We sat down with author Karin Anderson to talk about the inspiration for her latest novel What Falls Away, her hopes for what readers will take away from it, and all things related to home, her writing process, narrative, and the meaning of family.

Torrey House Press: Hi Karin! We’ve recently started to talk about our work as “books the world needs.” For us, What Falls Away is certainly a book the world needs. Can you tell us a bit about the inspiration for the novel? What are your hopes and dreams for What Falls Away now that it's published? 

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Karin Anderson: The landscapes that I grew up in have been overwhelming from the start. They don’t leave me, they find who I am, they feel molecular to me, I love them and I want to represent them in meaningful ways. But also on top of that, this landscape is a deeply devout religious culture that almost doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world anymore. There is something about Utah, the mythology that comes from their ancestors, how deeply woven it is into the land, the deep anxieties of a culture that wants to be super enclosed yet at the same time come off as normal and regular. I’ve lived long enough in it to have an evolving relationship with this place. I really think that my experience growing up in this culture can represent that people who stand behind encompassing stereotypes are human beings with powerful experiences, relationships, and personal histories that make them very distinct. I think our penchant for categorization and brutal stereotypes happens as soon as we don’t see people as human beings. I think literature is about seeing the human beings. I want to carefully de-villainize whole categories of human beings. I think the world needs to remember how to do that. And I think that literature for generations has taught us how to do that. I think the world needs to put the knife in the sheath. 

THP: Why did you choose to publish this novel with Torrey House Press?

Karin: One of the reasons I love Torrey House Press so much is because they are very sensitive to the rules of publishing right now, but in extremely human ways. They take chances and risks that I think are humane and moral risks, but they are risks. I’ll be loyal to them forever and ever, in some ways, simply because of that. So many of us who write from this region, who really have eyes for it, have been waiting for Torrey House Press, in some ways without even understanding what we were waiting for. It can sometimes feel like you are trying to write into a black hole, and it is very frightening. They (THP) are an answer to a niche, but also to a sensibility that comes from the places we write from. That sensibility is something I’ve tried to nurture and preserve, complicate, and enrich my whole writing career. It’s wonderful to have someone waiting for that on the other side. Writers and publishers need community. It’s always terrifying to take the manuscript out of a such an isolated place and knowing that it has a place to go and that it will find the kind of conversation that we are looking for gives me the courage to write. Torrey House Press gives me the courage to write.

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THP: We are so honored to work with you! All of us on THP staff and editorial were captivated by this truly stand-out story, from the first manuscript. We all took so much away from your words and this story. What do you hope readers will come away with after reading this novel?

Karin: I want us all to remember that our hope for the planet is in our children, and it doesn’t really have to do with our ancestors anymore. This planet belongs to future generations. If there is any hope for a meaningful future, our kids almost have to divorce us and reinvent relationships and loyalties. Most of our divisions right now are ancestor based. I don’t think our kids owe much to that at all, especially with the multiple ways children are born on this planet and the ways they are claimed and owned. I know heritage is important to many cultures and people, but who we are in the future can’t just be reiteration. I also want us to remember this: Why does it matter which children are genetically ours? They are all our children.

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THP: If you could put a copy into the hands of anyone in the world, who would you want to read What Falls Away?

Karin: There are a lot of people I wish would read What Falls Away. In a certain way I wrote this for the community I grew up in, but at the same time I don’t think that culture really values what I do. I think I would like for good, critical readers to read What Falls Away and understand what it’s really doing and what it’s really about. It’s about beautiful language. It’s about the absolutely astounding transformative power of higher education, or even just K-12 education. It’s about hearing a voice outside that calls to you. It’s about pushing through that threshold to something painfully meaningful outside of Eden as opposed to staying happily inside of Eden. Cassandra pays a terrible price. She lost her connection with her family, she lost her child, and getting out was a terrible trade. It shouldn’t be dismissed. I would like to be able to represent what Cassandra lost. I wish that people who really valued narrative would read What Falls Away.