Victoria M Adams & “The House At the End of the Sea”: Q&A #1
Today I’m featuring Post #1 of a feature series with Victoria M Adams—also known as my good friend and fellow author, Mary—which takes and indepth look at her newly released novel, The House at the End of the Sea.
The House at the End of the Sea is officially Middle Grade fiction, i.e. roughly aimed at the 9-13 age group, but I believe it’s one of those books that older readers may also enjoy.
If you have questions for Mary, please post a comment. I know she’ll be more than delighted to answer.
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Victoria M Adams & “The House At the End of the Sea”: Q&A #1
Helen: Saffi, your main character, and her family are dealing with bereavement, as well as intergenerational tensions. What is the role of fantasy in helping children confront and discuss very real traumas, historical or otherwise?
Victoria M Adams: During a recent Insta event, I had the privilege of chatting to Nashae Jones and Jenna Lee-Yun about middle grade storytelling and this question came up. Jenna had an interesting take on the issue. She said that fantasy gives children a safe space to understand difficult and traumatic experiences. Not only private grief and family problems but also systemic injustice, historical traumas and other issues. I think she’s absolutely right. Fantasy is a space where we collectively chew over tough questions, where children can grapple with certain feelings or realities and work through them. We look at the past and ask: ‘How was it for people back then?’ We look at now and ask, ‘why are things so difficult, how can I help myself and others?’ We look at the future and say, ‘what if we make this choice, or that choice as a society? What happens?’
Personally, I was and still am interested in the experience of not-belonging, of dual heritages and complex family histories. In my case it was British and Iranian, but there are any number of ways of experiencing this, including the not-belonging that comes of moving around a great deal, or poverty, or neuro-diversity, or other forms of difference. Many of us have multiple loyalties, which are occasionally at loggerheads – they fight a little on the psychological level. It’s interesting to see these experiences represented in stories.
As I wrote Saffi’s story, I found myself asking: what if it wasn’t a problem, or more accurately wasn’t JUST a problem to have several identities? What if the process of being ever so slightly at odds with oneself was actually useful? If it gave an unusual capacity – that of seeing both sides of an issue, or looking beyond the obvious, or avoiding simplistic answers? In that sense, a degree of discomfort is welcome. It opens our eyes to a whole new world.
An Excerpt from The House at the End of the Sea
” ‘There’s a boy spying on us from the beach,’ said Milo.
Saffi didn’t turn around. She fixed her gaze on her brother seated opposite her at the picnic table, and waited. Behind him, southwards along the town’s promenade, waves rushed almost to the sea wall. Milo seemed too small to her in his green shirt with a T-rex on the front, poking at the dregs of his milkshake with a straw. A picture of innocence.
Except, he was lying. She knew that.
‘He’s got something.’ He had a worried look. ‘I think it’s a gun.’
She held his eye. ‘Stop it, Milo.’
‘Turn around. You’ll miss it.’
‘Just once, I’d like to sit quietly and wait for Dad.’
‘It’s true, I swear.’
It wasn’t. Milo’s tales had started right after the funeral and showed no signs of stopping. The grief counsellor said: Your brother lies because he doesn’t want to accept a reality without his mum. Saffi wished it was that easy to change reality.
‘Please.’ He was squirming with frustration. ‘Look!’
He sounded so desperate that she finally glanced over her shoulder. All she saw on the beach was a slim figure in a brown jacket. There was no way of knowing if he had been ‘spying’. Otherwise, the shore was deserted apart from birds. There were a great many of those, wheeling and turning over the bay.
‘Too late,’ said Milo.
Sun, kids crying over dropped ice cream, the burnt-sugar smell of candyfloss. That was how a seaside town should be, Saffi thought. But not this one. This one couldn’t even manage a summer. It was August but the breeze felt more like October. The promenade had one post office that sold crisps and cards, one tea shop named Betty’s where the owner hung sad, useless sun-catchers in the window. The lines of groynes on the sand resembled grinning teeth. And they were going to live here. They had to leave London and everything they knew behind, move in with Grandma and Grandad in this nowhere place at the edge of the sea, all because Mum was gone and Dad couldn’t manage Milo alone. Anger sat in a lump in Saffi’s throat.
Just then, a gull landed on a nearby table with a scrabbling thud. Milo watched it jab at the wood with its yellow beak.
‘Seagulls evolved from velociraptors,’ he said. ‘Know that?’
The gun was forgotten. He had on his serious I read this in a book face. Saffi fought the urge to scream.
‘Careful,’ said a voice from behind. ‘They can be mardy, those ones.’
Saffi looked round to find a boy her own age, about twelve or thirteen, watching them from the terrace. Freckled and blond-haired, he could have sprung up out of the grey stones for all she knew. She hadn’t seen him arrive. His hands were thrust in the pockets of a leather jacket; the t-shirt underneath might once have had a Leicester City logo. His trainers were tied with nylon string, pale green. He lifted his chin to indicate the gull.
‘Snatch chips right off your plate,’ he said.
Saffi shrugged. ‘He hasn’t bothered us.’
But she wondered if the newcomer would. He was edging towards them, hands still in his pockets, an eye on the gull. The bird stared at him sideways as if it didn’t think much of him, either. Then it heaved itself in the air and flapped off. The boy relaxed a little.
‘Weren’t you the one spying on us from the beach?’ asked Milo.
