Catch up on our webchat with Book of the Month The Tidal Zone author Sarah Moss

[SorchaMumsnet]

If you haven't read anything by Sarah Moss yet, start now – with our May Book of the Month, The Tidal Zone. Following a family going through an unexpected crisis, this wise and witty novel takes a magnifying glass to the NHS, parenting and the stories we tell about ourselves.

When 15-year-old Miriam is found lying in the school playground not breathing, stay-at-home dad Adam and GP mum Emma find their world turned upside down. Suddenly, long hospital stays lacking conclusion and the constant weight of uncertainty become part of their everyday struggles. What is wrong with Miriam? And why has this happened to their family?

In The Tidal Zone, Sarah Moss insightfully and often wryly comments on our health service and parenthood, but also she explores the narratives we tell ourselves – from birth, to our inevitable deaths. Sarah herself is a Mumsnet Books favourite - Night Waking was our Book of the Month in May 2012 and we're thrilled to have her back. The Tidal Zone is tipped to be her breakout novel so jump on the bandwagon, quick!

Join the discussion on this thread and chat to Sarah Moss here from 9 -10pm on Wednesday 7 June.

I loved this book, as I did Bodies of Light and Night Waking. I think Sarah writes brilliantly about the small everyday struggles of trying to combine being a parent with work and generally trying to be a decent human being, as well as addressing the bigger questions of Life too. I'd like to ask Sarah how different it felt this time to write from a father's perspective rather than say Anna in Night Waking, and why she chose to write from Adam's point of view?
I also really loved the historical setting of Bodies of Light and I wondered if you have any plans for other books set in that period?

Hello everyone, and thank you for reading my book!

Testing 123

@GhostsToMonsoon

I'd like to ask Sarah the following questions:

1. Was it an emotionally difficult novel to write, in the sense of imagining what it must be like to have a critically ill child?

Yes, in some ways. I had to look at every parent's worst fears.

1. To what extent, if any, is Adam an autobiographical character - does he have a similar background to you in terms of having a Jewish-American parent? Were there any particular challenges in writing from a male perspective?

I do have Jewish-American father and I've always been quite interested in that heritage. I loved writing from a male perspective and found it liberating and rarely hard - I don't think the gap between a middle-class man and a middle-class woman in the UK is a major challenge for a novelist. It would probably be much harder to cross other divides in identity.

1. Were you like Miriam as a teenager? I was just a little in the sense that I used to read a lot and was very concerned with the state of the world, although I wasn't anywhere near as sweary or precociously opinionated. I remember 15 being quite an awkward age in the sense of not really being a child but not quite an adult either.

I was very politicised but nothing like as confident as Miriam. Probably just as well...

Sorry - was having a bit of a computer nightmare. I'll try again now to introduce Sarah....

We're delighted to welcome our bookclub guest this evening Sarah Moss, author of the The Tidal Zone, which was shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize. Sarah is one of the only authors who has been our Book of the month author more than once. She joined us back in May 2012 to discuss her novel Night Waking.

Thank you so much for giving us your time tonight Sarah. We're really looking forward to the discussion.

We've got a few standard questions from Mumsnet HQ:

Naomi Alderman's The Power has just been announced as this year's Bailey's Prize winner. Have you read The Power and if not, have you read any of the other novels from the Bailey's short list?

What was the last book you gave someone as a gift?

What book are you looking forward to reading over the summer? And what would you recommend we should read?

And finally - can you describe the room where you wrote The Tidal Zone?

Over to you Sarah...

This was the first book I have read by Sarah Moss, and it definitely won't be the last. It's the first book I've read in a really long time that had me hooked straight away with its beautiful poetic writing style.
As many other commenters, I am also interested in the choice to focus on a stay-at-home dad for the narrator. Was this to add a particular angle/interest to the story as so many family tales, i.e. those concerning family dynamics/home life/kids, are recounted from a mum's perspective, or was it more to reflect the fact that this is becoming a more common reality for families nowadays and so the choice was almost arbitrary? x

Hello Sarah,
Can you tell us how long it took you to write the book, and what was your daily discipline for writing?

@bellabelly

I loved this. Hadn't read any Sarah Moss before so am very grateful to have discovered a new author - thank you, mumsnet. Have now read Night Waking and Bodies of Light - both lived up to my expectations. I thought that The Tidal Zone was such an interesting look at a family under stress and I really identified with the narrator, the dad.

