How Far Is the Ocean from Here by Amy Shearn

From the Publisher

“An accomplished and sophisticated debut...an affecting portrayal of the lengths people travel for love and companionship.” —Publishers Weekly

Susannah Prue is a young, unmarried surrogate mother who, in the days before her delivery date, panics. Jumping into her car, she flees her Chicago home and a few days later pulls up to a bleak motel in the Southwest—the Thunder Lodge. There, she encounters misfits, much like herself, who also carry secrets: the motel’s terse proprietors, their mentally disabled son, and a woman transporting her niece to the father she’s never met. But when the parents of Susannah’s baby discover her whereabouts, she can no longer ignore the profound power she holds over their lives.

Beautifully written, How Far Is the Ocean from Here explores the ways in which people care for one another and the ways in which they fail, the kinds of families we create when we have no one else to turn to, and the strangeness and unpredictability of love.

The Washington Post - Jane Ciabattari

Amy Shearn's idiosyncratic narrator and the damaged children she befriends anchor this tantalizing novel about a surrogate mother who has second thoughts just weeks before her due date…Shearn's mesmerizing language and dramatic flair make this first novel a standout.

Publishers Weekly

As Shearns's accomplished and sophisticated debut opens, "hugely pregnant" Susannah Prue hides out deep in the desolate Texas-New Mexico border area desert, at the ramshackle Thunder Lodge motor inn. There she meets a variety of misfits, including the owners' mentally disabled teenage son and another guest's sexually confused niece, who become an essential if dysfunctional adoptive family to desperate, on-the-lam Susannah. Passive and oft-disappointed, Susannah made a fateful choice in deciding to serve as a surrogate mother to the wealthy but infertile Forsythes, Kit and Julian. The relationships among the three, we eventually learn, spiraled into tragedy, but the birth is imminent. Shearn's narration is fluid, shifting seamlessly among perspectives and time frames. The Forsythes verge on hard-edged rich-person caricature, but the rest of the cast is fully and compassionately realized, making for an affecting portrayal of the lengths people travel for love and companionship. (July)

Jenn B. Stidham - Library Journal

Susannah Prue is a surrogate mother on the run and ready to give birth. She has fled Chicago and the Forsythes, the baby's biological parents, in a car that makes it as far as a kitschy Southwestern motel. Her third-trimester panic has been brewing for some time, as she learns more about Kit and Julian Forsythe, wealthy, educated, yet often shallow and emotionally dysfunctional. The Thunder Lodge Motor Inn, inhabited by owners Marlon and Char Garland and their developmentally disabled teenaged son, Tim, is an unlikely oasis for Susannah. Other guests arrive, including Dicey and her hermaphrodite niece, Frankie. These unlikely inhabitants create a sort of impromptu family-complete with bickering and compassion and trips to nearby roadside attractions. With Susannah's due date drawing near and her car still waiting for repairs, she makes a last-ditch attempt to reach the ocean, taking Frankie and Tim with her. Shearn gives us a touching, funny, and lyrically written story with well-drawn characters seeking acceptance and peace. The awkward and unlikely flash-forward at the end reads like an unnecessary after-thought but shouldn't keep readers away from this satisfying first novel. Recommended for larger fiction collections.

Kirkus Reviews

A disoriented surrogate mother goes on the lam in this uneven first novel. Dusk in the West Texas desert; a stranger in trouble arrives at a desolate motel. The hotel owners are a harmless old couple; the stranger is, initially, a threat only to herself. Marlon and Char Garland have their hands full coping with their handsome, severely retarded son, 17-year-old Tim. Susannah Prue's case is more complicated. The young Chicago woman, notably pregnant, her due date approaching, has been on the road for days. When the bookstore clerk agreed to act as a surrogate mother for the middle-aged Kit and Julian Forsythe, it was not just for the generous payments. Always the bit player in others' lives, Susannah grabbed at the chance to be the star, realizing too late she was just "the hired gun." What propelled her out of town were the confusing, inappropriate attentions of flaky Julian, and signs unrelated to her predicament. Now her magical thinking (an overused device) is pulling her toward the ocean, that old metaphor for limitless possibilities; she doesn't give proximity to a hospital a thought. At the motel Susannah is joined by other guests: a woman called Dicey and her seven-year-old niece Frankie, a hermaphrodite being raised, over her protests, as a girl. The drama intensifies when Susannah hits the road again, "borrowing" Dicey's car, and taking Tim and Frankie with her (they insisted). Shearn has a powerful empathy for the lost and the damaged, and she does well by this little family of misfits; she is less convincing with middle-class success stories (Kit, a snippy control freak, is a caricature), and the drama inherent in the Susannah/Julian/Kit triangle goes to waste. Her narrativeskills are often ragged, with viewpoints sliding around like butter in a skillet, and the climax is botched. Shearn only needs to add artistic discipline to her other gifts to be a formidable talent. Agent: PJ Mark/McCormick & Williams Literary Agency

