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Tricia Ford: Hi, I'm Tricia Ford and I'm an editor here at Audible. Today I am delighted to be talking to writer Steven Rowley. Steven is the author of Lily and the Octopus, The Editor, The Guncle, and The Dogs of Venice, an Audible Original story. He's here today to talk about his new novel, The Celebrants, and I'm so pleased to welcome him to Audible. Thank you for being here, Steven.
Steven Rowley: Thank you so much for having me.
TF: The Celebrants is about a group of friends who first meet during their sophomore year at Berkeley. Marielle, Naomi, Craig, Alec, the Jordans—Jordan and Jordy—quickly become family to each other. When one in the group dies of a drug overdose two weeks before graduation, the remaining friends make an unusual pact. At any time of their choosing each can call on the others to gather for their own funeral, during which they get to be celebrated while still alive. This story takes place in the ’90s, or opens in the ’90s, with these friends at Berkeley, very tight-knit group, but it quickly moves to the future, and there's a lot of time that passes between them before this pact gets activated, but it does get activated. And despite having lost contact, that bond is still there. What is it about the bonds made in youth, or especially during this college time, that's so special and enduring?
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SR: Yeah, I think these are really incredible friendships, or they have been in my life. Certainly I do have a close knit of college friends, although I did not go to Berkeley. I went to school at Emerson College in Boston, on the other coast. But there's something special about having lifelong friends that knew you when you were young, knew your hopes and dreams, and then know you again as an adult. And they can see how you've evolved, how you've changed, your heartbreaks, your disappointments, and the way that you reconcile the person you are with the person the younger version of you hoped to be. And that's a very vulnerable thing to let people witness. And I think that leads to really tight-knit friendships.
The theme of found family I think also is something that resonates throughout my work. I'm roughly the same age as these characters. So, I did go to college in the '90s, and at that time I was a closeted gay man when I went into college. I came out during college. At that time, there was a real fear of being rejected by our own families. So to have each other, to be vulnerable with, to be open with, to be our most authentic selves with, and not sort of fear rejection, was something that cemented these special relationships.
TF: Now, this core group, they're so distinct. So, I'm curious, are they inspired by your real-life friends?
SR: I would say for any of my real-life friends who might be listening, there is no one-to-one parallel or correlation between the characters in the book. But, you know, God help you if you're friends with a writer. We are sponges. We do take details and draw from our real lives, and sadly sometimes from the lives of those closest to us. So, each character is kind of a casserole of different people that I know. And then also there's a certain percentage of each of them that is a little bit me. And I think that's true of all of my characters, that there's a nugget of a quality from myself that I would instill in each of these characters as well. But if they're looking, they can argue over it. I'm sure there will be cocktails in the future where we get together and we argue over who is whom.
TF: Right. If they get to choose who they want to be.
SR: Yeah, let's look at it as aspirational. You know, it's not Sex in the City, but if they want to claim “I'm a Naomi” or “I'm a Marielle” or “I'm a Jordan,” then that would be great fun.
TF: And have you ever been in a pact? Have you ever made a pact?
SR: I have no such pact like this myself. But the book was inspired by a few real-life events, and one of them was losing one of my best friends to breast cancer a few years back. And I think there's something unique about losing a friend, a very close friend. And we don't talk about that kind of grief. Everyone can conceptualize what it means to lose a parent or a family member. But we have all sorts of friends for all sorts of things. And sometimes friends are closer than family, sometimes even closer than a marriage, that these are true confidants. Sometimes a friend is someone you see once or twice a year for coffee. So, it's hard for someone on the outside when you lose a friend to really understand what that loss encapsulates and the level of grief that you're feeling. And I do think that losing a contemporary for the first time also forces you to address your own mortality in a very interesting way.
"Each character is kind of a casserole of different people that I know. And then also there's a certain percentage of each of them that is a little bit me."
And so that happened right before the pandemic. And then early on, when we were all sheltering at home, I rewatched the movie The Big Chill. And I was really sort of inspired by that movie, a movie 40 years ago about a group of college friends coming together after the death of one of their own. But it's a look at middle age and the characters sort of fearing what the back halves of their lives will look like. And everyone in the movie is 35 years old. And I thought, "Oh my goodness. We have really evolved the conversation about what middle age is and what those stresses and worries and challenges are in the 40 years since that film."