I'd like to ask Sarah why she decided to write the novel from a male perspective - his frustrations as a (mainly) stay at home parent really resonated with me. Previous posters have mentioned a sense of disjointedness but I really liked this aspect - it seemed to me to reflect the disjointed nature of Adam's home vs work lives.

I'd also like to ask Sarah whether she has any personal experience of communes - this aspect was fascinating to me as very different from my own very ordinary, suburban upbringing!

No personal experience of communes! I don't think it would suit me - I need a fair amount of solitude and I'm quite controlling in the kitchen. I didn't exactly decide to write from a male perspective, the story just came that way, but I enjoyed it.

@mumofmadboys

I have really enjoyed this book. It was very interesting being narrated by the stay at home dad. I could relate to much of the family situation being a GP myself and juggling kids with a busy job. I found the stories re Coventry cathedral and the grandfather's story a bit disjointed although well written and interesting in themselves. I think these interjections distracted the reader from the main story. My question for Sarah is did you base this story of a near death experience on something you have had to deal with close at home? I liked the dad in the story and thought he was very patient with his kids.

Thank you! No, I made up Miriam's experience, and then spent a lot of time reading medical journals and nagging medical friends to make quite sure it was right.

For me, Tidal zone is a beautifully written, incredible and heartbreaking novel. I am very thankful for the opportunity to take this emotional journey, that as a parent myself I was able to feel close to my heart.
My questions are:
Where does the idea for the book came from?
What made you decide to tell the story from Adam's point of view?

I really enjoyed the sections around the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral. Was this something you researched specifically for the book or did you already have an interest in it?

@ScribblyGum

I won't be able to join the chat but wanted to say thank you to Sarah for writing such a wonderful book. When I finished it I spent a few hours moping about feeling gutted that it was finished, and then picked it up and started again from the beginning again. Don't think I have ever done that before with a book before. This is absolutely my most favourite book of the year so far and one that I have already recommended to several friends.

Can I ask about the putting on shoes scene please? I assume you have lived through this experience more than once as it is written so perfectly. I read it out loud to dh and his response was "OMG YES!" Any tips for getting a stroppy teen off their screen and out of the door while maintaining harmonious relations? Thanks in advance

Thank you, that's a lovely thing to say!

Er, well, I start with a courteous request, progress to mature reasoning, shrewish nagging, authoritative commands, threats and bribery. Or just give up and go on my own.

A fine piece of writing. I must admit I was more gripped by the sections to do with the children’s ward, Miriam, Adam and their immediate family, than on Coventry Cathedral and the grandfather’s history. The scenes in the hospital were very realistic and indeed Adam’s sense of foreboding when entering the HDU ward, always being uncertain what you are going to be faced with.

Why did you write The Tidal Zone? What was your starting point?

Are you a cat or dog person? (Just thinking back to Rose’s obsession with getting a cat and near the novel’s ending where Emma ultimately relents to getting one.)

@notqueenbee

I have a question for Sarah - can you outline to us how and why you conceived of the story? (. By the way I loved it!)

Thank you! I wish I had a better answer to this one but it just kind of came, the way stories do, and then patterns formed around it. I started to think about all the ordinary near-misses, the times you're five mins behind a nasty accident on the motorway and if you hadn't gone back to get your wellies you'd have been five mins further on, or you grab a child about to run into the road or cut yourself near but in fact not on a major artery and it's all fine and life goes on, what when actually it's not a near miss but something that happens?

@Amaksy

Oh it's almost 9 wonder if i can ask a quick one - if you could rewrite it what would you change about the book? Would you tell from mother's perspective or even the people in hospital/ care? There are cases now of children becoming carers to their parents. Would you have been able to write about this?

I don't think I would change it - that way madness lies. I think I'd need to feel a very strong call to write about children as carers because it's not in my experience and doesn't fascinate me the way an idea that I'll live with for years needs to do. But someone else could write a great novel...

I really enjoyed the scenes set in the university - so funny - and true! Do you have any thoughts of setting another novel there?

Hi Sarah
I enjoyed your book greatly if that is the description, probably related to it is a better one. As the mother of a child with a life limiting heart condition, I did find it hard going at times but that is simply a personal reaction. The constant affirmations of what had happened to Miriam as if Adam had to continually hear it to believe it and also the not knowing - that you can't just get an answer or a diagnosis although you expect medical staff to know everything and the questioning of any suspected sign of deterioration or change. I can't help but wonder whether you have had personal experience of something similar because of all the little nuances.

