Grandmother mermaids enliven Larkin’s ‘Swimming for Sunlight’
Allie Larkin was fooling around with writing exercises one day about six years ago, keeping her creative chops honed.
“I don’t remember what the prompt was. But for some reason, I wrote ‘My husband brought a date to our divorce,’” the Contra Costa County author said, laughing. The line became the first line in her third novel, “Swimming for Sunlight” (Atria, $16.99, 352 pages).
And off we go to divorce court, where the anxiety-prone Katie gives up everything in order to win custody of her equally fearful dog, Bark. With no belongings and no home, costume designer Katie returns to Florida to live with her grandmother. She’s embraced by Nan’s coterie of friends, whom she’s known since childhood, when she lived with Nan after her father died and her mother left. What she didn’t know then was Nan’s former life as a mermaid performer in a roadside attraction show. Katie helps Nan get in touch with the other performers through Facebook and they plan a reunion show.
Through it all, the older women lend their liveliness and loving advice to Katie, who still suffers from anxiety
“I’m writing these books to connect with other people who might feel the same way, to show them they’re not alone,” anxiety-prone novelist Allie Larkin says about her mission as an author. “I just hope it’s helpful, but I also hope it’s entertaining!”
attacks. Her childhood friend and her college boyfriend reenter her life and by the time the ladies don their mermaid tails sewn by Katie, everyone — including Bark — is in a better place. A sunnier place, if you will.
Larkin’s previous books, 2010’s “Stay” and 2013’s “Why Can’t I Be You,” featured female protagonists who might have shared some traits with their creator. But “Swimming for
Sunlight” is the most honest.
“I do relate to Katie,” Larkin, 42, said recently over tea at Papillon in Lafayette’s La Fiesta Square. “That part I’m kind of admitting. I’m being honest about my anxiety, finally. I had panic attacks as a kid and sometimes as an adult, and I’ve really had to work on my anxiety.”
It’s the first time she has delved into mental health issues in her writing, she said.
“I’m writing these books to connect with other people who might feel the same way, to show them they’re not alone,” she said. “I just hope it’s helpful, but I also hope it’s entertaining!”
There are aspects of Katie that Larkin definitely doesn’t relate to. Unlike her protagonist, she loves water and swimming.
“I had to do a lot of research for the water phobia,” she said.
Larkin also had to do a lot of research on mermaid costumes.
“It’s still a thing!” she said, amused. “There are message boards on how to put a mermaid costume together. Allie Larkin’s third novel, “Swimming for Sunlight,” is the first time that she talks about mental health issues in her writing.
It was really fun.”
And while she may at one time have wished she could be a mermaid, the closest she ever came was one Halloween when she was bartending at a biker bar in upstate New York.
“I had heard, at some point, about the Weeki Wachee shows in Florida,” still featuring former mermaids who are now in their 70s, she recalled.
Larkin does have a formerly nervous dog like Bark. Hers is an 11-year-old German shepherd, Stella. When Larkin and her husband moved from Rochester, New York, to the East Bay in 2013, she wasn’t happy, and her anxiety was passed on to the dog. All is fine now, Larkin said. “I got on team Stella, and we navigated life together.”
So much of “Swimming to Sunlight” is filled with gutsy, fun and smart older women, which Larkin based in part on the multigenerational relationships she had in Rochester.
“My life was so much better from having their perspective,” she said. “I had a hard time moving away, so I sort of wrote this book to be my company, because I missed all of them.”
Larkin admitted she’s already missing her lively cast of characters in “Swimming for Sunlight.”
“It’s addictive, when you make people up, and they are amazing! You love them like real people,” she said.
And she said she “kind of” knows what her characters are up to now. “But also,” she said, teasingly, “I’ve been thinking about Nan and Bitsy, when they were young.”