Can love survive if only one person remembers? Evann Normandin joins Book Gang to share how The Good Parts explores memory, healing, and the cost of letting go.
Can love survive if only one person remembers? Evann Normandin joins Book Gang to share how The Good Parts explores memory, healing, and the cost of letting go.
What if you could forget your greatest heartache—would you do it? Today we’re joined by Evann Normandin, whose debut, The Good Parts, is a hauntingly beautiful meditation on memory, trauma, and a love story that refuses to be erased.
When Rose takes a pill to erase her most painful memories, she loses not only her grief but every trace of the love she once shared with Landon. As Landon tries to rekindle their connection, they both discover that love and memory are never so easily erased. Evann draws from her studies in traumatic memory—and a real-life love letter—to ask one unforgettable question: Can love survive if only one person remembers it?
In this week’s episode, we discuss:
📚 Writing, Rejection, and the Road to Publication: Evann shares the long journey behind her “overnight success”—from trunk novels to querying, agent switches, and finally, a book deal that went to auction. We’ll talk about the resilience every writer needs, and why every story—even the ones that don’t sell—matters.
📚NetGalley Insights: How early reader feedback shaped the marketing and genre positioning of The Good Parts, and what Evann learned from reader expectations, especially when penning a love story.
📚 Memory, Trauma, and Healing: Evann reveals how her academic fascination with traumatic memory shaped the speculative premise of The Good Parts, and why she believes stories can help us bear witness to each other’s pain and joy—even when the truth is fragmented or rewritten.
FREE BONUS BOOK LIST: This week’s bonus book list features18 Books Where Memory Shapes the Story. From forgetting pills and amnesia to the complex world of dementia, memory takes readers on some mind-bending adventures! Patrons of the show will receive a printable book list to take to their local library and a bonus spoiler episode with Evann Normandin as we discuss The Good Parts ending.
Meet Evann Normandin
Evann Normandin is a writer with a career in educational publishing. She studied English and Theatre at Middlebury College, then earned her MSc in modern and postmodern literature at the University of Edinburgh. After a stint as a theatre critic for BroadwayWorld in Washington, DC, she moved to Massachusetts, where she lives in a small, quirky town that inspires her daily. When she’s not working or writing, she’s exploring New England with her husband and son. The Good Parts is now available on store shelves.
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FREE BONUS BOOK LIST:18 Books Where Memory Shapes the Story
Book Talk, etc: Appalachian Authors Episode
The Good Parts by Evann Normandin
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind
Abby Offsides by Anna McCallie
Assassin’s Anonymous by Rob Hart
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
Grand Central’s Book Club Guide
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Book Gang Podcast Transcript:
Evann Normandin (00:00)
Hi, my name is Evann Normandin and I'm the author of The Good Parts.
Amy’s Warm Introduction:
Hey Book Gang! I’m so excited to welcome Evann Normandin to this week’s show. Her debut, The Good Parts, is an achingly romantic, emotionally resonant novel—perfect for anyone craving a therapeutic cry and a love story that lingers long after the last page. Honestly, this book got under my skin and refuses to let go; it’s already earned a spot on my favorite books of the year list.
Most love stories ask whether two people can make it work. Normandin poses a more haunting question: what if only one person remembers?
In this speculative, heart-forward novel, Rose chooses to erase her painful memories with a Forgetting Pill—leaving behind not just her grief, but Landon, the man she once imagined forever with. Unwilling to let go, Landon wonders: if Rose could fall for him once, could fate help her fall again? He reenters her life as a stranger, weaving himself into her world through a support group for pill-takers, determined to rekindle what she’s lost. As Rose builds a new life—discovering art, love, and freedom in a fresh town—Landon clings to their invisible history.
Magnetic chemistry crackles between them, especially in Normandin’s foreshadowed meet-cute moments. When Landon stoops to meet Rose’s gaze, we’re told, “Rose couldn’t know then, that years later, all that stooping would lead to back problems that would necessitate two surgeries and some of the most inventive sex they’d ever had.” It’s this blend of humor and heartbreak that makes The Good Parts so special.
But this love story devastates with the mystery at its core. As Rose’s new life unfolds, she’s plagued by strange, unexplained symptoms—fleeting glimpses of forgotten moments, an unshakable sense that something is missing. Both she and Landon are forced to confront the truth: love and memory are never so easily erased, no matter how much we want to leave our pain behind.
Normandin never offers an easy answer about whether forgetting is right or wrong, but instead invites us to fall in love with this love story twice. If you’ve ever wondered whether you’d be happier erasing your greatest tragedy, this novel will force you to reflect on the moments that shape us and how life might change if we could erase their effects. For readers who want to feel it all, The Good Parts is a cathartic, unforgettable read.
In today’s episode, Evann shares how her background in trauma theory and her own love story inspired the novel, the emotional journey of writing heartbreak and joy in equal measure, and the surprising ways rejection shaped her as a writer.
If you’re new here, hi! I’m Amy Allen Clark, the voice behind the Book Gang podcast, and I’m so happy to have you here. This space is dedicated to debuts, backlist favorites, and under-the-radar gems.
