Today’s guest is novelist Alle C. Hall and we’re chatting about her new debut literary fiction, As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back: A Novel.
Check out other tour stops as Alle travels with Wow! Women on Writing. Details are below the interview.
Bio:
Nominated for The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Book Award and—tis just in—winner of The PenCraft Book Award for Fiction – Adventure, Alle C. Hall’s debut literary novel, As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back was winning prizes before its publication, including the National League of American Pen Women’s Mary Kennedy Eastham Prize. Her short stories and essays appear in journals including Dale Peck’s Evergreen Review, Tupelo Quarterly, New World Writing, Litro, Creative Nonfiction, and Another Chicago. She has written for The Seattle Times, Seattle Weekly, and was a contributing writer at The Stranger. She is the former senior nonfiction editor at jmww journal and the former associate editor of Vestal Review. Hall lived in Asia, traveled there extensively, speaks what she calls “clunky” Japanese, and has a tai chi practice of 35 years running.
Welcome, Alle. Please tell us about your current release.
Carlie is a teenaged survivor of ongoing sexual trauma who steals ten thousand dollars from her parents with a plan to run away to Asia, travel cheaply until she turns 18 years old, and then move to Japan to teach English. She has no idea how damaged she is until she arrives in Hong Kong with all her trauma right there in her backpack, and has to contend with life as a survivor. Through The Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, Carlie trades sex for safety, gets lost in alcohol, drugs and self-starvation, and finally stumbles into a couple who introduce her to Tai chi. The women invite her to move to Japan with them. Once in Tokyo, Carlie digs into her Tai chi practice, which guides her healing. This involves learning to do what appears to be simple, such as feeding herself and doing well at her job. Then she takes on the mysteries of love and death. Eventually, she has to embrace the tiger and return to the mountain.
The name of the chapter where Carlie comes face to face with her parents is Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain is also the name of one of the movements—called a posture—from the Tai chi form Carlie studies. As soon as Carlie encounters Tai chi, I name the chapters after various postures.
What inspired you to write this book?
I’m an incest survivor. I have never met a survivor that did not have an amazing story of how they stayed alive. We tend to forget or ignore that five children a day die from abuse or neglect. That is almost two thousand children a year, dead, most often by their parents’ hands. There is a reason we who did live through it are called survivors. I wanted to reach those survivors still struggling, perhaps feeling hopeless. I want to help the people who love them perhaps understand a bit better.
Excerpt from As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back:
Land, Vault, Land
In Bali, calling herself Mary, teenaged Carlie meets a French woman in her late twenties.
Even seated on a barstool, Lise was tall, but it was not her height that gave her power because, except for the arm muscles, she was shoestring-traveler thin. The watering hole she suggested was done up tiki-style, somewhat crowded, with a juke box near the door playing that new-ish, Wishing-well-kiss-and-tell song. The place was empty except for an older man behind the bar. As we took stools, she said, “Two Bintang.”
I said, “And for you?”
“I like this, American Mary. I like this.” All she did was cross those legs and, like clockwork, two guys came over. They gave off similar vibes, buff and looking good in perfectly white t-shirts and tight jeans, their onyx hair done up like James Dean’s.
The taller guy was cuter, if not by much. He introduced himself as Ketut. Lise said, “Balinese males have one of four names, which signifies birth order. Wayan, Ma-de, Nyoman, Ketut. Am I right, boys?”
Ketut was way better at English than his brother, Ma-de, who specialized in smoothing a lock of hair at the front that kept springing from its James Dean shellac. It’d spring, he’d smooth it and then flash movie-star teeth until it sprang again. Adorable. Nevertheless, Lise and Ketut got to gab, their voices like birds. I still didn’t know which language they spoke in Bali. I couldn’t have tracked that information sober. The three of them joked about what could possibly be done to pass the time during the afternoon rain and—
Lise and Ketut, gone. When Ma-de said, “You beautiful hair,” I was good and drunk, so pretty sure it wouldn’t hurt.
What exciting story are you working on next?
I’m on my nineth or tenth full draft of a companion piece to As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back. A literary thriller called Crazy Medicine, which is the English translation of the Thai for ya ba: a street drug that mixes caffeine into methamphetamine.
The story follows Lena Hayes as she gets herself in over her head dealing drugs in Thailand and Cambodia in the early to mid-1990s. Like Carlie in As Far as You Can Go, Lena is a trauma survivor—although of different trauma than Carlie’s. No less damaging, however. Backpacking around Asia, arriving on the same Thai island—Koh Phangan—on which Carlie finds Tai chi and choses to follow the light, Lena chooses a different path. Much darker.
Lena is all those people I see, all those people I am related to who, for some reason or another, don’t heal. I have nothing but empathy for them, though my real question is: Why me? Why did I heal and not them? I don’t know that writing Crazy Medicine will answer the questions, but I am having a great time delving into them. Also, creating a really “bad” character is a whole hill of fun.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
When I held my first-ever article on a paper, in my hands. It was about Tai chi, of all things! I read it over and over on the train. I couldn’t believe those were my words, in print! I felt so heard, valued in a way I’d never before experienced. I was not at all in touch with myself as a survivor of childhood trauma, but the gratification of publication let the full me understand the power that I had inside myself, that public expression was critical to me, and that writing would be a part of that expression.
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
At this point in my life—50-hemina-hemina years of age—I am able to write full time. For most of my years spent working out of the house, I wrote around the edges of full-time employment.
