Dessen, queen of summertime romance novels, talks anxiety
Sarah Dessen opens her 14th book with a letter to her readers, explaining just how the New
York Times best-selling author became inspired to write this latest book, “The Rest of the Story,” due out Tuesday.
It was March 2017, and she was invited to attend the Paris Book Festival, which, on the surface, sounds like a dream for a woman best known for penning two decades’ worth of youngadult love stories.
Thing is, Dessen is terrified of flying. And flying overseas? That’s even worse.
“I hadn’t been
abroad since I was a kid, as for years I had major anxiety about flying across the ocean and being far away from home,” she wrote in the book’s first pages. “There were so many travel opportunities I had missed because I was scared.”
But at 46, Dessen knew it was time to break free from all those worries that had been holding her back for decades. So she hopped a plane out of her hometown in North Carolina, despite her fear. And it was on that flight that she found her latest story to tell — about a cautious girl who strikes out to find a home for her heart in a new, strange place.
“You write what you know,” Dessen, now 48, said in a recent interview ahead of her signing Wednesday at the Blue Willow Bookshop. “Even if you don’t think you’re writing what you know. I feel like you can’t keep yourself out of your book. I admire people who can, but I feel like I’m wedged between each line.” And therein lies the appeal in the typical Dessen book. Her loyal readers are well aware they’ll never
run into a zombie apocalypse (“although,” Dessen says, “high school can sometimes feel like you’re living in a zombie world”), but they have come to depend on a strong female lead who feels like an authentic teen, dealing with real-world issues in a quiet, introspective way. This has brought her plenty of success, including this week’s announcement that Netflix plans to turn three of her books — “This Lullaby,” “Once And For All,” and “Along For The Ride” — into feature films beginning with “Along For The Ride.”
In the case of “The Rest of the Story,” Dessen’s protagonist, Emma Saylor, is trying to work through anxiety and compulsive behaviors. That’s nothing new for Dessen readers, who’ve seen similar themes play out in her other books, including “The Truth About Forever.”
“The idea of being afraid, and don’t be afraid to be alive, I think, is an important theme,” she said. “I had a lot of anxiety in high school, and I haven’t talked about that much. But I’m starting to realize how much that shaped me. And I write these cautious characters who are tested and are able to do something they didn’t think they could do. And I think writing that has allowed me to do the things I
can now do.”
Not that it’s always easy. She found herself constantly tempted by a “Waitress Needed” sign at the seedy beachside diner she frequented during the summer she spent crafting this latest book. Surely, waiting tables — the first career she’d had before landing a book deal at 24 — would be easier than digging through all the emotions that she experiences while putting her characters through the wringer. And she’d daydream about giving up her grueling daily writing sessions, during which she’d sit down with two nuggets of Hershey’s dark chocolate (“It has to be dark chocolate because then you can tell yourself it’s good for your brain”) and type for hours at a time.
But the woman known for guiding a generation of girls through rocky times can’t just quit and take the easy way out. Her readers — many of whom have been with her since 2003, when two of her early books, “Someone Like You” and “That Summer,” were combined to create the film “How to Deal,” starring Mandy Moore — deserve more.
“I think that these days teens are more like adults than we were then. I feel like we had an innocence that just doesn’t exist anymore. And I think they’re wiser in a lot of ways, and I think they’re more jaded, too. And I think the books now have to reflect that,” she said. “And when people write to me and say, ‘Your book really helped me,’ I can’t imagine a greater compliment.”
She gets these notes often, thanks in large part to that deep respect for her audience that drives her authenticity. But at the end of the day, she’s not writing selfhelp books. Though they’re deeper than the typical breezy contemporary romance, Dessen novels are summer reads full of young love and dreamy beach landscapes.
“I think the main thing about this book is that it’s just a really fun book for summer,” she said. “I think it’s a story about a girl who’s trying to find out her story. And I think any teenager — and any adult — can relate with that.”
“When people write to me and say, ‘Your book really helped me,’ I can’t imagine a greater compliment,” author Sarah Dessen says.