As I record this, we are saying farewell to Those We Thought We Knew and our incredible conversation about this book. I do want to say a special thank you to the Book Talk Etc podcast for highlighting my conversation with David Joy and this special book, which Tina insists will likely be on her best books of the year list. Their podcast did an incredible deep dive on Appalachian authors, and I’ll link to it in today’s show notes. And if you’re reading along with our Classics Club, we’re moving into section two of Jane Eyre—Chapters 14–26 on October 22nd at 8 PM ET. Membership is just $5 a month (or save 10% when you prepay for the year), and every member keeps this podcast independent and commercial-free.
To celebrate this week’s podcast, you’ll also find a free bonus book list to browse—this time, it’s packed with 18 Books Where Memory Shapes the Story. Patrons will also receive a bonus spoiler chat with Evann discussing her surprising twists and a few moments that have gotten chat boards talking, where you will get the chance to hear the why behind those decisions. Oh, and a printable book list on all the books featured for your next trip to the library.
Now, let’s meet today’s guest: Evann Normandin is a writer with a career in educational publishing. She studied English and Theatre at Middlebury College, then earned her MSc in modern and postmodern literature at the University of Edinburgh (ED-in-bruh). After a stint as a theatre critic for BroadwayWorld in Washington, DC, she moved to Massachusetts, where she lives in a small, quirky town that inspires her daily. When she’s not working or writing, she explores New England with her husband and son. The Good Parts, her debut novel, is on bookstore shelves now.
Before we dive in, a quick note: The Good Parts deals with some heavy themes, and readers may want to check content warnings before picking up this novel. We won’t be discussing specific plot points or spoilers related to those moments in this main episode, but we encourage you to look up content information if that’s important to your reading experience.
Finally, If you’re enjoying the show, leaving a quick review on iTunes is one of the best ways to help others discover Book Gang—it’s free and means so much to us. And to our wonderful patrons, you’re one of the good parts in my life’s story! Thank you for supporting human creators in a world turned upside down by AI.
Now—let’s get chatting!
(transition music)
Amy- Book Gang (00:04)
Well, Evann, I am so excited to get to talk to you about your debut. Usually I'm getting ahead of the story, but your book has been out for a little bit, and I can't wait to hear about this debut journey. But I wanted to start out with something that I found really intriguing, especially as it comes to this type of work and what you're, you know, exploring within your fiction. And I saw that you used to, or for studying, did research on traumatic memory and I wanted to hear a little bit about how you were drawn to that for your academic field as your big icebreaker now that we've had many minutes to talk, friends, because my lawn guy showed up right when Evann hopped on.
Evann Normandin (00:51)
Well, it's been delightful. I'm so grateful to be on the show. I love this question. My preoccupation with traumatic memory started in undergrad. So I knew I had to write a thesis. and I was really drawn to Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. And what I was so taken by was the way Tim seemed to be pulling us straight into this into the book, this fictional account of war. But he himself was there. So I think some people have called it metafiction.
And trauma theory surmises that all trauma is inherently fiction because our brains are just so beautifully protective and they bury the event, which is then remembered in fragments and reintegrated as memory, usually by telling it to an epithetic witness. And so of course the parallels to fiction are so so right there on the surface. How do we understand an experience that we haven't lived?
By being witness to somebody's retelling and sort of the empathy that's required for true healing. So I knew that, you know, I took the seed of that into my graduate work, which really played with apocalyptic theory. So the connection between destruction and creation. And both of these preoccupations you really see in The Good Parts we have Rose who's taken a pill to forget enormous grief and restart her life as a blank slate. So we're playing with traumatic memory, we're playing with what does it, is a blank slate hopeful or hopeless? Yeah, so I'm grateful that you asked that question.
Amy- Book Gang (02:19)
Yeah, I'm so excited to get into how this book came to be, right? Can you tell us a little bit about the spark of the idea? Because in your like author's note, you acknowledge that this is partially inspired by your love story, but you said, quote, “but only the good parts”. So I want to hear a little bit about the seeds for this story.
Evann Normandin (02:41)
Yes. I was out on a run when I had that idea to put that in my bio, but only the good parts. And I ran home so fast to put it in my little notes app. There was the seed that grew into this novel was a letter that my husband wrote me.
So my husband and I met as freshmen, just like Landon and Rose, in college and had, you know, a really sort of what I would consider like this epic for your love story. We parted ways at graduation. Sort of citing timing and circumstance, he was heading to China and I was moving to Scotland and didn't want to do long distance. And then there was a part of me that thought, Who am I without him? Because I sort of grew up with him, right? Like I moved from high school to college and I became this new version of myself, but he was there the whole time we were becoming together. So who was I?
And I get to Scotland, like Rose, and I really figured it out and felt the city is not a big one, but I just felt like this amazing anonymity after being on such a small campus and this freedom living in a city, especially a city that sort of it has so much history buried. It was just like this really beautiful stage for a transformation for me. but I never stopped thinking about him, even as I started dating someone new.