TF: I'm glad you mentioned The Big Chill. That is something I thought of right away. Obviously with this storyline, that's an iconic movie and I love this modern-day version that you've put together, and it reminds me of just how many pop culture moments there are here drawn a lot from the ’90s. And one of my favorites is something I would love for you to explain to listeners, and it's the Courtneys. Can you talk about what the Courtneys are?
SR: Yeah, so the Courtney Scale that the characters employed to describe either an event or something that's happened to them: Something is either too Courtney Cox, too Courtney Love, or too Courtney Thorne-Smith. For those who don't remember—I think most people know the first two—Courtney Thorne-Smith was a star of Ally McBeal and Melrose Place, and quite a big star in the '90s herself. So, they describe things, and no one really knows, it's sort of an instinctual—there's no real assignment to this scale. It's just something this group of characters sort of tickles themselves by using.
TF: It's very true though. It struck me as very, very true. It's like, you kind of know when "I'm being too Courtney Love right now."
SR: I think, yeah, if you were to overturn your desk, then I would be like, “Oh, she's being a little too Courtney Love right now. Too rock star.”
TF: Right, right. You've narrated this book and you also narrated The Guncle. So, I wanted to ask you about your decision that you were the right narrator, which you are, you're excellent. But what did you think of the process? What kind of learning process was it for you to be a narrator?
SR: Well, first of all, I had a wonderful actor, Michael Urie, narrate my first two audiobooks. And I loved the sort of collaborative process of working with him. I'm not sure it's the same for all authors, but we spoke on the phone and developed a friendship, and I got to see him in person and talk about the books before the recording process, and that was really lovely. And it wasn't until The Guncle, my previous novel, which had a character I think who was close enough to me, he's a little sadder than I am, but he has been through stuff. But a lot of our pop cultural references, our politics, his sense of empathy, it all comes from me. I think that might be the closest character to me. So, I wanted to take a stab at narrating the audiobook.
It's very interesting for a writer, because when you're writing a novel—and it takes years sometimes—it's yours and yours exclusively, and lives in your head so vividly for so long that it's sometimes daunting to hear someone else read it. When Michael would go up when I imagine the line went down, you know, it was jarring for me. But, by the way, that's absolutely his job. It's an actor's job to interpret the text. And I think in many ways his delivery might be better. But I thought it would be interesting to have a record of how the book sounded in my head for anyone who was curious.
When I do events, sometimes people want to come meet me before reading the book because they want to hear my voice a little bit before reading the book. And there are others who absolutely do not want my voice to interfere with their interpretation of the book. So, it's always really interesting to hear an author read or to have an author narrate their own work. But I enjoyed the process so much that I returned for The Celebrants. There are five central characters in this book, so they're not all so close to me. But there was something about just the spirit of a friend group like this that I felt very closely attached to and wanted to take another stab at it.
TF: Well, like I said, I thought you were fabulous. And did you listen to yourself after?
SR: I don't listen to myself after. I really don't. Through the process of reading it, sometimes I'll stop myself while reading it because I'll hear I didn't like the way I delivered that line, or it didn't match the emotion of how I imagined. And so, as I'm narrating, I'll stop several times and go back, and that's always an interesting part of the process. But once I'm done, not only do I not go back and listen to it, it's an emotional moment at finishing the narration because I also think it's probably the last time I'll ever read the book all the way through. And so it just takes me a moment to sit with it in the recording booth and have a moment of, "Wow, this has been a real journey and in some respects, I'm handing that journey off to readers and my part of it is done."
"I think there'll always be animals in my story. Because I don't think life is worth that much without animals."
TF: I love that. That’s actually beautiful. This book is just full of wisdom and there are really smart, thoughtful, simple statements that just really resonated with me. And it's part of the theme that you touched on a little bit already. But the two quotes that stuck out to me: The first was “Nothing is over until it is.” And the second, “We are not so old that past versions of ourselves are long gone.” Both of these happen shortly after Jordy's Alcatraz swim in the book. So, I'd love just to hear you speak a little bit more of these ideas, especially the idea of the past versions of ourselves kind of still being there later in life.
SR: Yeah. Well, first of all, I'm so touched that those lines spoke to you. My imposter syndrome kicks in when anyone says they find some wisdom in what I wrote. And then I also start to feel very old, you know? Like, “Oh, wait, we can't have wisdom unless we've had a lot of lived experience.” And I'm like, “Oh, I just had another birthday this weekend, so my lived experience is racking up quickly.” But that's really lovely to hear. I do think that there is that child inside all of us, both the joy and the wonder, but also the wounds that we carry, the insecurities and whatnot, and that that's all inside of us still.