Because of Adams career, you obviously had to do an awful lot of research to write these sections of the book - my question is, do you have an interest in this subject anyway so it was a good excuse to put it into the storyline or was this a new subject for you and if so, how did you decide on history/architecture?

Well done on such an emotive novel and as I'm seeing other works of yours also getting good reviews, I'll make a point of looking out for these.

Rats, how have I only just discovered this. I loved the Night waking. Completely resonated with me, as a mother who'd only just moved into full nights sleep after about 7 years of atrocious sleep. And I loved the setting in the wilds of Scotland, remote and inaccessible, like our minds. Thank you for writing and discovering your gift.

I have a second question... Does it annoy you when people (myself included in my previous question) keep asking why you chose a male protagonist? 😆
I haven't read any of your other books (yet - definitely will!). Is this the first time you have written from a male perspective. And have you ever written from a completely 'other' perspective? (I saw your response above that said that writing from a middle-class male perspective is actually not that different to writing from a middle-class female perspective)

@HackneyMama

This was the first book I have read by Sarah Moss, and it definitely won't be the last. It's the first book I've read in a really long time that had me hooked straight away with its beautiful poetic writing style. As many other commenters, I am also interested in the choice to focus on a stay-at-home dad for the narrator. Was this to add a particular angle/interest to the story as so many family tales, i.e. those concerning family dynamics/home life/kids, are recounted from a mum's perspective, or was it more to reflect the fact that this is becoming a more common reality for families nowadays and so the choice was almost arbitrary? x

Thank you! Yes, almost arbitrary, but also a lot of my male friends are equal or primary carers and I wasn't seeing that situation represented anywhere. There are lots of jokey images of dads who can't quite cope properly, but the labour of those who do seems almost invisible, and especially for male writers there's almost an assumption that there's a wife in a frilly pinny taking care of all the domestic stuff, which for my generation is almost never true (partly because writers don't earn enough to keep anyone in frilly pinnies).

This is the easiest book I have read in a long time. I felt I could just sit down and lose myself in it. I had a baby girl earlier this year and I am so obsessed about checking if she is still breathing - hope I'm not still like this when she is 15!! At first I found it hard to consider children's mortality especially in the current climate. However, I feel that the message is to continue living the story, and not get hung up on the what ifs.
I know it's been said before - but I really didn't get the parts about coventry cathedral - what was the purpose behind this?
I loved the father's stories though. I also loved that the book was told from dad's perspective, I didn't get onto that right at the beginning.
I just want to say thank you to mumsnet for introducing me to Sarah Moss. I had never heard or read anything by this author before. I will be checking out other books now!!

Having really enjoyed this book, I'd like to suggest one of your other novels to my Book Club - but which one would you suggest ??

@MerryPam

I really enjoyed the sections around the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral. Was this something you researched specifically for the book or did you already have an interest in it?

Thank you! I'm not quite sure which came first. We moved from West Cornwall to the West Midlands four years ago and I found the transition very hard. I was determined to find things to like in the West Mids and not to mourn Cornwall more than I could help, and one of the first things I found was Coventry Cathedral. Adam's appreciation of it is partly mine, and I couldn't separate the genesis of his story from my growing fascination for the Cathedral: how do you build a new normal, what tools do we have for moving on from unbearable trauma, what can inspire a community to keep going after almost everything is lost? I have no religious faith, but that building seems like hope and courage in material form.

@BearAusten

A fine piece of writing. I must admit I was more gripped by the sections to do with the children’s ward, Miriam, Adam and their immediate family, than on Coventry Cathedral and the grandfather’s history. The scenes in the hospital were very realistic and indeed Adam’s sense of foreboding when entering the HDU ward, always being uncertain what you are going to be faced with.

Why did you write The Tidal Zone? What was your starting point?

Are you a cat or dog person? (Just thinking back to Rose’s obsession with getting a cat and near the novel’s ending where Emma ultimately relents to getting one.)

Cat! I'm terrified of dogs. (Yes, even 'friendly' ones. All dogs. It's not rational but it is real.)

@notqueenbee

I really enjoyed the scenes set in the university - so funny - and true! Do you have any thoughts of setting another novel there?

Not the next novel, but maybe sometime...