Conversation with MAM on SWEETGRASS


A CONVERSATION WITH

MARY ALICE MONROE

ABOUT

SWEETGRASS

 

            New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe is best known for her richly textured novels that delve into the complexities of the human psyche and explore the parallels between the land and life.  Now she discusses her newest novel, SWEETGRASS, the story of a family’s struggle to come together, heal old wounds and weave together past and present as they protect their heritage from destruction.  Set in the author’s home in the South Carolina Lowcountry, this new book evokes all the beauty, mystery, sorrow and joy of the land she loves.

 

  1.  SWEETGRASS is your third book with a strong environmental setting.  What inspired you to write it?

 

Loss of habitat is a serious concern as development encroaches on open space. For families, the loss of their family land or farm, or perhaps just the family home, is a social phenomenon many of us experience.  I saw sweetgrass (Muhlenbergia filipes) as a symbol for this loss. 

Sweetgrass is an indigenous plant that grows along the coastal dunes from North Carolina to Texas.  It used to be found everywhere, but today it is fast disappearing from the landscape.  What’s also important is this grass is used to make the historic sweetgrass baskets, a cultural craft brought by the slaves from Africa over 300 years ago.  The art of basket making is an African- American tradition passed on from mother to daughter along the Carolina coast, but today the basket makers must travel to Georgia and Florida in search of sweetgrass.

So I believe SWEETGRASS speaks to a universal feeling of loss that we all are likely to encounter at some point in our lives:  loss of home, of property, of tradition, even of identity. 

 

 

  1. Your move to South Carolina profoundly affected your writing career.  How did that come about? 

We were living in Chicago when my husband accepted an offer in his field, child psychiatry, from the Medical University of South Carolina.  We had always been attracted to the Carolinas and visited frequently, so it was an easy decision.  I had no idea how much it would change my life, though.  In my coming to South Carolina at this point in my life, my personal interests and career just seemed to dovetail. Life is like that sometimes.

 

  1. How do you research your books?

For me, there are two approaches to research.  One is a very hands-on process.  I volunteer and get deeply involved with the topic I’m writing about.  For example, I’m a member of the Isle of Palms/Sullivan’s Island Turtle Team.  That experience was instrumental for my book THE BEACH HOUSE.  I’m now going to the South Carolina Aquarium, to their sea turtle rehabilitation program, for the sequel I’m currently writing.  My work at the South Carolina Center for Birds of Prey played a major role in SKYWARD. 

For SWEETGRASS, I live outside Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, a center for the sweetgrass basket making tradition. You can still see the rickety wooden basket stands with the beautiful baskets along Highway 17, the same as you could since the thirties.  Lately, however, the development in this area is displacing the basket makers and destroying the habitats where their raw materials grow.  It was both fascinating and humbling to learn the craft—I made two baskets myself!  I learned to appreciate their skill.  But it is alarming to realize how tenuous the future of their craft could be.

The second prong of my research approach is academic.  I pore over historical documents and texts, I interview extensively and I use the Internet.

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  1. What’s the most interesting thing that has ever happened while you were doing your research?

I have a wonderful story. While at the South Carolina Center for Birds of Prey, I was helping to treat a bald eagle that had lost a fierce aerial fight.  Raptors are dangerous predators and none more so than eagles, so volunteers approach them with respect and caution.  I had progressed far enough in my volunteering to be allowed to assist with anesthesia.  The birds are anesthetized during medical treatment and afterward the caretakers hold them upright as the birds come to.  I held this huge eagle—likely a female—in my arms.  Imagine a bald eagle tucking her head in the crook of your arm as you rock her!  I knew I was breathing rarefied air and, perhaps naively, felt a bond with this bird. 

After several months this eagle was released back into the wild.  Well, sometime later, my neighbor called and told me to hurry on outside and look at my roof.  There, sitting on top of my house, was a beautiful bald eagle!  She was unusually large, and I believe it was the same eagle I had cared for.  She stayed for about an hour.  No one will ever convince me that it wasn’t “my” bird on my roof that day and, like Brady in SKYWARD, I’ve taken the eagle as my totem.  If you don’t believe me, check out the photo on my Web site!

 

  1. SWEETGRASS is a family saga.  Are the characters based on people you’ve met?

My characters are amalgams.  So though the characters are fictional, I’m often inspired by real events and people.  I interviewed a number of local sweetgrass basket makers, and Nona is a fictional compilation of some of these women.  Other characters, such as Mama June, are universal.  She speaks for mothers everywhere.  As for events, the Blakely family’s solution to establish a conservation easement through The Nature Conservancy and the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League is based on a local family’s similar plan. This is not uncommon and, in fact, is, happily, happening more frequently.

 

  1. What inspired you to include The Nature Conservancy and South Carolina Coastal Conservation League, specifically, in your book?

 

It’s been my pleasure to get to know the people at the SCCCL and the South Carolina chapter of The Nature Conservancy very well over the past few years.  I know what worthy organizations they are and how dedicated they are to preserving our land for future generations. 

This is such an important national and international issue.  The underlying premise of this book is preservation: of a family, of a culture and of habitat. Organizations such as The Nature Conservancy, the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League, Ducks Unlimited, The Lowcountry Open Land Trust, the Sierra Club and others offer viable solutions to families who hope to preserve their property in perpetuity.  Conservation easements are one of the most powerful, effective tools available for the conservation of private lands.  Millions of acres of wildlife habitat and open space have been successfully protected. 

 

  1.  What do you look for in your characters?

When I begin a book, I don’t really know my characters, so the first draft is always a process of discovery.  Each character has a role to play, yet facets of their personalities are revealed to me as I write.  They always surprise me.  I search for their “inner hero.”  This means that in their journey, the character must find a way to solve that which is in conflict with the noblest aspect of their character.  In Sweetgrass, for example, Nan rediscovers the self she had suppressed as a wife and mother, and in doing so, she at last stiffens her spine and questions her husband’s motives.  Morgan finds the courage to return home and face all the demons and memories embedded there.  Mama June, most of all, finds the strength to finally reconcile her past and heal not only herself but her family, as well.

 

 

  1. What do you want your readers to take away from your books?

First, of course, I want them to be entertained and to enjoy the world I take them to.  Then I hope my books encourage readers to reflect on their own world—their relationships with the people in their lives and the environment.  So afterward maybe they’ll think to turn off the lights for turtles, make a donation to an environmental group, write their representatives, or volunteer for some conservation/wildlife organization in their own hometown.  I believe that people really want to know about the world that surrounds them. Good folks who move to a new environment, such as the eastern coast or the Colorado mountains, may not know much about the local wildlife, but they care. 

 

  1. What’s next?

I’ve received so many letters begging for a sequel to THE BEACH HOUSE. So in my next book I’ll be returning to Primrose Cottage on the Isle of Palms five years later and revisiting Toy Sooner, Cara Rutledge, Little Lovie—and of course the loggerheads.  The story line will be set against the backdrop of the rehabilitation of injured sea turtles.  This book is titled, SWIMMING LESSONS, and is scheduled to be released in April 2007.

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