber barons, all the great moneyed families from the Northeast,

[05:59] came down and bought up the plantations and the houses and the land,

[06:04] and they loved the land because it's such a beguiling landscape, but they came to hunt.

[06:11] So during the 30s and even the 40s, it was like Downton Abbey in South Carolina. They used to come down and open up the great houses and have parties and have a wonderful time and then leave.

[06:24] So it's a part of history that people don't really know about, and it's so exciting to tell.

[06:30] And all these landowners,

[06:32] both the Comeyas and the Beenyas. The Comeyas, that's Gullah. The Comeyas are the people like me and those who have come who don't have a long family history here. So even though those people came in the 1930s, they're still Comeyas, but they loved the land.

[06:48] And the Beenyas, those plantation owners, the landowners from way back in the colonial period, they both loved the land.

[06:55] They came together and put this vast acreage, 360,000 at the time, in 1988, into conservation.

[07:05] So I thought, how do I tell this story? I'm not writing a nonfiction. I wanted to show people how, why people put land into conservation.

[07:14] Not that they did,

[07:15] but why.

[07:16] What makes a person want to do that?

[07:19] And I thought and thought, how do I tell their story?

[07:22] And I knew I would tell it through one woman's life.

[07:25] So the readers will journey through her history,

[07:29] understand her passion for the land, for her family history,

[07:33] and then it broadens to the very end, which I don't want to tell you yet,

[07:37] but I thought that's the best way,

[07:39] is to be in her head and heart.

[07:42] And that is the story.

[07:44] Cindy: And you are clearly very well connected to the land and love it, and that comes through in the story. And I look forward to talking about that in a little bit.

[07:52] But one question I have for you before we do that is a duology. How did you decide to write the book in two parts or to write two books as a duology?

[08:00] Mary Alice: It wasn't intended to be at the very beginning. And then I wondered, do I even make a series?

[08:05] I had a long conversation with my editor, Liz Stein, who is fabulous.

[08:10] And I think if I had written this book in the year 2000,

[08:15] one reviewer compared my book to the Shell Seekers by Rosewin Pilcher, which I thought was really astute. It's a book that I thought was really beautifully done and it's a woman's history.

[08:26] But in 2000,

[08:29] when the book came out, people would buy 700 page novels. And the question came up,

[08:36] Do we intimidate our readers when they see this 700 page novel? And I thought, yes, we would. I don't think our readers today, unless you're sci fi or fantasy somehow that's sort of locked in.

[08:50] But I don't think people in their reading time today really want to buy a 700 page book. So that's why we decided to tell it in two stories.

[09:00] But what's most important to me, Cindy, and I hope I can say this to all my readers, I know the whole story.

[09:08] My style of writing is I write to the end of the book because my novels come full circle. So I want my readers to maybe review a little bit when book two comes out, because at the beginning of the book, Eliza emerges and the problems and conflicts are presented.

[09:27] She goes through this journey and by the end of book two, it goes full circle. And I think it's really important that they remember the beginning. So if I could have done it in one book, Cindy, I would have.

[09:41] But that was the decision we made.

[09:43] Cindy: So I totally get what you're saying about 700 pages. That does seem daunting these days. When will book two come out?

[09:48] Mary Alice: Hopefully in 2026.

[09:51] I am still writing it now and I want to make sure it's a pretty complex book. And I say to people, buckle your seatbelts because there's a lot going on to continue Eliza's story.

[10:04] Hopefully 2026.

[10:06] Cindy: Got it. Okay, good. Well, we'll look forward to that.

[10:08] Mary Alice: I don't like my readers to wait for this duology for more than a year.

[10:12] Cindy: I understand that. But sometimes it can be difficult if it is a complicated story, to get it all down on the page.

[10:17] So you say in the note in your galley, which is a letter that is in the front of my draft copy, that this is your most personal book. Can we talk a little bit about that?

[10:27] Mary Alice: Yes, it is a combination of all I wanted to say.

[10:32] For 20 years I've written what is called eco fiction, and those are novels that are family stories. But I set against a species, and I had something I wanted to say about landscape and mostly species.