And he sent me a letter from China. We'd had some time apart, he'd had some time to think about it. The letter took two months in the mail to arrive. And he was just waiting. I mean, he could have sent me an email, but it was this grand gesture. And I think he thought, no, pen to paper, and those were the words I meant. And I want those words to get to you because I'm very particular about words. So when the letter did arrive, it was kind of like a pre-proposal letter. I mean, it said, what if we said, forget about timing? Let's choose each other now, even though this doesn't make sense. Let's not wait for the person who fits into our lives five years from now. Let's keep growing together.
So I always knew that would make an incredible start to a short story or a novel. and it just kind of spiraled from there because I started to think I was out on a bike ride and I was thinking, well, what if I'd never gotten the letter? Who would I be today? Somebody completely different and that became Rose in a lot of ways. What if what if she, you know, what if I never got the letter?
And The Good Parts opens with Landon receiving a letter from Rose saying, I didn't read it. I am no longer Rose. So we, you know, it it's not exactly the same as our story, but throughout there are sort of little there are seeds of our love story sprinkled through, and I think that friends of ours who've read it can see, can see where The Good Parts are from our story and and where the not so good parts are absolutely not.
Amy- Book Gang (05:34)
I love that. You know, I too, like I have been with my husband since high school. So, you know, it's kind of crazy to think about because he didn't even have his license. I was a year older, but he was fifteen when we met. And we followed each other like through this whole, you know, lifespan. But as you grow, I think what this story really shows is that we grow and change as people and sometimes those people are not the same as where we started. And I think that's why this love story is so impactful.
And you know, I do want to preface this is a heart-wrenching love story, and there are also many, many joyful, like laugh out loud moments, which I think you did so well that that can only be shown through those kinds of like long enduring love stories.
Evann Normandin (06:24)
Yes, I love that you're drawing attention to the joy because it is heart-wrenching. I think you open up TikTok and you're just gonna see a wave of people sobbing in little bites. But I really wanted to be attentive to the joy, and I think a lot of the side characters too, because no love story is in a vacuum. You know, two people don't sustain a long-term relationship in a vacuum. So I think you see these beautiful friendships that bring a lot of joy and lightness too, and then can hold those heavy moments because we've been with them through that joy.
Amy- Book Gang (06:56)
Yeah, I want to lean a little bit into your structure before we talk about the book deal and how you like finished it and all of that. you do this in a very addictive structure, which is then and now. We have Landon's present and then we have Rose's past. Why did you choose this format and how do you think that helps shape the emotion of this novel for the reader?
Evann Normandin (07:20)
So I am a theater girl at heart, which I think you'll see, if you read the book. I was an English and theater double major, and I love Jason Robert Brown. He's just the most incredible storyteller. And his The Last Five Years was where I got the idea for the structure. It's not exactly the same, but our Kathy, the female main character, begins telling their love story from the end, and Jamie begins their love story at the beginning and they slowly meet in the middle and then they go their separate ways. And I loved that so much and I wanted to do something similar. It's not quite, they don't quite meet right in the middle. We meet sort of closer to at the climax, which is closer to the end.
But I really wanted to play with the tension that that creates that one, you know, we're in the past with Rose and we're in the present with Landon and we know that something has happened, but we don't know quite what, and we need both points of view. And I even started to play with chapter length as we drive toward the climax. I remember I was drafting in Scrivener and you can title your chapters on the side and where the timelines meet, I titled it then the next 10 minutes, because that's when in the musical the two of them sing together for the only time in the show, which is so beautiful. So I mean it shapes the emotions deeply. And I wrote straight through because I really wanted what was happening in the present to echo what was happening in the past and vice versa. And I do think that, you know, some writers will write one whole character arc and then they'll put the other in between.
But this story plays with time in kind of a subtle way. And so I really wanted you to feel like it was important that chapter happened right then, because of what is about to happen. In most instances.
Amy- Book Gang (09:11)
Okay. I wondered how you were mapping all of that out. How long did this book take you? What did that process look like for you? And then what was the process to get your agent and get the book sold? I want to hear all about it.
Evann Normandin (09:27)
Absolutely. I'll start at the first book that I wrote. Back in 2020, everyone was home alone. I at the time did not have a child to, you know, work through online learning and I had a lot of time on my hands. And I wrote my first book. And I loved the discipline of it. I mean, I'm a very disciplined writer in that I wake up early and I have a word count I want to hit for the day. And all of a sudden I had something shaped like a book. And I thought, okay, I can start querying agents. And you know, I queried it, I got some full requests, very exciting.
That book didn't take, but it did get me, I mean, I was so determined to get this book published, the first book I'd ever written, that I signed up for writers' workshops and critiques, and I learned so much about the industry. And then I put that book in a drawer and I wrote book number two. Which was a myth retelling, a contemporary myth retelling. And that one landed me my agent, Molly Ketchison at Wolfson Literary. And she was so brilliant and so editorial. And that book came so close. The feedback we got was an editor would fall in love and it couldn't get past the wider team. And Molly was so fabulous editorially that she actually left to go be an editor. And I was so happy for her.