My workday often starts around midnight, after watching what I call “my funny guys”: Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Seth Meyers. It’s really bad for my health, but I will snuggle into the living room couch with a thermos of tea and write all night. Then I sleep for about six hours the next day, ruining all my plans.
Life is much better when I sleep at night, like a normal person. In these instances, I am able to wake up with my kids, do some Tai chi, maybe 40 minutes, then settle in with the afore-referenced thermos of tea and work and work and work. I am able to write for hours on end, if allowed. I stop if I have an appointment or coffee date, or when my young adults come home in the afternoon. After dinner, each family member tends to take up their own pursuits. I’m back on the couch, clocking another few hours, until the funny guys come on. Hopefully, then I go to bed!
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I make mini-dioramas (aka: dollhousing) of scenes from As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back, or from the backstory. For a lot of the summer of ’22, when I was deeply into pre-publication media outreach and not getting a lot of writing time, I used dollhousing as a way to stay in touch with what the novel was about.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Anything that put me in the center of attention. Mikhail Baryshnikov’s dance partner. Star of the then-nonexistent movie of Are You There, God? It’s me, Margaret. Wife of the first Jewish president. (There was nothing in society at that time that let me know that I could dream of being the first Jewish president.) Looking back, I wanted to be loved and treated with respect.
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
Yes: October is Domestic Violence Awareness and Prevention Month. Five children a day die from domestic abuse or neglect. Please take a moment to think about those children. Pray if you, pray. Send your best vibes if that’s what you prefer. Almost two thousand children a year is far too many to lose to abuse.
Links:
Website | Substack newsletter | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter
Purchase a copy of the book on Amazon, Bookshop.org, or Barnes and Noble. Make sure you also add it to your Goodreads reading list.
Blog Tour Calendar:
October 2nd @ The Muffin
Join us as we celebrate the launch of Alle C. Hall’s blog tour for As Far As You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back. Read an interview with the author and enter to win a copy of the book. https://muffin.wow-womenonwriting.com
October 3rd @ Seaside Book Nook
Jill will be spotlighting the award-winning book As Far As You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back by Alle C. Hall. https://www.seasidebooknook.com
October 3rd @ Felicia Guest Writes
Join Felicia as she features an excerpt of As Far As You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back. https://feliciaguestwrites.com/
October 5th @ Fiona Ingram
Join Fiona for a guest post by Alle C. Hall about travel and travel writing. https://fionaingramauthor.blogspot.com/
October 7th @ Chapter Break
Julie will be spotlighting As Far As You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back on her blog today. She’ll also be interviewing the author. https://chapterbreak.net/
October 8th @ World of My Imagination
Visit Nicole’s blog for her review of As Far As You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back. https://worldofmyimagination.com
October 8th @ Just Katherine
Don’t miss Katherine’s feature of an excerpt from As Far As You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back. https://justkatherineblog.wordpress.com
October 10th @ Just Katherine
Katherine shares a guest post by Alle C. Hall about the topic of joy. https://justkatherineblog.wordpress.com
October 12th @ Knotty Needle
Visit Judy’s blog for her review of As Far As You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back. http://knottyneedle.blogspot.com
October 14th @ A Wonderful World of Books
Visit Joy’s blog for a guest post by the author about surviving traumatic, unkind, or simply less-than-nurturing events. https://awonderfulworldofwordsa.blogspot.com/
October 16th @ Storeybook Reviews
Visit Leslie’s blog for a guest post by Alle C. Hall about coping. https://www.storeybookreviews.com
October 18th @ Finished Pages
Join Renee as she reviews As Far As You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back. https://www.FinishedPages.com
October 19th @ Celticlady’s Reviews
Kathleen shares a spotlight of As Far As You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back. https://celticladysreviews.blogspot.com/
October 20th @ A Storybook World
Join Deirdra for her spotlight of As Far As You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back. https://www.astorybookworld.com/
October 21st @ The Mommies Review
Don’t miss Glenda’s review of As Far As You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back. http://www.themommiesreviews.com/
October 23rd @ Bring on Lemons
Join Crystal for her review of As Far As You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back. https://bringonlemons.blogspot.com/
October 25th @ Mire Marke
Join Mire as she reviews As Far As You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back. https://twitter.com/MireMarke
October 26th HERE!
October 27th @ Freeing the Butterfly
Visit Michelle’s blog for a guest post by Alle C. Hall about spirituality. https://www.freeingthebutterfly.com/blog
October 30th @ Jill Sheet’s blog
Visit Jill’s blog for her interview with author Alle C. Hall https://jillsheets.blogspot.com/
November 1st @ Writer Advice
Visit B. Lynn Goodwin’s blog for her review of As Far As You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back. https://www.writeradvice.com
November 2nd @ Writer Advice
Join B. Lynn Goodwin again when she interviews Alle C. Hall. https://www.writeradvice.com
November 3rd @ Choices
Visit Madeline’s blog for a guest post by Alle C. Hall about trauma and creativity. http://madelinesharples.com
November 3 @ Boys’ Mom Reads
Join Karen for her review of Alle C. Hall’s book As Far As You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back. https://karensiddall.wordpress.com/
November 4th @ Boots, Shoes, and Fashion
Visit Linda’s blog for an in-depth interview with author Alle C. Hall about her book As Far As You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back. https://bootsshoesandfashion.com/
2 thoughts on “Interview with novelist Alle C. Hall”