Writer Amy Turner joins me today to chat about her memoir, On the Ledge.
Bio:
Amy Turner was born in Bronxville, New York. She holds a degree in political science from Boston University and a Juris Doctor from New York Law School. After practicing law (rather unhappily) for twenty-two years, she finally found the courage to change careers at forty-eight and become a (very happy) seventh-grade social studies teacher. A long-time meditator and avid reader who loves to swim and bike, Amy lives in East Hampton, New York, with her husband, Ed, to whom she’s been married for forty years, and their rescue dog, Fred. Ed and Amy have two sons. On the Ledge is Amy’s first book.
Welcome, Amy. Please tell us about your current release.
After Amy Turner is mowed down by a pickup truck, she struggles to heal the trauma of her own brush with death; a process that, unexpectedly and despite her resistance, forces her to confront a childhood trauma she thought she resolved long ago: the morning her father climbed onto a fifty-foot high ledge outside his hotel window and threatened to jump, an event that made national news.
Poignant and intimate, On the Ledge is Amy’s insightful and surprisingly humorous chronicle of coming to terms with herself and her parents as the distinct, vulnerable individuals they are. Perhaps more meaningfully, it offers proof that no matter how far along you are in life, it’s never too late to find yourself. Kirkus Reviews called the book, “ . . . an intriguing memoir . . . that many readers will find relatable. . . . A frank and engaging portrait of one family’s struggles with mental illness.”
What inspired you to write this book?
I wish I knew! A few months after my accident and my brother’s sudden and unexpected death, I wrote a thank you note to a friend and found the words just pouring out of me!
Excerpt from On the Ledge:
PROLOGUE
On a cold November morning in 1957, as Yale students crossed the green to their first classes, hotel employees cleaned up breakfast dishes, and three priests went out for a walk, my father, pajama-clad and barefoot, climbed out on the ledge of his hotel window and threatened to jump. Some fifty feet below, the fire truck arrived. Three firemen cranked the extension ladder to the floor below him while others tried to gauge a jump’s trajectory and positioned a circular net. Those in the growing crowd craned their necks to take in every moment of the unfolding drama. Soon, hundreds of people were staring up at him.
My mother, at home in Bronxville, New York, had awakened with an uneasy feeling—a low rumbling in her head, perhaps. She called my father’s hotel room. When he didn’t answer, she might have pictured him standing on the front porch of our house again, a fresh bloodstain on the front of his shirt. The in- jury had been superficial—from a penknife, it turned out—but having been self-inflicted, it was hard to forget. It’s possible that she thought about pouring a scotch, but maybe the effect of last night’s half bottle, or the memory of my father’s confident smile as he boarded the train to New Haven that morning, reassured her.
Still getting no answer, my mother phoned my father’s business colleague, who was staying in the room next to him, and asked that he check in on him. When he called back to say that her husband was standing on the hotel ledge, she called a close family friend, who drove her to New Haven.
Around the same time, the three priests out on their walk heard the commotion and hurried to the hotel. Father Keating and the prior dashed up to my father’s room while Father Murphy remained on the sidewalk, ready to administer last rites, if necessary.
When my mother saw my father next, still in his pajamas and seated in a wheelchair at the hospital admissions desk, he just stared at her. She leaned forward and cupped her palms over his hands.
His knuckles, a range of bony peaks, did not soften.
She moved an inch closer. “Har . . . old?”
Still no response.
The doctor, glancing up from the counter where he was signing forms, answered for him, “Catatonic.” Later that afternoon, a New York City reporter conned his way into our house. Our maid, home alone and no doubt distracted by her four charges, didn’t notice him pocketing a family photograph.
——
I was four and a half years old at the time, and all I knew for sure was what I could see—a father who sat behind a brown desk in my parents’ bedroom, a mother who paused only to light a cigarette as she flashed by, a wrinkly-faced maid who yelled at us, a skinny black dog named Skeeter who ran away when I raised my arm, and an older sister who read me a book sometimes. I also had two younger brothers, but I hardly perceived them as separate from me. We were so close in age, we were like an amoeba whose edges could bulge out in three directions at once.
But it must have been soon after my father climbed onto the ledge when I began to sense something else coexisting in our house. If I’d known the word at four and a half, it might have been “trapdoor.” I was certain that at any time and without warning, the floor could snap open, swallow one of us, and slam shut in a nanosecond. A trapdoor was invisible, of course, but I patrolled the house nonetheless, searching for warning signs—a retreat in my father’s eyes, or a loosening in my mother’s white- knuckled grip. In my family, loving or being loved was secondary. First, we had to avoid the trapdoors. And by the time I was sixteen and was finally told the truth about what had happened in 1957, I had been on high alert for a dozen years, the pattern so deeply ingrained that it would take another forty years to understand and undo it.
What exciting story are you working on next?
I’m looking forward to writing about the 95-year long life of my great- grandmother, one of 17 children who grew up in a house in Brooklyn Heights overlooking NY Harbor and whose first memory was watching the NYC funeral procession for Abraham Lincoln in April 1865.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
Well, it first occurred to me as a serious proposition—after about four years of writing this memoir—when one of my writing instructors looked me squarely in the eye and said, “Amy, stop worrying, you are a writer!” Yet I must confess my doubts lingered until I held an ARC of On the Ledge in my hands five years later.
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your workday like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
When I first started writing my memoir, I was employed as a 7th grade social studies teacher, so I wrote on Saturdays and Sundays. (I was too exhausted to write during the school week.) When I retired, I had the luxury of being able to write during the week, but that free time also brought with it many more distractions!
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
A clean desk terrifies me! I have to be surrounded by piles of notes and early drafts. The visual presence of prior work somehow comforts me. It offers the reassurance that if I get stuck, something in those piles might inspire me and remind me that despite my doubts, I’m capable of writing!
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A writer and a teacher and now I’ve become both…finally!
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
I would encourage readers—and the writers among them—to just keep at it, to “dig deep,” as my father would say. It was not until I reached my fifties that I found my voice as a writer and my authentic, independent identity.
Links:
Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Pre-order On the Ledge
Thanks for being here today, Amy!
Wow. You have overcome a lot. Such traumatic events, whew, you would not wish them on anyone, especially not on yourself. They do pull you out of ordinary life, however, and make you rethink things. Well, not everyone does. But you certainly did. That’s inspiring. Thank you for sharing your story.