I'll Be Seeing You (29 page)

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Authors: Suzanne Hayes

BOOK: I'll Be Seeing You

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Questions for Discussion

Rita and Glory’s friendship was born of intimacy, even though they don’t
know each other before they begin writing. The definition of intimacy is
“shared fear.” How does this explain the depth of their friendship? Have you
ever had a close friend with whom you shared fear? If so, how is that
friendship different from others you have?
Rita and Glory are very different people. They are from different parts of
the country, they are not the same age and they come from different social
classes. They also share similarities with each other: motherhood,
community, a strong sense of women’s rights. Did you identify with one or
the other character because of their similarities, or because of their
differences? Which one, and why?
Glory and Rita spend a lot of time in their letters talking about their
victory gardens. The gardens become a metaphor in the novel. What are some
of the things the gardens represent? Was anyone inspired to plant their very
own victory garden?
The romance between Levi and Glory is complicated. They were friends,
childhood sweethearts, and then they were both left behind when Robert went
to war. Why do you think Glory let the romance go as far as it did? How did
she show her remorse? Can you sympathize with her actions? Do you forgive
her? How do you feel about how the love triangle was ultimately
resolved?
I’ll Be Seeing You
explores the many types
of sacrifices people make during wartime. What did the characters in this
novel sacrifice? How did they feel about their personal sacrifices? About
the sacrifices of others? Would you have made the same sacrifices under the
circumstances in the book? Why?
Social historians have often noted the importance of the women who went to
work during wartime, seeing them as the root of the women’s equal rights
movement later in the twentieth century. How do the female characters in
I’ll Be Seeing You
illustrate this? In
what ways is it similar or different today?
The recipes in the book are real wartime recipes. Did you try making any of
the dishes? If so, do you have a favorite? (We hope you brought them to your
book club meetings!)
To a certain extent, most of the characters are waiting for something
(oftentimes, multiple things). Besides waiting for their men to come home,
what else are Glory and Rita waiting for? How about some of the other
characters? Do you feel the wait is worth it?
A few of the letters are marked
Unsent.
Why
do you think the women decided not to send these particular letters? How
would their stories change if they had? What do the unsent letters reveal
about Glory and Rita’s characters?
In Rita’s final letter to Sal, she writes that Glory taught her “how to take
the past and press it carefully onto the present.” Discuss the importance of
memories in the novel and how memories of the past impact the present
action. How do they shape the characters and their actions, the decisions
they make?

A Conversation with Suzanne Hayes and Loretta Nyhan

Is it really true that, as of the
date of this interview, you’ve never met each other in person? How did you
connect initially, and how did you come to write a novel together? What has
that experience been like for each of you?

Yes! It’s true. We haven’t met yet. Sometimes this surprises
us. It feels like we have, but we only know each other through phone calls and
email conversations.

Suzy:
I was blogging and
connecting with other writers online. I remember the day that Loretta launched
her blog. It was announced over a set of other writer blogs. I clicked on
over...and there she was! Writing about organic food and the Beatles. I
commented on her posts, and she started commenting on mine. A friendship was
born. I think it took us about a year to shift over to phone conversations, and
it was during one of those conversations that we expressed our desire to write
something completely for ourselves, for fun. I suggested letters back and forth
via email. We agreed on setting the letters in WWII, and then I sent off the
first email, in character, and hoped for the best. When I got the first email
back, I was elated. Soon the letters were flying between us. A story was forming
as a friendship was growing. It was a very exciting time.

Loretta:
The way this novel
came together is a classic example of the “happy accident,” which, of course,
means it was meant to be. When the first letter came it was like a shock to my
system. I was consumed with the need to write back, and that feeling never
changed throughout the whole process. This experience has been one lovely
surprise after another.

What was your inspiration for I’ll Be
Seeing You? How, if at all, have your own personalities and experiences
informed the characters of Glory and Rita?

With both of us trying to get writing careers off the ground,
we were spending a lot of time thinking about what it means to wait. We were
talking to each other almost daily. It was the support that we needed, someone
else going through the same experience. It seemed only natural that we would
write about two women who were in a stressful situation and leaning on each
other for support. I don’t really think we discussed that part of it, though...I
think we stumbled into it. We both share a passion for similar historical eras,
and we both like the research part of the writing.

Suzy:
Glory is younger than I
am, but she looks at life the same way. Her idealism, her sometimes
selfish-without-knowing-it behavior is a lot like my own. The part of her
character that is most related to me is the house and town where she lives. I
grew up visiting Rockport, Massachusetts, every summer. It lives inside my
heart. When I was thinking about where I wanted to spend my time in these
letters, there simply was no other choice.

Loretta:
Rita is bolder and
more outwardly opinionated than I am; however, I do love to give advice
(sometimes when I probably shouldn’t). I also have a husband and two sons, and
though it was disturbing, I forced myself to imagine what I would feel if I had
to send them off to war. It certainly wasn’t fun, but it helped give those
letters a necessary emotional depth. There were tears, though, lots and lots of
tears!