[10:45] But when I did finish 20 years of that, I thought, okay, now with climate change and all the concerns we have,

[10:54] we're concerned more with a bigger picture of resources and water and food. And I thought, how can I address a bigger picture? And also, I wanted it to be a bigger scope for characters as well.

[11:09] So it's my voice that's the same,

[11:12] but it's just more complex.

[11:15] So I have the landscape issues.

[11:18] I'm saying everything I want to say about habitat, land, and why I love it. But then the more personal note is Eliza is a woman of a certain age, and this is what I know my readers will identify with more than.

[11:32] Even though we all love landscape, it's in a novel, you're always looking for the personal,

[11:37] the emotional.

[11:38] And Eliza has, through my voice, a lot to say to these two young women in the story that I want to say to the younger generation, just about life itself.

[11:51] And I've always loved the concept of the old crone in novels. She's not a witch. She's a wise woman.

[11:59] And throughout all my novels, there's often an older woman who gives advice, but in this novel, it's decidedly Eliza.

[12:07] So it's me saying what I want to say to my readers, to my daughters.

[12:11] Cindy: That makes sense. And it ties in a little bit to what I commented on earlier, that you clearly love the land and the landscape, and that shines through on the page.

[12:20] Mary Alice: Mm. Thank you. Well, I don't think you can fake that. I always say one of the reasons why, for all these years,

[12:26] a hallmark of my research has always been to roll up my sleeves and do the work. I work with the wildlife, I feed them, I train them, or whatever it is it requires,

[12:36] I do it because then I know the animals and I can speak personally. And with this novel, I went out to the Ace Basin, I stayed, and I won't give the name of it, at the plantation.

[12:48] And I walked the land and I talked to the people,

[12:51] and I know this land.

[12:54] I love this land.

[12:56] And more importantly, I see why the Ace Basin in particular was such so much widely varied species,

[13:04] so pristine,

[13:06] why it has to be preserved not just for the few, but for the many.

[13:09] Cindy: And conservation is so important. And it seems even more important lately.

[13:14] Mary Alice: Oh, my gosh. And I think that every novel I have written is like a love letter to my readers saying, this is a beautiful story, but there's something to pay attention to in here,

[13:26] I think more now than ever and it seems to me more today than 20 years ago.

[13:32] People are tuned in.

[13:33] They understand that things are changing in the landscape and that food sources are threatened. It's both a daunting fear. But on the other hand, I like to give hope that if we come together and we work together and we appreciate it, then we continue,

[13:52] We can continue to enjoy the gorgeous forests and the landscapes and the clean water that we all love.

[14:00] One of the things I've known in 20 some years of working with wildlife and working with the public,

[14:05] even turtles, for example. I've been working with turtles for 30 years.

[14:09] And when the people come as tourists,

[14:13] they're curious, they really care.

[14:15] They have questions that are sincere. They drive through the space and oh, my God, it's so beautiful.

[14:21] I think people do want to get close to nature. We're missing it. And through my novels, they can live vicariously through my characters and walk the land and get on the horses and feel the sun on your face.

[14:37] And for that brief time they read the novel, they are in the wild. They are there.

[14:42] And this is my first historical.

[14:44] And so for both me and my readers, we're experiencing what it was like to live at that time as well.

[14:51] Cindy: How did you find it writing historical? And did it really differ from what you've done in the past, or did you transition pretty easily?

[14:58] Mary Alice: I actually transitioned pretty easily. I think it's, I always dive into academic research.

[15:04] I love to do it, and it just took a lot longer. You know, funny things like, oh, my gosh,

[15:11] what does the kitchen look like in a plantation house way out in the country? Not Charleston. Charleston was a different world, but you're out in the rural area,

[15:23] which had dirt roads, and you had to take a horse and carriage to get there. What did that kitchen look like? Oh, my gosh. I would have to do research for weeks to find out what the stove looked like.

[15:34] How many houses had kitchens outside the house? It was kind of avant garde to have a kitchen attached to the house. And what did it look like? All those kinds of research took forever.

[15:45] And yet I kind of liked it. It was fun.