But I had just started writing what would become The Good Parts. And she and I had been, you know, workshopping it and chatting about it. And I told her, Is it okay if I write a love story that's really sad? And she said, I think that there's an appetite for that right now. I think that you should write it. So she passed me to the head of the agency, Michelle Wolfson, who's absolutely incredible. And I pitched her the book. It I hadn't, you know, it took me about six months start to finish because once I get in a groove, I'm doing a thousand words a day. And so much of the story was so deeply personal that it came in a way that felt very organic.
So Michelle read the book, loved the book. I think she had a good pulse on it sort of the universality of the questions that I was asking and this I mean it went to auction. It was beyond my wildest dreams because my last book had died on sub after I rewrote it several times. And I had, you know, I get these come so close. And it's so amazing to come so close. But then, you know, the fall. So I had zero expectations for this book. I told my husband, I said, if this book doesn't sell, I am not gonna stop writing, but I am gonna take a long break. And he said, I think that makes sense.
Because there's only so much, so much I could take. And it was just absolutely again, just beyond my wildest dreams. And then we got some foreign interest and you know, my agent knew clearly that this was an idea that could travel, which was so exciting.
Amy- Book Gang (12:24)
Yeah. my goodness. Well, first of all, I'm really glad that you started with like two books ago, right?
Evann Normandin (12:30)
Mm-hmm.
Amy- Book Gang (12:32)
Because I just have been preparing for The Correspondent book club chat that we're doing. And I think that Virginia Evans had written like eleven books right before this book became a book. And so many times a debut there are like boxes and boxes of books that never get published or, they give you good practice. You're often exploring things that, you know, help you grow but don't inevitably lead to the book deal. And then you have this magical book, which it sounds like just everything was gelling together because it came from an authentic place. It was who you were. It has pieces of you within it. And then the book deal lands and it lands in a spectacular way. Because going to auction is like a huge thing. Can you tell us a little bit about book sale day? What did that look like for you as a family and how you celebrated? I want to hear all about it.
Evann Normandin (13:26)
I love this. I love thinking back to that. It was a couple of days because the auction lasted a couple of days. and I remember when the first offer came in. I mean, my husband had been standing outside the door, just ear to the door because I'm on with my agent and I'm sobbing, you know, and he comes in and he was like, what did you do? I called my mom and I said, Hey, so are you sitting down? She goes, I'm driving. And I'm like, okay, pull over. She pulls him into a cemetery. And I mean, everyone was just absolutely stunned because it's so far beyond anything you think will ever happen to you.
And we drank so much champagne just all week. It was really, really joyful and really surreal. And the night before the auction, we didn't sleep. My husband and I were both up at 3 a.m. in an excited sort of anything could happen today kind of way. And I'm just so so grateful to have landed with Nicole at Grand Central. She really got to the heart of the story. She's this incredible collaborative partner, but it was such a celebratory time. I remember my agent said, You just buy a crate of champagne because the good just keeps coming.
Amy- Book Gang (14:42)
We've had so many new listeners that have joined since the summer. What does auction day look like? What does that mean for someone who's listening who doesn't know anything about that process?
Evann Normandin (14:52)
Yes, so I mean it's it's just it's a long day on email. So you're just waiting. I think there are a couple different types of auctions. There's a round robin and a best bids. I believe this was… I actually can't remember which one this was.
Amy- Book Gang (15:07)
That's okay.
Evann Normandin (15:08)
But you're just waiting, you're waiting for those offers and it goes around a couple of times. And it's always at the author's discretion. So it may be that a higher number is not actually a number that you want to go with because you have better rapport with one editor or you know, all every editor will want different edits or see a different vision for the book. And if your visions align, that's really important. And then just trusting your gut about, you know, the partner that you want to work with. in this case for the next two books.
Amy- Book Gang (15:39)
Okay, so it was a two book deal.
Evann Normandin (15:41)
It was, yeah.
Amy- Book Gang (15:42)
Do you remember your comps for this book?
Evann Normandin (15:45)
I do. By comps and I don't think we use them anymore were The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and Severance.
Amy- Book Gang (15:53)
Interesting.
Evann Normandin (15:55)
I know because now we use The Last Five Years meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I think is much closer to what this book is.
Amy- Book Gang (16:03)
Yeah. Wow. Okay. Well that's fascinating to me. I always, l love to hear what people initially pitch. So I always ask our debut writers, what advice would you give to someone thinking about exploring this journey? What have you learned from this process that has surprised you?
Evann Normandin (16:21)
I think just the idea that no writing is ever wasted. If your goal is traditional publication, I think it's okay to go in writing that book saying this is my goal and then being able to hold it loosely if it doesn't work out or it's not the right time. I do think sometimes books come around. I think that but I think that that advice is given out maybe a little bit too freely because you will be such a different writer. You pick a book. If I picked that book up that I wrote in 2020 out of the drawer I have just, I would have to rewrite it because I have come so far as a writer. But it taught me so many things. So I would just say, yeah, no writing is ever wasted.
And take breaks if you need them, because it's really, really challenging. It's really hard to hear no over and over. And writing is so personal. But I would just advocate eventually persisting, but being gentle with yourself.
