Written by contributor Courtney Blanton
Bestselling author Patti Callahan is about to release her newest historical fiction novel, Surviving the Savannah, which is set to be an unforgettable read that is sure to make the readers feel all the emotions! Recently, I was able to ask her some questions about her upcoming novel, book recommendations, and much more.
Hi Patti! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hello! My name is Patti Callahan Henry, but I also write under the name Patti Callahan. This new novel, Surviving Savannah, is my fifteenth novel and it still feels surreal in some ways. I was once a pediatric nurse, but started writing when my now-grown children were very young. My husband, Pat, and I live in Birmingham, Alabama. We have one daughter, grown and married with a magic fairy little girl, and then I have two sons in graduate school and college. I am vaguely (okay, more than vaguely) obsessed with rivers, the Lowcountry, untold stories and the psychological secrets that make us tick.
Your new novel, Surviving Savannah, is out on March 9th 2021. If you could only describe it with five words, what would they be?
The Titanic of the South!
Now, tell us a little more!
Surviving Savannah is a dual timeline story about the doomed Steamship Pulaski, which blew up off the coast of North Carolina on June 14th, 1838 with the elite of Savannah and Charleston on it. Just recently the remains of the ship were found a hundred feet deep beneath the sea. As the shipwreck hunters brought up the remains of the ship, I fished for the stories of its passengers. This novel follows the story of one family of eleven who boarded the ship together – in the end I asked: How do we survive the surviving?
Where did the inspiration for this novel come from?
Originally I was inspired by the untold parts of this tale – of how it had been lost to time. I was inspired by tales of survival and how the city of Savannah was part of this story, and how the Lowcountry was affected by this tragedy. I was also inspired and curious about the transformation of each passenger and the ways that each survivor not only lived through the explosion but also chose to live their lives after the sinking. How, I wondered, do some come to live better lives and others turn toward bitterness and cruelty? Who do we become after such great loss?
And then, everything shifted because after a hundred and eighty years, along came a shipwreck-hunting crew who found the remains of the Pulaski a hundred feet beneath the waves, thirty miles off the coast of Wilm-ington, North Carolina. While the team went deep to bring up the artifacts and treasure of this beautiful ship, I dug deep to bring up the stories.
My exhilarating hunt for the forgotten story began.
What is it about historical fiction that makes you enjoy writing tales in that genre?
There are the tales we think we know, but what about the ones hidden beneath the surface? I have long been fascinated with finding the untold stories instead of retelling the known stories. There are many truths inside one story, and it all depends on who is doing the telling. I want to hear the other side of what we think we know, the points of view that bring a tale to a larger scale and a deeper understanding.
What was the process like on deciding the title for the book?
I am quite envious of those who think of their titles before their books are even written. That has only happened to me twice. Usually the title grows from the soil of the story itself. When I understood that this novel was very much about surviving the surviving, I knew that word had to be in the title!
Were you very involved with the cover design or was that mostly up to the publisher?
My publisher is amazing and allowed me to be part of the process. I had nothing to do with the actual art (you don’t want that!) but the publishing house asked me for ideas and then brought me in when the concepts came through. Berkley (PRH) has an incredible art department and they came up with an image that blew me away – a hint of what is to come hidden inside the color of the sky and the stance of a woman waiting to embark on a journey.
What was the research process like for your novel?
The research for this book was intense. I had gone into the story assuming there was much more information readily available than there actually was. A singular book about this ship and this tragedy hadn’t been written. I had to piece together scraps of information from various places, dig through boxes at the historical center, interview museum curators and spend time picking the minds of the shipwreck hunter who headed up the dive for the ship’s remains. I tell anyone headed out to research – you cannot find everything you need on the internet. Get out there and ask questions, dig through boxes, and listen closely to the stories. Our museums are the gems of history.
Did the pandemic cause any obstacles while writing/preparing to release this novel?
Most of this novel was finished before March of 2020 when the pandemic really shut us down. Therefore, the biggest obstacle for me is happening right now: releasing a novel during a pandemic. How do we get the word out when we can’t get out on the road? When we can’t meet our readers? When we can’t visit our favorite booksellers? It’s a new virtual world out there and we are pivoting. At the start of the pandemic, four other author friends and I (Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel, Kristy Woodson Harvey and Mary Alice Monroe) had book tours cancelled so we gathered and started a Facebook show called Friends and Fiction. We have accidentally built an incredibly community of authors and readers with a weekly live show. This is part and parcel of what is happening – we are all trying to find a new way to talk about and spread the word. The literary community is strong and resilient: we always need stories!
What’s one thing that you hope readers take away from this story?
I definitely don’t want to tell readers what they should or shouldn’t get from my books, and I don’t like to provide any answers. But I do hope my readers ask what poet David Whyte calls “the beautiful questions”, the questions and curiosities that have the ability to change us. What does it mean to survive? What do we do with past trauma and how do we move on? How do we survive the surviving?
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
Of course, I highly recommend my co-hosts from Friends and Fiction: they all have new releases in 2021 (Under the Southern Sky by Kristy Woodson Harvey; The Newcomer by Mary Kay Andrews, The Summer of Lost and Found by Mary Alice Monroe, and The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristin Harmel). And one of my favorite early books from 2021 is NICK by Michael Farris Smith, the imagined life of Nick Carraway from The Great Gatsby! Kristin Hannah’s The Four Winds is astounding. Paula McLain’s When the Stars Go Dark is a page turning mastery of prose and plot.