You’ve created such a rich and
memorable cast of characters in this novel—particularly Glory and Rita, but
also Levi, Robert, Roylene and even the incomparable Mrs. K.! When you
started the book, did you have all of the characters and their journeys
mapped out in your heads, or did they reveal themselves to you as you wrote?
In what ways did the characters surprise you along the way? What was the
greatest character morph as you wrote and revised the novel?

Suzy:
I didn’t have anything
planned. I wrote a letter (the first in the book) and sent it off. When I
received Rita’s first letter, and real characters were starting to emerge, I
responded to her in character. Soon, my own cast of characters came through the
keyboard. They surprised me as they showed up. They had so much to say! For me,
the character that changed the most was Glory. She grew up during the revision
process. It was an amazing experience, helping her grow from spoiled child to
wise adult. (Well...maybe not always so wise...)

Loretta:
When I got Suzy’s
wonderful first letter, Rita appeared and just started talking. I know how that
sounds, but sometimes characters show up with fully formed lives. I knew Rita
would have a crazy neighbor. I knew she would be overprotective of her only son.
I knew her husband would be a real sweetie, and I knew what would happen to him.
Her story was there; I just discovered more and more of it as time went on. The
only real surprise for me was Roylene. Just like Rita, I didn’t expect her to
become so dear to me.

I’ll Be Seeing You
is, above all else, a novel about the triumphant powers
of friendship. How did your unconventional friendship with each other
influence Rita and Glory’s story, and vice versa: how did Glory and Rita’s
friendship influence your own?

We grew closer as Rita and Glory did. For the first ten
letters or so, we didn’t talk about our project at all. We let the friendship
unfold naturally, for Rita and Glory, and for us. When we did finally decide to
negotiate plot points and discuss character arcs, we took our relationship to a
deeper level. How would we deal with the division of labor? What happens when we
disagree? Working through difficulties strengthened our friendship, just as it
did for Rita and Glory in the novel.

In
I’ll Be Seeing You,
you explore what it
meant to be a woman during a specific time in U.S. history. What drew you to
this time period, what kind of research did you do and what do you want
readers to take from Glory, Rita and Roylene’s experiences?

We have quite a collection of WWII-era women’s magazines—so
much can be learned about women’s lives during wartime by thumbing through an
issue of
Woman’s Day
circa 1943. We watched
interviews with women who served in the WAVES and WACs, and listened to
Roosevelt’s D-Day speech countless times.
Since You Went
Away: World War II Letters from American Women on the Home Front
by
Judy Barrett Litoff and David C. Smith was invaluable. It’s a collection of
letters women sent to their men overseas. The letters offered more than a wealth
of period details; underneath the sometimes mundane details of family life, you
can see the worry, the strain, the desire to keep their husbands and sons
connected to their lives at home through words. There’s an admirable nobility in
that.

We thought it was important to underscore that all women
(whether they label themselves feminists or not) share the same reality in our
culture. And because of that, we struggle for the same rights. We wanted readers
to see the independence and power that Rita, Glory and Roylene shared—a fearless
determination to give back to their communities, their families and their
country. Not for any other reason than it was the right thing to do. Women are a
community, and there’s a lot of untapped power there. Not divisive power,
inclusive power. We hope readers can feel that, and we hope our characters
inspire our readers to want to go out and make new connections with people
(other women, organizations, etc.) that might need them.

Can you describe the process of
writing a novel as a team? Does each of you write your own cast of
characters (and if so, who wrote which characters in
I’ll Be Seeing You
)? Do
you each take turns with the manuscript, passing it back and forth to each
other, or is one of you the organizer (if so, who)?

Suzy writes from Glory’s perspective; Loretta writes Rita’s
letters and those from the Iowa City characters. The only exception is Toby’s
poetry—those are all Suzy’s.

We sent letters back and forth to each other via email. In
the beginning we didn’t know when a letter would come—we wanted to experience
the anticipation, just as Rita and Glory would. Loretta compiled all the letters
into one continuous document.

What can you tell us about your next
novel?

We want to tell you
EVERYTHING
about our newest novel! It’s so exciting to write about
new characters. The historical era we chose was the progressive era: 1917-1920
America. It’s about two sisters, Pasadena and India Adams, who find themselves
cast out by family misfortune. They end up in Manhattan with two very different
agendas: Pasadena is determined to earn enough money to buy back their family
home, and India just wants to grab up everything the city has to offer.

The girls find themselves living on the top floor of a
tenement in the overcrowded Lower East Side. They quickly learn that survival
will be more difficult than they planned. Instead of finding solace in each
other, the sisters search for their brother, Kingston, who disappeared into the
chaotic city. As the girls’ separate lives begin to intersect in ways they’d
never imagined, it’s Kingston who they hope will sort things out—if they can
only find him.