It might have been. But Saffi didn’t see how the boy could have reached the terrace, if so. There were no stairs. He didn’t deny it but withdrew one hand, holding it out to her.
‘I’m Birdy,’ he said. ‘Birdy Lythe. You here on holiday?’
Saffi wasn’t used to talking to strangers in the street. She hesitated before getting up to shake his hand.
‘I’m Saffi. This is Milo. We just moved here.’
‘Oh, aye?’ That surprised him. ‘Where from, London?’
Saffi nodded. ‘And you?’
‘Breakwell, born and bred.’ He pointed across the bay to a line of white bluffs. ‘My dad runs a park up by Flamborough.’
That was where Grandad and Grandma lived, in a B&B at Flamborough Head. Saffi realised that Birdy’s ‘park’ must be nearby. She wasn’t sure if she should say so.
‘Sounds nice.’
‘Well.’ He scuffed the pavement with his foot. ‘I guess. I mean, there’s lots to see round these parts. Stacks, arches, smugglers’ caves . . . ’
‘Caves?’
Milo’s question was breathless. He had scrambled up from the bench to peer at the boy, hooked by the tourist pitch. Even Saffi felt a reluctant tug of interest.
‘Heaps.’ Birdy warmed to his theme. ‘Big ones at North Landing. But you can find ’em all over. And shipwrecks.’
‘Shipwrecks?’ Milo’s eyes grew round.
‘I’ll show you if you like. I know places.’
Saffi was suddenly afraid this boy with green laces would offer his tourist-guiding services, then ask for money. Or just ask for money.
‘It’s kind of you,’ she said in her most formal London voice. ‘We’ll be fine.’
An instant later, she felt mean for saying it. Birdy only smiled, as if he didn’t care one way or the other.
‘Saf.’ Milo turned to her. ‘D’you think Dad’ll take us to see a shipwreck?’
‘You know Dad. If it was an Iron Age dig, maybe . . . ’
But Milo wasn’t listening. ‘My grandma and grandad have a B&B in Flamborough,’ he told Birdy, eager.
Saffi realised, too late, that he had spilled her secret. Birdy didn’t miss it. A frown settled on his face.
‘What d’you say your last name was?’ He was staring hard at her.
‘I didn’t.’ Here we go, she thought. ‘It’s True.’
Birdy must have recognised the name, for he seemed bewildered. ‘True? But you don’t look–’ he began, before biting his tongue.
Saffi felt a familiar weariness. People always saw Mum’s Iranian side in her, never Dad’s English one. It annoyed her because she couldn’t even speak the language. She had no idea what Mum’s aunts and uncles and fleets of cousins were saying when they pinched her cheeks and cooed in Farsi. She opened her mouth to make a sharp rejoinder. But Birdy spoke first.
‘Trues. Figures.’
Saffi could tell he didn’t mean it as a compliment. ‘Why?’
Before he could answer, she felt the air move. With a great flap and flurry of wings, a seagull – she didn’t know if it was the same one – swooped down on them from above, so close that its webbed feet almost grazed Birdy’s face. Instinctively, he raised his arms. There was a breathless moment as the gull hovered over him, an angry grey-white blur, yellow beak agape. Then, as quickly as it came, it went. Birdy didn’t look surprised. He flicked a downy feather off his jacket.
‘Told you. Mardy,’ he said.”
from © The House at the End of the Sea — produced here with permission.
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About The Author
Victoria M. Adams spent her childhood bouncing between Cyprus, Canada and the US with her Iranian mother, trying to achieve first place in the ‘Most Visas Acquired Before Age Eighteen’ sweepstakes. As an adult, she carried on the nomadic family tradition by adding France and New Zealand to the mix, where she worked as an animator, copywriter, tutor and story coach, in no particular order. She currently shares her London home with two humans and a feckless cat.
I love that excerpt. I sometimes think we forget the complexities of modern life that kids need to deal with, and how it can impact them. Fantasy was definitely a big part of my life growing up. I never really thought of its role in helping me process the world before
Thanks Andie.
It’s interesting, isn’t it. When Jenna said that a light bulb went on in my mind and I thought of all the ways in which such stories have helped me make sense of a sometimes chaotic world. They give agency to children; show that it’s possible to overcome adverse circumstances; show that the adult world isn’t always ‘right’, no matter how much it insists that it is! (Not that it’s always ‘wrong’, either. But in some very real ways, kids see what we don’t or have forgotten to see as adults.)
I love the excerpt! And the insight into the story behind the story. It feels like those Russian dolls,in the best kind of way.
Thank you! I think Russian dolls is a good way of describing first chapters 😉 So much has to be packed in, then unpacked slowly as the story unfolds…
This was a wonderful book, the House at the End of the Sea! I finished it a month ago but still it comes back, making me ‘remember’ bits of my own childhood, and how identity, community, comradery and kindred spirits can take on a life of their own, in the art, and in one’s own life.
I felt early on in the chapters that the house itself was a main character and even as the intricate details unfolded, it remained that way for me. – a kind of haven and proving ground all in one.
It seems to me that the “space where we collectively chew over tough questions, where children can grapple with certain feelings or realities and work through them” is present in these pages, even when we think we are just reading for pleasure.
I wouldn’t put an age limit on this book!
Thank you Mary for another wonderful read!
Thank you Kim for these kind words. You are so encouraging and I’m thrilled that you enjoyed the book!
I hope you’ll keep an eye out for the next couple of questions, too… I’d love your take.
Planning on it, Mary!