I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to chat with author Gayle Forman about her new YA novel We Are Inevitable. Aaron operates a rundown bookstore in a small town with his Father Ira. After a devastating loss, Aaron is on the brink of selling the store. But Aaron’s newfound friend, Chad, along with a crew of local builders, suddenly take it upon themselves to fully renovate the bookstore, much to Aaron’s dismay. Simultaneously, Chad introduces Aaron to Hannah; a singer whom Aaron believes he is destined to be with.
We chat with Gayle Forman about inspiration, music, writing advice, and We Are Inevitable.
Hi Gayle, thanks so much for chatting with us today! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself
Hi! Good to be here. I’m an author, a Mom, a traveller, a baker, a New Yorker. I think I’m basically a kind person, except for one thing: I live to make readers cry.
What inspired you to write We Are Inevitable?
I wanted to write a story about a group of people, mostly guys, mostly white, whose old way of life was no longer. Aaron’s bookstore is about to go under; his family has already been torn apart. Chad lost the use of his legs in a snowboarding accident. The lumberjacks are all out of work. Aaron starts the book bitter as hell, suspicious of everyone, but when this ragtag group, none of whom used to like each other, come together, a strange thing happens. They forge a new way of doing something. They create a community. They find happiness.
Also, I wanted to write, if not a comedy, a book that would make you laugh a lot…before it made you cry.
What is the main message that you want readers to take away from We Are Inevitable?
Aaron is obsessed with dinosaurs, particularly the 33,000 years in between the asteroid hitting and the dinosaur’s extinction (the asteroid caused the extinction). He feels like those dinosaurs. The asteroid has already hit, he’s just stumbling around waiting for his extinction. And while it is true Aaron’s old life isn’t coming back, it’s not over. And that one way to move forward is to do it with others. We need that. To be part of something larger than ourselves. Community is everything.
And while this is not a book about addiction, addiction is a big part of what’s going on. Aaron’s brother died of drug addiction. His love interest, Hannah, is in recovery. Clearly, I had some things to say about the opioid crisis, specifically what it does to family and how the lack of public rehab facilities is ruining families.
Why did you choose to name Aaron and Ira’s bookstore Bluebird Books?
I wrote much of this book during the pandemic when I spent a lot of time alone outside in my backyard or in the Green-Wood Cemetery where I went for walks and I spent a lot of time watching birds. They seemed to re-emerge during the lockdown, or maybe I noticed them. And when I finished reading The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte, which is the book Aaron keeps reading over and over, I read something about birds too and I knew that’s what the bookstore had to be named.
Who is your favorite character in We Are Inevitable?
It’s a tie. I loved Chad from jump. He is sort of a backward baseball hat bro, the kind of guy I normally do no love. But in the wake of his accident, going from abled to disabled, Chad found himself in a minority for the first time in his life and he used the opportunity to learn. So writing scenes of Chad talking about the dangers of toxic masculinity, those were my favorite. I want more men in the world like Chad!
My other favorite character is the bookstore itself. I’m a huge fan of indie bookstores but writing this book during the pandemic, when I could not physically go into one, I found myself deeply missing them, the smell of paper, the human algorithm of the bookseller hand sell, bookstore cats, gorgeously curated tables, and the sense of community you find in a bookstore. I think I poured all that love and longing into Bluebird Books.
In the novel, Hannah makes it her mission to find Aaron’s perfect song. What is your perfect song?
I have an entire Spotify list of perfect songs. And to me, a perfect song is just how Aaron comes to see it: a song that has a build to it, that tells a story, not just lyrically but instrumentally, a song that makes you feel something. There’s a riff in the middle of the Mumford & Son’s song Lover of the Light that starts around the 3:24 mark and I always think if I can do in writing what this riff does to me in sound, then I will be happy.
Aaron, the main character in We Are Inevitable, reads the same book over and over again; what is one book that you’ve read multiple times?
I have re-read three of Melina Marchetta’s books too many times to count: Jellicoe Road, Saving Francesca and The Piper’s Son. I’m re-reading James Baldwin (The Fire Next Time and Go Tell It On the Mountain) because he only gets more relevant. My warm blanket book is The Girl’s Guide To Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank. When nothing else works, I pick up that one.
Also, I name-checked so many books in We Are Inevitable, each chapter title is a book title and there’s a bibliography in the back of the book. It was so fun re-visiting a lot of these books.
What is your best writing advice for aspiring novelists?
No one has the ability to write your story, with your take, your experiences. Lean into that. That’s not to say you should/must tell your true story. We write fiction. But no one brings to the page what you do. That is your superpower. Harness.
Also, first drafts are almost universally shitty. Writing the middle part, the so-called spongy middle, nearly always sucks. Most books come alive in revision.
During the challenging times of COVID-19, what is one thing that you and your family are doing to help yourselves stay positive?
We have a funky house in upstate New York that we’ve been fixing up ourselves. So being there, gardening, painting, has been great. Me and my oldest daughter spend lots of times fantasizing about where we will travel to next (top contender: Thailand). But for me, this past year, writing has been a huge relief. I started writing fiction when my oldest daughter was a baby and I could no longer travel for work as a journalist. I found then that I could “escape” into fictional worlds. I have never been as prolific as I have these past 15 months because writing allowed me to escape.
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
I tend to read fiction and listen to nonfiction and it’s been a great year for both. On the fiction side, here are books I absolutely adored during the pandemic: Writers & Lovers by Lily King, Leave The World Behind by Rumaan Alam, Luster by Raven Leilani, Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri, Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell, Grown by Tiffany Jackson and Dante and Aristotle Discover The Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. On the nonfiction side, The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee, Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, Stamped: Racism. Antiracism and You (the YA version by Ibram X Kendi and Jason Reynolds), and Hiding in Plain Sight by Sarah Kendzior.
And lastly, Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quniones. I listened to this book years ago, but it very much informed my writing about addiction in America. There’s a YA version, too.
