LibraryThing is pleased to sit down this month with author Eileen Garvin, whose 2021 novel, The Music of the Bees, was a national bestseller, receiving accolades from the Christian Science Monitor, People Magazine, LibraryReads, IndieNext, and many more. Garvin made her debut in 2010 with her memoir, How to Be a Sister: A Love Story with a Twist of Autism, and her essays have been published in The Oregonian, PsychologyToday.com, and Creative Non-Fiction Magazine, and featured on the Mom’s Don’t Have Time to Read Books podcast. Her second novel, Crow Talk, which addresses themes of friendship, hope and healing, all while set in the beauty of the Pacific Northwest, was published by Dutton at the end of April.
The natural world plays an important role in Crow Talk, which features three people who have withdrawn to a rural retreat in order to nurse their wounds. What role does nature play in your story, and why did you choose the specific setting you did?
In Crow Talk, nature is meant to be a healing source for my three main characters—Frankie, Anne, and Aiden. I chose to set the story at June Lake—a fictional place—because I’ve always personally drawn solace from the natural world. When I was a child, our family lake cabin was a place of respite for all of us. As an adult I continue to be comforted and energized by woods, water, mountains, and trails. I believe nature is a powerful force.
How did the idea for your story come to you? You’re an amateur beekeeper, which must in some way have influenced the story you told in The Music of the Bees. Do you have a similar connection to crows, or to other corvine species?
Yes, my own beekeeping helped me write The Music of the Bees. While writing the book, I knew early on that my characters would get to know each other through beekeeping. I completed my Master Beekeeper Apprentice certification while I was revising the novel. I don’t have any similar hands-on experience with crows or other birds, but I’m an avid birdwatcher. I love watching the birds in my yard and in the woods around town. I also love to listen to birds and can often more easily identify them through their songs and calls than how they look. This is especially fun during migration, when an old favorite arrives in town, like the varied thrush and the robin.
The idea for Crow Talk came to me during the pandemic. All the trails in my hometown were
shut down and I was longing for the woods. I was able to make a trip back to the family place I mentioned earlier. When I arrived, I felt such relief at being alone and outside under the trees. That’s when I first got this idea—what if I took three wounded people and put them in a setting like the one I loved so much? How might the natural beauty of that place help them connect and heal?
What makes crows and other corvids so special? Did you have to do any research for that aspect of the story, and if so, what is the most interesting thing you learned?
Crows and other corvids are so smart and so interesting! While researching this book, I learned many things. For example, crows can recognize human faces. This means they recall those who have helped them as well as people who have not been so nice—for years! I learned that crows love to play and have been documented doing things like surfing the air on pieces of wood, sliding on snow, and riding an updraft just for fun. They use tools and are incredibly mischievous—teasing dogs and stealing things like windshield wiper blade, cigarettes, lit candles from shrines, cups of coffee. I loved reading about how they care for sick and injured family members too. The books of corvid expert John M. Marzluff were hugely helpful. So were books by Sy Montgomery, Helen MacDonald, and Lyanda Lynn Haupt.
One of your characters is an Irish musician. Are you fond of traditional Irish music? Do you have any favorite performers or pieces of music? (full disclosure: some of my own favorites in this vein include Altan, The Bothy Band, Karan Casey, and the sean-nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird)
Yes, I’m a big fan of traditional Irish music as well as Celtic music in general. I grew up listening to the Thistle and Shamrock and singing older ballads—Irish, Scottish, and English. My great-grandparents were Irish immigrants and everyone in my family sings, though none of us has formal training. Big fan of Altan (Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh—what a voice!), and I love Kevin Burke’s fiddle playing. I think he plays with The Bothy Band sometimes.
Tell us a little bit about your writing process. Is there a particular way you work, a specific spot where you like to write? Do you have the story mapped out in your mind before you begin?
Since I wrote my first book, my process has been fairly consistent. I have small office in the (darkest, coldest) corner of the house. I get up early, make coffee, and start working on whatever project I have underway. Any new writing happens in these first hours. I can revise and answer emails later, but the creative stuff happens early or not at all.
I write all the way through a first draft and never have the story mapped out before I start. When I wrote my memoir, I had loads of old memories and stories, but no sense of how they would hang together. When I wrote my first novel, the opening sentence just came to me when I was in the car one day. With Crow Talk, I got the idea for the setting first—a remote alpine lake—and then the characters came along. It’s been different each time and always a leap of faith.
Tell us about your library. What’s on your own shelves?
My shelves are a mix of poetry, memoir, fiction, and children’s books. I collect fairytales and children’s books—usually those that involve magical animals. I also have a collection of old novels that were my grandmother’s—Louisa May Alcott, Charles Dickens, Frances Hodgson Burnett. I cringe now to think how’d I drag those lovely old books up into the woods to read when I was a kid! But I also love that the family culture was “Read! Read everything, anywhere, all the time!”
What have you been reading lately, and what would you recommend to other readers?
Some recent favorites include the memoir by Scottish comedian Fern Brady called Strong Female Character (featuring her adult diagnosis with autism), James by Percival Everett (a reimagining of The Adventures Huckleberry Finn from Jim’s point of view), and Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World by Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama (in which he introduces the poems of others in a similar way that he employs on his wonderful podcast Poetry Unbound).
