I read this incredibly poignant article in The Atlantic: “The Last of Its Kind” by Ed Yong. It was about a biologist trying to restore native snail populations in Hawaii. That’s where I first learned of the word “endling” and it stuck with me. The article wasn’t just about the facts of extinction – as many scientific articles tend to be – but its intense mental toll on conservationists. The article kept rolling around in my head like a marble. Romance tours were another marble. I wanted to see how I could combine them into one book.
Thank you, Holly. I hope you enjoy the book. I think fiction is a great way to delve into difficult topics–you can do it through so many lenses, including humour.
That section is indeed very personal. The Yurt Makers sort of became a representation of the Greek chorus in my head, all those guilt-inducing voices that would crowd in during the early days of the full-scale invasion when I allowed myself the indulgence of writing, the indulgence of staying in nice hotel rooms as a visiting author. The chorus hasn’t fully gone away. I figured I’d make them part of the fabric of the novel rather than trying to silence them. I’d say that the core emotions of the Unknown Author dialogues with the Yurt Makers—survivor’s guilt, a queasiness of writing about war, imposter’s syndrome (“Am I Ukrainian enough"?) was autobiographical. The essay-like chapters about visiting Ukraine with my sister a year into the full-scale invasion were pretty autobiographical too. I’d initially written them as journal entries.
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A common thread, I would say, is often the dark humour. It’s a way people in difficult situations metabolize pain, I think. And this was true before the war. There’s a long tradition of dark humour in Eastern Europe.
Regarding how I decided to place the story during the war: I was already several years into the manuscript when Russia launched its full-scale invasion and my relatives in Ukraine called saying they were hearing explosions. I gave up on the novel for a while, not knowing how to possibly continue. Questions kept obsessing me: what is the role of fiction in times like ours? What is my role as a writer? Was it a privilege or a perversity to be a writer writing about war from abroad? Both? I knew that the only way to continue writing the book was to fold these questions into it and let the reader engage with them too.
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Hello Lynne! My answer is quite simple, about the format: it was truly the only way I could keep writing the book. I couldn’t keep writing it as “straight” plot and pretend that the war didn’t derail the lives of the people outside the book (my relatives’, mine).
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And thank your kind wishes, Lynne, and for keeping my family in your thoughts.
I have some ideas splashing around in my brain, but I’m currently mostly traveling for Endling. I’d say that finishing a novel is like a giant exhalation, and now I have to inhale life again in order to have more to write about—even if it’s all fictionalized in the end.
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Thank you for this wonderfully informative answer, @Maria_Reva It must have been so difficult to face the realities of the war’s impact on your family, your country, and your writing. It’s not the typical writer’s block!
I would agree about the dark humor and I have heard it mentioned many times that the Ukrainians keep laughing. That was emphasized in Looking at Women Looking at War that I read thanks to a recommendation from @kim.kovacs. I also enjoyed Grey Bees and The Sunflower Boys very much. They were both what I would describe as quiet books—for lack of a better descriptor.
How did you go about conducting your research for this one? Did you come across anything that surprised you?
I love the way you worked this into the novel. Does Ed Yong know he inspired the Hawaiian researcher in your book?
You’ve mentioned writing in your parents’ attic and starting some of this book with journal entries. What’s your normal writing process like? Do you set aside time each day? And do you start with an outline, or do you just write down what comes to you?
What made you decide to set aside time to be a writer in the first place? What was the process like to get your first book published, and was getting Endling on the shelves a different experience than selling Good Citizens Need Not Fear?
Hi Maria,
Thanks so much for taking part. I have 3 questions:
- I have relatives in Ukraine, mostly around Rivne. I visited them before the war and was amazed at the spirit and beauty of the place. (Two of them recently visited me in Vancouver, experiencing the rainy days of winter here. It was amazing for all of us!) When the war broke out, I found writing (draft of a novel and misc short stories) very difficult, as though they were pointless when stacked up against the violence in Ukraine. Did you encounter feelings like this and, if so, how did you overcome them to continue writing?
- Were there any parts or aspects of Ending–content, format, style–that you had to fight with your editor/agent to keep?
- What’s been your experience working with editors of magazines who publish your short stories? I have spoken with one author/editor who said as an editor she was not able to offer much in the way of editing, that stories had to come in ready to publish. Has that been your experience, or did you revise any of your stories based on feedback from the magazines? If so, what was that process like.
Thank you!
Peter
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Ah yes, I enjoyed Grey Bees immensely!
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The sources were varied. Books, the internet, correspondence with a couple of malacologists, conversations with friends.
He does indeed! Getting to connect with Ed Yong has been a highlight of publishing Endling. His article fed into not only my own book, but into another book by the same name published in Germany by Jasmin Schreiber. It was a pretty wild thing to find out about. Here’s an interview between the three of us: Literary Hub » How One Snail Inspired Two Novels on Two Different Continents
I’d say the journal entries came in the middle of the book, and originally they weren’t part of the book. It was me trying to process the terror of going back to Ukraine a year into the full-scale invasion. I started keeping a log. It was only later that it fed into the novel.
My normal writing process: when I’m in the middle of a project I try to write every weekday morning. I do the pomodoro method (45 minutes of work, 15 minutes break time). I do 5 pomodoros.
I do start with some sort of outline, but I rarely stick to it.
I’d always wanted to clone myself and explore different ways of being. I’d explored several career options before realizing that writing, in a way, lets me explore all sorts of life pathways all at once (not just different careers but different ways of seeing the world, different psychological make-up, etc.).
I worked with three wonderful publishing houses (Doubleday in the US, Knopf in Canada and Virago Books in the UK) for Good Citizens Need Not Fear and Endling. Having Endling out in the world has been a different experience than the one I had with my story collection. Much more public. My story collection came out on the eve of the WHO pandemic declaration, so the timing was not exactly great. But that’s impossible to control or predict.
Hello Peter!
- I hope your relatives are staying safe. When the war broke out, I found writing very difficult too. If you don’t mind, I’ll copy and paste a previous answer which overlaps with your question: I was already several years into the manuscript when Russia launched its full-scale invasion and my relatives in Ukraine called saying they were hearing explosions. I gave up on the novel for a while, not knowing how to possibly continue. Questions kept obsessing me: what is the role of fiction in times like ours? What is my role as a writer? Was it a privilege or a perversity to be a writer writing about war from abroad? Both? I knew that the only way to continue writing the book was to fold these questions into it and let the reader engage with them too.
- No, the fight was mostly with myself. I took out all the metafictional bits in one of the drafts because I lacked confidence in them. Then I missed them, and put them back in. In regards to experimentation, I figured I’d rather try and fail rather than not try at all. My agent and editors were very supportive all the way through.
- I’ve had positive experiences with magazine editors. The edits they asked for were never huge – so I suppose the stories already felt “ready” for them.
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Thanks so much for visiting with us, Maria. Before we say goodbye, is there anything you’d like to talk about that we haven’t already discussed? Anything we missed?
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