[15:48] What I also found really interesting was how my blood boiled as a woman when I saw all the limitations on women in the 20th century.

[15:58] They really were nothing more than they ran the homes. They were wives and mothers, and they worked very hard, but they had no political voice at all. They had no rights at all.

[16:08] They very rarely could inherit property,

[16:11] much less manage it. It was always the rare bird, like Eliza Pinkney, who was a model for me, for my character, who was able to do it.

[16:20] So remembering where we came from,

[16:23] I think helped me to give Eliza wisdom when she spoke to the young girls who had no idea what it was like to not have a flush toilet in your house or to not be able to inherit land.

[16:37] What women had to go through to become powerful in the 20th century,

[16:42] I think it's a reminder for us all today as well.

[16:45] Cindy: I was just going to say that. And it's mind boggling to think that there were so many things we couldn't do then. Makes me happy I'm alive now.

[16:52] Mary Alice: Oh, very much so. Here's the danger of writing historicals, I think,

[16:57] is that you can glorify and romanticize the past.

[17:04] It's a sweeter time, a quieter time.

[17:07] Life was so much better. But in fact the reality was hard.

[17:12] People died because they were sick. You know, we had these lack of freedoms for women and people of color and because this. In this book, we go through the Jim Crow era, which was very,

[17:23] very eye opening. I knew about it,

[17:26] but I didn't.

[17:27] Cindy: That makes sense. And yes, sanitation. Just so many different things.

[17:31] You look back and think, okay, it would have been terrible to bathe only once a week and to have all this sewage running everywhere.

[17:37] Mary Alice: So yes, seeing what they had to do. The laundry.

[17:40] Cindy: Right, Exactly. All of it. We have so much more free time as a result of everything that has been invented since then and just so many different things and thankfully all the rights we have.

[17:49] Mary Alice: But I think what's really cool is that when you're reading about it, it's fun. Like I had fun learning about it and then putting it in the book.

[17:57] And I want my reader to be with her and to. And to be like the young women in the book. Like, oh my gosh. What? You didn't have a flush toilet till 1930.

[18:06] It was like shocking.

[18:08] But I want my reader to be with my characters,

[18:11] to experience it and enjoy hearing Eliza’s stories.

[18:12] Cindy: which I enjoyed. I love the factoids that open each chapter. You talk about all sorts of animals and wildlife that are native to the area. So how did you decide to do that?

[18:24] And then how did you decide which one would work with each chapter? Making sure you tie that in with something in the chapter.

[18:30] Mary Alice: It's kind of a trademark of mine, actually,

[18:32] for some of my books.

[18:35] Not if it works or if it needs it. I like to use the chapter headings, let's say for example, The Beach House with the turtles. I wanted people to learn about turtles, facts, as you said, without having to slow down the read.

[18:48] Because my job as a storyteller is to get you in the story, 

[18:51] And I didn't want to slow it down with facts. And sometimes people dump research in novels, and I think that's a little sloppy writing, to be honest. And I think it's really important to figure out how to do it endemically to the story.

[19:04] So for this novel,

[19:06] I wanted to bring my readers to the Ace Basin and to Charleston. There's a couple tidbits for landscape in Charleston as well, to let them know where they are as a fact or know

[19:18] What species are in Charleston. But I was also very careful to choose the species that would either instruct the following chapter or add a guide to the following chapter or mirror it.

[19:33] I think it's really important not just to throw something up on top that has no meaning. It has to blend.

[19:38] Cindy: I agree with that. And so it was really interesting to read about the turtle or a native grass or whatever it was and then figure out how it tied into that chapter.

[19:46] I love that.

[19:47] Mary Alice: One of the most fun emails I ever got in all these years was from someone who said, I was reading your book and I really didn't care about sea turtles, but by chapter seven, I loved them.

[19:57] And I went back and read all the chapter headings, and that's my goal. It's like, if you don't want to know about a swallowtail kite in this novel, don't read the chapter heading or just skim it.

[20:09] But if you get curious about this place,

[20:12] go back and learn. You know, that's my goal, is that you walk away thinking, oh, I loved this book. I know they're going to buy the book and read the book because of Eliza and the family and all the emotion in the story.