Amy- Book Gang (17:16)
Alright, I want to talk tiny bit of shop that wasn't on our planned agenda because you and I were talking about the marketing of this book because it is a love story, but sometimes people throw around the word romance, and we I just interviewed Anna Anna McCallie for Abby Offsides, and we were talking about reader expectations with romance, how people expect certain things to happen in romance and have you know big icks and no's, and it's a whole other kind of thing.
And I consider this a love story, but it's a crossover; a lot of different genres. Talk to me about how they wanted to market this or how they have been tweaking the marketing.
Evann Normandin (18:00)
Yeah, it's a great question for something that's really cross-genre. So for, you know, this book is a love story, but it is not a capital R romance. But how do you find those readers who love romance and will be okay with something that is not capital R romance? So you have to tag it, you know, speculative fiction, even fantasy to a certain extent, magical realism, contemporary fiction and romance. So we got some early feedback. I was really lucky to have great advanced reader copy distribution on Netgalley and also physical arcs. And Netgalley is a really cool place, because people in really good faith read the book and then give this amazing feedback. And we would get feedback from romance readers sometimes that said, this is a great book, but my expectations were completely wrong. I don't even really know how to rate it because I was expecting a romance.
And you know, so we got enough of that feedback that the team very nimbly started tweaking the metadata to try, you know, so that this does not pop, come up the first as a romance. Maybe it's contemporary fiction is where we start, or speculative fiction. But genres where there's less of an expectation of, you know, certain genre conventions than there is in romance without missing out on that incredibly important swath of readers. But we do know that there are readers for who that the traditional happy ending is something that is required for romance. And I won't spoil the ending, but I think that this, you know, there is more heartbreak in this book than in a traditional romance.
Amy- Book Gang (19:40)
Yeah. Are you a romance reader? Are you a love story reader?
Evann Normandin (19:44)
I'm an everything reader. So I mean I've got, you know, I love romance, I love romantasy I love contemporary fiction, I love litfic and dystopian fiction. So I think you can kind of see why this became sort of a hodgepodge of all the things I love. The first book that I wrote was a very dark dystopian novel. But I love love, if that makes sense. I love love. And how messy and beautiful love is. I was reading romance when I wrote this book, but I was also mostly reading sort of book club fiction, playing with like big what ifs.
Amy- Book Gang (20:23)
Okay, well let's get into the what if part. So in this story, I feel like it's a little bit different. So a lot of love stories ask whether two people can stay together, right? And yours is asking whether love can survive when only one person is remembering it. And I think that's a really fascinating reversal in the story. When did you realize that that was going to be the emotional engine of this book?
Evann Normandin (20:47)
Such a good question. So Landon and Rose are this couple who have been together for 14 years. Rose takes this pill to forget her whole life, including Landon, doesn't leave a note, doesn't tell him sort of the ultimate ghosting. And so Landon is coming at their second chance love story from a place of total desperation. He has experienced enormous grief too, and his solution is just to kind of turn back the clock to win her back.
So you feel I knew that this would be the emotional ending engine when as soon as I knew that my husband's letter was the start of the book, that Landon was going I think that we all do we all grieve differently. When I knew that Landon's grief was going to take the form of, I'm gonna do something about it. I'm going to do the impossible, in fact. I am going to go win back this woman who may not even be my wife anymore.
And I also wanted to play with the idea that love doesn't have to last forever to be epic, that one person can remember it and that can be enough, that Landon can remember it and it can be enough. But I love it, it is a fascinating reversal because I think you hear you read the back of the book and you think this is gonna be a second chance love story. And it turns into something a little bit different.
Amy- Book Gang (22:10)
Yeah, yeah. You know, I have been navigating, my mother has dementia. And so there were aspects of this, I think, if you have parents who are older too, sometimes one person does lose their memory and it's not as spectacular as like a speculative, kind of idea like your book, but that other person is still carrying all of those memories. And so I think that this could be also a great conversation for a lot of book clubs about relationships in which those things those dynamics do play out, especially even in the older age, because I know this is, you know, they've been together for a while, but those are things that we may face someday or that our parents face someday. And how those memories stay alive through one person.
Evann Normandin (22:56)
Yeah, and it's very, I'm so sorry to hear that. And it's very real, this idea that many of us will be forgotten and it's deeply painful. And you know, the book plays out Rose's dad has Alzheimer's and her mom has substance abuse issues with alcohol and both forget her. and it's incredibly painful and there's a lot of weight on on the person's shoulders who's carrying the memories and holding on to them. And I think I think you feel the weight that Landon's carrying the whole time as he's standing next to Rose, who is just free as a bird. She is lightness incarnate. She is so hopeful. And he is just here. Like, I, you know, I'm I have the book about us. I will not forget. I will hold, I will carry the torch, you know?