Product Details

• Reading Group Guide

Reading Group Guide

1. Susannah feels as if she’s becoming invisible, “the sense of being a supporting character in her own life.” Is this why she decided to be a surrogate? Why she runs away? Takes Tim and Frankie with her?

2. Language breaks down for Susannah, and all she can think of are certain words. “[A]ll she could think was: granule. Arrowhead. Scorch.” (p. 2) When she meets Tim, she thinks, “Anchor. Mast. Swell.” (p. 22) Even Frankie experiences this. “She wanted to say, Hawk. She wanted to say, Blanket. She wanted to say, Burn.”(p. 249) What meaning do you see in these words?

3. Susannah, Tim, Dicey, and Frankie find comfort with strangers at the Thunder Lodge. “She didn’t feel like Tim was molding her into any particular thing.” (p. 26) Why is it that sometimes strangers can feel more intimate than friends or family? How do these new relationships compare to the ones Susannah had with Julian and Kit?

4. At the caves, Dicey thinks Tim may have attacked Susannah, but she says Tim would “never hurt a fly.” Later, in his confusion, he does try to molest her. Can you find any other examples of foreshadowing?

5. Why does Susannah throw away her childhood friend’s ribbon, Julian and Kit’s key, and her other mementoes? Why does she collect new ones? What do Tim’s rituals–collecting the little stones, his breakfast of exactly two Pop-Tarts and four wedges of orange–do for him?

6. Even as a child, Susannah looked for little signs and made wagers with fate, even with life-changing decisions. “If he shook his head slowly three more times, she wouldgo.” (p.163) Is she truly looking for direction? Letting chance tell her what to do? Or would she find a way to make the same choices regardless of the signs?

7. The narration dips in and out of each character’s perspective but remains firmly in the third person. Are these the characters’ inner thoughts? Or is it the narrator commenting on them? Or both? How would you describe the narrative voice?

8. As with the works of Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and Winesburg, Ohio, this novel contains classic elements of gothic fiction, which is often characterized by elements of the “grotesque.”: Frankie is a hermaphrodite, Tim’s mentally disabled, even Char and Marlon are wizened and drained from age, disappointment, and the desert. Yet the characters mostly inspire empathy, so does the term “grotesque” still apply? Or has the author created something else entirely?

9. Char dislikes Susannah because she sees her own younger self in the girl. In your experience, are people attracted to or repelled by another person’s similarity? And what is it about Susannah that draws so many people to her?

10. Julian begins a flirtation with Susannah even though he loves his wife. Why? How do his affections for Susannah compare to his feelings for Kit? How do they compare to Susannah’s feelings for Tim? How responsible is Julian for Susannah’s actions? And how responsible is Susannah for Tim’s death?

11. Throughout the novel, characters flash back to their pasts while dealing with the present. How influenced are they by the past? Find an example of how past experiences influence a character’s actions.

12. Susannah calls the baby “the stranger.” Later, Kit wonders about babies becoming unexpected, strange adults. Where does this anxiety come from? Is it because the baby is still unborn? Or is this a constant part of parenthood?

13. Consider this passage after Tim’s death: “It’s at moments like these that a person most feels at one with the others around him, most part of that massive human organism….” Do you agree? What are the moments in the book–or in real life–in which people truly connect?

14. Kit, Julian, and Dicey each wonder at some point if their connection to Susannah was just a con. How would you feel about Susannah if you met her? If you were a character living in this novel?

15. What is the significance of the little boy across the road?