And it's amazing, despite the confidence or despite success or despite whatever lived experience we have that helps shape who we are as adults, it's so easy to scratch that surface and have old insecurities bubble up to the surface. It's really interesting to think about. I know certainly that that's true for me. And hopefully that resonates with others as well.
TF: And I was fascinated by even just that whole scene just before that with the swim, and jumping in the waters of Alcatraz. I forget how old he was, about 50, right?
SR: Yep, yep.
TF: It was very descriptive and it made me wonder: Has Steven done this before? Did you ever?
SR: Listen, you're not going to find me jumping into the ocean. First of all, right now I live in Palm Springs, California. I have a swimming pool, and that swimming pool has a heater, and I'm in charge of exactly to what degree that temperature is. Even though I grew up in Maine, on the Atlantic Ocean, and going to the beach every summer was a big part of my life, I dip two toes in the ocean now and I'm like, "Oh, this is untenable. This is unhinged, the idea that anyone wants to swim in the ocean." So, I have not done the Alcatraz to San Francisco Bay swim. In addition to the temperature, which is one thing, I'm also in charge of what living things are in my swimming pool. And I'm very nervous about what other living things are in the ocean—talk about scratching the surface. We can't see what's down there.
So, no, it's not a swim I have done. However, one of the great joys of writing this book was creating these huge kind of set pieces for each of the characters’ funerals. You know, there's another scene in Puerto Vallarta for Naomi's funeral that was a lot of fun to write. But finding an activity around these living funerals that, yes, the characters get back together and lean on each other and hear words of love that help restart their lives in a way, but there's activity usually around these funerals as well. And finding one that was meaningful thematically, emotionally, for each of these characters was great fun. And hopefully it makes each of these sections build on each other, and hopefully one is more fun to read than the last.
TF: I loved it. It's just an example of great imagination. You mentioned the animals in the water, and animals are a theme that pop into your books. As a fan, I've always thought of you as a dog person. But we have some kittens in this book. What made you go with cats this time? And are you a cat dad, or are you a dog person as I had assumed you were?
SR: I am a dog person. But listen, dog people, cat people, it doesn't have to be such a world divided. We can all be friends. We have more in common than we don't. But yeah, my debut novel was a book called Lily and the Octopus, which was about Lily, a dachshund that I had very much based on one of my actual dogs, since passed away. And currently I have two dogs, Raindrop and Shirley, who are big dogs. This is the first time in my life I've had big dogs. I've always had small dogs. And so they're huge characters in my life right now.
I had a cat growing up. We lived in a house with a barn. She was more of a barn cat. She didn't really come inside and didn't want much to do with living a civilized indoor life. She showed up as a stray as a young cat and lived with us for almost 20 years. But yeah, there's always something about cats that don't quite need us as much as sometimes we need them, and that's always a little spooky for me. So, I think dogs will remain where it's at for me. But yeah, there are two blind kittens in this book, and it was just sort of interesting to have them as oracles of sorts.
I do think what's amazing about animals is how much they witness of our lives. In most senses, they can't talk about what they see, thank goodness, because they witness a lot of secret behaviors, right? Witness us not at our best or not as put together for public consumption. In this case, the kittens don't have eyes, and so it's interesting to think about how they witness in other ways. They're not seeing, but I think they are very much feeling an energy that that weekend is giving. I think there'll always be animals in my story. Because I don't think life is worth that much without animals.
TF: I agree. We've kind of talked about the message, but if there was one thing that you would want listeners to take away from the novel, what would that be?
SR: If any listener closed the last page or finished the audiobook and thought they wanted to reach out to someone they've lost touch with and let them know how much that person has meant to them, even if they haven't been in their lives for some time, that would be the most incredible feeling, as a writer. There’s a lot of conversation around how artists and writers in particular are going to respond to COVID. And this is not a COVID book in that the word doesn't appear. Those particular years, 2020 through 2022, don't really appear in the book. I kind of skip over those. I just listened to Elizabeth Strout's Lucy by the Sea, which is very much a retelling of 2020. And while she's a gorgeous writer, and one of my favorites, it was almost too hard to listen to, it was too soon, that summer of so much loss and Black Lives Matter and the election. It was too soon to me. I didn't have enough distance from it to relive it yet.
"If we're feeling lost, if we're feeling like we don't have a good sense of ourselves anymore, sometimes it is those lifelong friends around you who can reflect some semblance of you back at you in a way that can help you find your way."