Amy- Book Gang (23:44)
Guys, I'm gonna try to keep it together during this episode. I'm like, I feel a little weepy. Like I was already getting a little weepy before we started talking about it because this book, it really impacted me. You know, it is in my best books of the year list. It really shook me up. And you know, I think these books and these kinds of stories are so important because it also reminds us like to invest in and try to remember the things that we really genuinely care about. You know, one aspect of the story that I really, really love is your foreshadowing.
Okay, so there are so many moments, and some of them are funny, and some of them are just reminders that time keeps moving in this marriage, and these people don't know like how long they're gonna be together, what that life is gonna look like. But there is this beautiful moment when Rose and Landon first meet, and he stoops to meet her eye, but he deliciously discloses you just I should say you deliciously disclose that Rose couldn't know then that years later, all that stooping would lead to back problems that would necessitate two surgeries and some of the most inventive sex they'd ever had. So I want to talk about how those foreshadows came to you, how they revealed themselves, how you build a story with good foreshadows.
Evann Normandin (24:58)
I love that example. Part of it is it's just delightful as a writer to do that. So I think you're just seeing you're seeing play and fun. but the then and now structure, like you said, makes it really fun because the reader is in two places at once.
And I write in third person omniscient. So you can kind of, you can get away with a lot. You can kind of be the writer there. I did try to be fairly judicious about it because I think too many references pulls the reader out of the past. And just enough from reminds you that, like you said so beautifully, this love exists on two planes. And they are in this moment of bliss. And even when it's something sort of cheeky like that, you still know that later is coming.
And later is not a place that Landon wants to be very much. Later is not this sort of joyful first meeting. So I think it's just finding those little moments to remind the reader, but not not overwhelming them, letting them really sit in the present, especially, because we know that as we get toward the end of the book, heartbreak is coming. So really letting them stay as much as possible in this little cocoon.
Amy- Book Gang (26:03)
Yeah, I absolutely loved it. You know, I was really chuckling, especially in that passage, because I'm like, you know, those are things that you could never expect. But then, yes, those things crop up later in life. And, you know, one of the aspects to this story that I think worked so well is the chemistry that you build for this couple. It's not, it's built through foreshadowing for sure, but it's also built through, you know, you're making us try to fall in love with them really twice, right? It's not just once that everyone's falling in love with this couple or rooting for them.
It's this love story that we're following in a couple of timelines basically. So how did you build this and make it believable for readers, especially when we're crafting some of the more intimate moments. So I'm going to reference a section that really stood out to me. It said "She'd had chemistry with a few someone's before and she was sure she would again, but what she never experienced was what it felt like to be with a person who she wanted to do everything with. Rose wanted to kiss Landon almost as much as she wanted to throw laundry into the aging machines together, or read textbooks next to each other in bed, or eat stale popcorn and watch a movie on her cracked laptop. She wanted him to touch her everywhere, but she also wanted to hear more about this relationship with his dad and meet his hallmates turned friends who sound dorky and sweet like he was, and hike a Vermont peak with him before the weather turned."
It's just like there's so much layered into just this one passage, and I want to talk about how you built chemistry for this couple.
Evann Normandin (27:38)
Absolutely. This passage is so emblematic of Rose and Landon and what I was trying to do, which is I think those early relationships, so much of it is driven by attraction, or can be for some people. And it is for Landon and Rose, but it's also this incredible soul connection. I wanted to try to write what it feels again to want to do everything with someone and like know them better than you know the back of your own hand. So I think those early scenes came from channeling that early love, which I have written a lot about in journals. And I just remember, I mean, channeling the feeling. I have friends who I've known since my husband and I were falling in love in Vermont who are also holders of that time. I revisited wedding speeches, and just what are the little trying to drill down to those little things and and juxtapose, right? I like someone who can touch me everywhere. And then I also want to hear about his dad. Like things that shouldn't go, shouldn't be in the same sentence because it's just like this overwhelm.
And the intimate scenes, I didn't used to be very good at writing them. I have a best friend who has read everything I've ever written. And in the first two books I wrote, she just was always like, Evann, you need to start writing sex scenes. You really don't keep the door open. That door is shutting way too fast. So I challenged myself. I, you know, I wouldn't say that it goes all that far. I think it's probably still kind of a closed door scene, but really challenged myself to sit there with them because the intimate scenes in this book are serving two really different purposes. As particularly the first time, it's just what does it look like when a love is, you know, physically like the physical manifestation of all these little details you've been reading. So a lot of it came right from from channeling what it feels like to be in love and trying to give enough of those little details that you feel like you're there, or or maybe you recognize something that you yourself have seen in a great love that you've had, or something that feels reminiscent of yeah, your own love story.
Amy- Book Gang (29:52)
Did you have any inspiration like for those kinds of scenes that helped you write those because writing intimate scenes, it it's something I talk through with a lot of writers, not just romance writers even, just those scenes require a lot, I think, vocabulary-wise, explaining things, like making it so that I feel like in these, you know, especially since, there is a familiarity that between these two people that also has to feel believable in these moments as well.