[20:24] I'm a novelist, but I like to think that at the end of the book they thought, wow, I really learned a lot too.

[20:31] Cindy: Well, tell me about your title and your cover. This cover is just beautiful.

[20:34] Mary Alice: Oh, thank you. I think it speaks to the landscape and I wanted people to see right away. I loved the oak tree on the landscape and on the inside. What do you call it?

[20:45] The front page is a different oak tree. That is the one that Eliza loved. And my daughter drew that. She drew that for me. And so I said to the publisher, would you please put that in the book?

[20:57] And they did.

[20:58] And it is.

[21:00] It was a hard title to come up with.

[21:03] I think it's perfect,

[21:05] but I had lots of different titles. I was just going to call it Mayfield, which is the name of the property,

[21:11] but a friend of mine said 

[21:15] He said Where the Rivers Merge because it is where the Ace Basin, the Three Rivers, the Ashepo, Combahee, and Edisto rivers come together.

[21:24] And her family name is Rivers, which is an old Charleston name. And it's a double entendre, which I think is good for a title. So you have both Mayfield, where the Rivers Merge and in this novel, it's where the family, the disparate members,

[21:41] come together once again.

[21:43] Cindy: I love that, especially when I learned about the rivers and the basin and that they were merging. And so it makes the perfect title. I think it's wonderful that your daughter drew the tree that will be on the inside.

[21:53] I only have the galley, so I haven't seen that yet.

[21:56] Mary Alice: Oh, I'm so proud of it. And you know, everyone who reads the book knows that we open up 1908 with Eliza sleeping in this tree hollow. And it is symbolic of a lot of different things, but live oak trees are massive in this part of the world and there's literally parks of them on the old plantation properties where

[22:18] You walk through a field of carefully manicured oaks,

[22:23] gigantic, with their limbs drooping and scraping the earth and moss hanging down. It's just like you see in the photographs. And some of them have huge openings which are called hollows.

[22:36] And I used to play in them as kids and so I put Eliza in one too.

[22:41] Cindy: I love that. Well, Mary Alice, before we wrap up, what have you read recently that you really liked?

[22:46] Mary Alice: I read a book by an author who's also a friend and I really loved it.

[22:51] The Story She Left Behind by Patti Callahan Henry, another historical that takes place in both, Starts off in Bluffton, South Carolina, a place I know well. And it ends up in England in the Lake District.

[23:04] And I listened. I love audiobooks. Listen to them all the time.

[23:09] And I listened to one that I had. It's not a new book,

[23:13] came out in the 70s called the Alchemist and I highly recommend it. Now I know why it was such a huge success.

[23:21] Makes a great audiobook read by Jeremy Irons. I could listen to him read a phone book. And I highly recommend it for anybody who's not read this classic, the Alchemist.

[23:31] Cindy: I haven't read it in years. And what a fun idea to listen to Jeremy Irons read it.

[23:36] Mary Alice: But you know, Cindy, you will feel differently about listening to it now than you did as a young woman.

[23:43] I read it. I mean, it came out, like, when we were all in, what, high school or college? And I remember listening to it thinking, oh my gosh,

[23:51] I didn't remember. I didn't realize how profound it was.

[23:55] Cindy: I've heard that. And I think they've just reissued some beautiful collector's editions of that book that look stunning that I've seen on Instagram.

[24:02] Mary Alice: Oh, thank you. I'll go check that out.

[24:04] Cindy: Thank you, Mary Alice, so much for joining me today. It was really interesting to talk about Where the Rivers Merge.

[24:10] Mary Alice: Thank you. And I really appreciate it. It's fun to talk about a book that means so much, so I'm very grateful.

[24:16] Cindy: Absolutely.

[24:20] Thank you so much for listening to my podcast. I would love to connect with you on Instagram or Facebook where you can find me at Thoughts From A Page. If you enjoy the show and have a moment to rate it or subscribe to it wherever you listen to your podcasts,

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[24:41] The book discussed in this episode can be purchased at my Bookshop storefront and the link is in the show notes. I hope you'll tune in next time.