But this is a COVID book in that I do think we've all experienced so much loss, as a nation, as a world. I don't think we've reconciled with that yet. I don't think we've dealt with that yet. And if we haven't lost a particular loved one or a person, we have lost time. We've lost togetherness. My reaction to the past couple years has been this incredible desire to tell the people in my life what they mean to me now, while I still can, because nothing is guaranteed.
TF: Well, that worked on me. I have a list of people that I will get in touch with that it's been too long. And you're right that it's so easy to put things off. And then COVID was like, not the excuse, but we can't even get together, even if I wanted to try. But that's gone now. And this book was a good reminder.
SR: Yeah. It's interesting to take a step back from the way that we were used to interacting with people too. I felt very awkward once we were socializing again. I remember it was almost like a word vomit. I just talked for a long time and then afterwards I was like, “Oh my goodness, I forgot to ask a question about the other person.” It's almost like I had forgotten how to interact with other human beings. I was like, “Oh, that's not good.” But I think it's helpful sometimes to pause and rethink about how we relate to one another and what benefit we get from social interaction and how we can get more. And if that means that now when I see you I'm going to tell you how much you mean to me, then sorry if it's awkward for you, but I think it hopefully will lead some of these friendships to more meaningful places.
TF: I think it will. Back to the origin of what the story is, having these live funerals, do you think that's a quirky thing that maybe it's only for certain people? Or do you think it's something we all should consider doing?
SR: I think maybe it's something we could all consider. I don't prescribe a one-size-fits-all treatment for everyone. And in fact, I have spent a lot of time thinking about “Would I want to attend my own living funeral?” I don't know that I would. I spend a lot of time avoiding Goodreads and Amazon reviews. There are enough people saying things about me and my work on the internet, and I don't like to know it all. I don't want to know at all. Can I extrapolate from that and think, “I don't know if I want to hear what people say about me as a person”? I don't know. It's an interesting thought, but I think it's absolutely something to consider. Life is short. We've talked about that. But life conversely can also be long. And we can get off on stray paths sometimes. And sometimes it's those who are closest to us who can help reflect us back. So, if we're feeling lost, if we're feeling like we don't have a good sense of ourselves anymore, sometimes it is those lifelong friends around you who can reflect some semblance of you back at you in a way that can help you find your way. And hopefully that's what these funerals do.
TF: I think they do. Now, do you see this story going on, or do you have any story that you're already thinking about? What are you working on next?
SR: I am working on another book that will hopefully be out next year. I think fans of mine will be very excited by this, but as always I am remaining a little tightlipped as to what that might be exactly. As I sort of figure it out for myself, I'm sort of deep in it.
You know, even though The Celebrants is a sort of close-ended story, this is a group of friends that people have asked me if this is autofiction, or how close this is to my life or my actual group of friends. And I will say there's a few details in the opening chapter that I really drew from real life in that we were sitting down to dinner one night with my group of friends and someone had to pull out reading glasses to read the menu, and someone else had to turn their phone flashlight on to see, and I'm looking around and these are people I've known for more than 30 years now. And I'm looking at them and I realize, “Oh, they've aged.” And you can't always see it in yourself. And you think, "Oh, what happened here? I'm still 20-something, but I'm sitting at a table with 50-somethings. How did that happen?" And you realize, “Oh, no, you've grown too, and this is what they're seeing of you.”
But I had this really wonderful moment where I thought, "Oh, I like this version of ourselves better. I really, really do. "Like, yes, it was fun to be young and I had a full head of hair at one point and I didn't need glasses and there wasn't gray in my beard. But I like this version of us better for all the ways in which we have tried, failed, tried again, succeeded, weathered and fought to remain friends. And it was just such a really lovely moment to realize, “Oh, we met as kids but we are adults now. And I like the ways in which we've grown in parallel ways, and I like some of the ways we've grown in different ways that challenge each other too.”
TF: That's great. Friends are the best.
SR: Friends are the best. Yeah.
TF: Thanks so much for your time today, Steven. This has been such a pleasure getting to chat with you. Listeners, if you're looking for a story that will make you laugh and cry, sometimes even at the same time, but where the laughter wins out, check out The Celebrants by Steven Rowley, available now on Audible.com.
SR: Thank you so much. Where the laughter wins out. I'm going to steal that. I'm going to steal that because I love that so much.
TF: Yeah, it totally wins out.