Evann Normandin (30:26)
I didn't have any direct references, but I'm sure I mean I know that in reading widely and reading a lot of really incredible intimate scenes in romance and romantasy that I had a good idea of the language to use. And then I think it's just really imagining yourself there and and thinking about the way that bodies move, finding different ways to talk about the way that bodies move, and then sometimes finding just the simplest way to say it that's not anatomical, that still sort of hints at something beautiful and poetic because that is how I'm feeling about the scene. And then a lot of rewriting. A lot of going back because I feel like I write those scenes rather quickly. So going back in and tightening things up is very important.
Amy- Book Gang (31:12)
Yeah, so the scenes that make your toes curl require a lot of revision. Is that what you're saying?
Evann Normandin (31:14)
Yeah. So much. Yes. Exactly.
Amy- Book Gang (31:20)
I love it. Well, obviously the forgetting pill is a very evocative, speculative device. What sparked the idea for using memory erasure as that metaphor in this love story? And did you ever contemplate, is there another version in the world where there was a different way of forgetting?
Evann Normandin (31:38)
So I was on a bike ride when I got this idea, and it was like a number of things coming at me on this bike ride. I was a new mom and I was wondering what it would feel like to be hopeful again. Things were rather bleak in the larger world around us, and I was feeling a lot of anxiety about this new life that I had just brought and sort of his inherent hope, right? Because nothing had touched him yet in my inherent cynicism because I had been alive for thirty-three years. And I thought, you know, blankness could be very hopeful. What if there was a pill?
And I got off the bike and I threw my helmet down and I said to my husband who'd been riding in front of me and I go, There's a pill and she takes it. And I ran in the house. And it's not that that's this incredible idea that nobody's ever done before. I mean memory erasure is a trope. It's the sort of many stories. And I think it could have been, to your point, it could have been something that was not a pill. But what I knew I wanted to play with just a little was that it was this widespread phenomenon that had global implications. So I knew that it wasn't going to be amnesia. It was going and the person had to have a choice because I wanted to juxtapose sort of the ultimate choice versus the ways that we forget and it's not a choice at all.
So magic, I didn't know that this was magical realism, but that is the tag now that has really stuck where I just knew that I am a terrible world builder and I knew there would be no science. I knew that there would be a pill with very little, very little science to explain how this happened. And I wanted it to be in the very early stages so that we're not, we're really not seeing societal collapse. We're just sticking with the humans who have taken this pill for the very first time.
Amy- Book Gang (33:24)
Yeah. I also am a big fan of books that have support groups in them. So I'm like one of my favorites is Assassin's Anonymous. It's written by Rob Hart, but it's like basically a group that gets together and they are not allowed to kill anybody. And like that becomes like kind of the whole trope of it all. But I love it and it's often built around things like, Alcoholics Anonymous obviously plays a big part in that kind of setup. In this case, you know, he's joining this group so that he can be back in her orbit. So I think those are such wonderful like ways to do that. And we also have like very authentic experiences to which people have had to forget something. And I'm wondering how you wanted to use that background that you talked about at the beginning to inform Rose's character. And were there any psychological theories or real real world cases, for example, that influence those scenes?
Evann Normandin (34:19)
Yeah, so Rose's memory eraser and erasure and Landon's chase after her, it largely circles the idea popularized by Bessel van der Kolk that the body keeps a score, that our bodies hold onto our traumas even when our minds do not. And so you see, I won't give too much away, but Landon's coming to Rose's new life does trigger certain responses in her. And so Cathy Caruth is one of the foremost literary trauma theory scholars. And in undergrad and graduate school, I relied on her theory a lot, which is very centered on the role of the empathetic witness.
So according to Caruth, a traumatic event really causes a double wound where the victim with a painful experience faces trauma twice. So once as a witness to your own trauma and again in re-experiencing the traumatic event through reintegrating it into your memory, often in telling it, explaining the event to someone else. So the structure of the book itself plays with the idea of a double wound because Rose forgets this trauma. And then Landon comes back and carries it with him into her new life. So there's a lot, there's a lot at play there. No real world cases, but just I think I mean books are such incredible time capsules of conversations you've had and ideas that you've had and I loved grappling with these ideas from an academic lens. And then in fiction it's just so I mean, it's so playful because you that inspiration is there, but you can go in so many you're you're sort of let loose to go in so many different directions.
Amy- Book Gang (36:02)
Yeah, I love the idea of bringing up like our bodies harbor things and that can evoke emotion. It can evoke your memory response and how that all plays out in this book without giving too much away. It really plays and leans into that. So I really loved that you included that. There may be some misconceptions about traumatic memory. What were you hoping readers might reconsider maybe after reading this book? Were you thinking about that at all?
Evann Normandin (36:34)
I wasn't, but I wonder if it will spark conversations about, I think it already has, about whether those memories are best buried or need to come to the surface. And I think it's a really interesting question because like I said at the start, our brains are so protective and they're protective for a reason. And I think there's a lot of beauty in reintegrating that traumatic experience and a lot of pain that comes with it. And I think it's a very individual decision. And it's not always a decision, whether or not that event is reintegrated. so I mean I just really hope that it will spark conversation about those really human, darker parts of us.
Amy- Book Gang (37:17)
Yeah. Well, you brought it up and I'm just gonna come back to it, which is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, right? We're kind of circling the same themes in that film and this book. And what do you think that maybe you got the opportunity to explore that the film didn't? Or how do you see these maybe even in conversation with each other?
Evann Normandin (37:39)
I've seen this comparison a lot and I think that this is where I confess I've never seen the movie. I'm this is not to say that I mean
Amy- Book Gang (37:45)
Are you gonna watch it?
Evann Normandin (37:46)
So I think I should watch it. I was asked this question at Love Struck Books, but I will watch it once the launch week is over now that, you know, it's become so synonymous with this book. And I'm sure it's invaded my consciousness in some, you know, it's a very zeitgeisty movie. I, of course, know the premise. But I was watching Severance at the time, so that was more clearly an influence.
Amy- Book Gang (38:08)
Okay.
Evann Normandin (38:10)
But I think it's I think it brings up, you know, this question of the universality of ideas and how something can sound identical on the surface and then just be a totally different experience because of who's telling the story. And you know, I think I think that as humans we're preoccupied with a lot of the same things. but the primary conversation I wanted to have with this book was about love and time itself and whether letting go means the love story is over, whether it can endure in memory or in fiction, whether love has to be forever to be worthy, how we're all on our own journeys toward healing.
So I have no doubt it is in conversation with the film. And I think that from what I have heard, it is a totally different experience just because of the questions that I wanted to explore that the film maybe doesn't or does from a completely different angle.
Amy- Book Gang (39:05)
I want to say this film is on Kanopy. I just want to mention it. Which is, it's free for library subscribers if people haven't checked out that app. They're incredible and yeah, they give you like virtual tickets. So maybe check. It might be in there and save you a few dollars, you know, through the experience.
Evann Normandin (39:22)
Perfect.
Amy- Book Gang (39:24)
But I also wanted to ask you, you know, if you could dream of the perfect book club and readers start talking about this book, what would be the dream conversations that you hope people are having about your book?
Evann Normandin (39:35)
And I love this question. I want to plug that Grand Central has an amazing book club guide up on the Hachette website
Amy- Book Gang (39:40)
Good. Okay.
Evann Normandin (39:41)
So I think the big ethical questions, should Landon have followed her at all? You know, the premise of the book itself. Who are we without our memories? Are we the same people or is Rose the same person? And then I love this question. This one is in the book club guide, but can we ever truly capture a person's essence? Landon is so preoccupied with capturing Rose. We have a life drawing scene, we have photography, he writes down their memories, he writes her letters. So what does that mean in terms of Landon's journey in the book? And where do we see his final act as a repetition or maybe a complete departure from what he was trying to capture initially.
Amy- Book Gang (40:29)
Yeah, there's a little bit of pressure when you're loved that much, right? Yeah.
Evann Normandin (40:33)
There is, yeah, yeah.
Amy- Book Gang (40:35)
Yeah. I love this book. I think that book clubs should pick it. If you're in the emotional mood for this and you have a very receptive book club, this would be such an impactful and beautiful story. And of course, my next question is, what can we expect from you next in your career?
Evann Normandin (40:54)
Yeah, so book two. I'm writing another speculative love story exploring soulmates from a different angle. So I'm deep in edits now as we're on the tail end of launch for The Good Parts. So I'm just, I'm really excited to dig my teeth back into writing, which is the very best part.
Amy- Book Gang (41:13)
Yeah. Well, Evann, we always end our show the same way every single time. And I do want to let listeners know, if you finish this book, lucky for you, she has agreed to come behind the paywall. And this is actually a story in which you will want to know the why behind the endings and how she chose to end this story. But we always ask our writers what they're feeling proud of, whether it's with this project or with life in general. And it gives me a chance to be the proud book mom for you and just say, I loved this book. I know I immediately reach out to you after I finished it. I thought this book was so special. There's a reason it's on my best books of the year list. You just, you evoked emotion in me that I didn't even know I had about certain things. And just this book was full of surprises. But the chemistry you wrote, the love story itself, I fell in love with this couple, and I think you did such a great job of not only showing us the bright, like beautiful spots in their marriage, but also that it is a rocky road in any relationship instead of you know making it just about the happiness. It's all the hardships that marriages endure. And I think this book is spectacular, but I would love to hear what you're feeling proud of right now.
Evann Normandin (42:23)
You're gonna make me cry. Thank you so much for your beautiful read of this book, these gorgeous questions. It's just such an honor. And I think in that same vein, that's what I'm most proud of right now. That people are talking about this book, that it has made them feel something, that it has made them want to share what they're feeling with another human. The amount of people who have said, please read this book so I can talk to you about it. People talking to each other is the greatest gift. And to have been a part of that feels very, very, very meaningful. So thank you so much for having me. This was such a delight.
Amy- Book Gang (42:57)
Thank you. And I'm so excited to talk about your book's ending. So, patrons, you must join us. It's $5. It keeps us independent. It gives us a chance to talk to writers without commercial breaks and all of that stuff. And you give space to debut writers. And I am thrilled to celebrate this debut, and I will meet you guys on the other side.
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