BOOKS BY MY FRIENDS

As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back by ALLE C. HALL

Mar 03, 2023

Welcome to Books By My Friends, Alle! Let’s talk about your new book.

JH: What’s the blurb for As Far As You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back?

ACH: With an excerpt from it recently named as a finalist for The Lascaux Prize, "As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back" is “a girl and her backpack” story—except that this girl, Jen, she’s not just traveling. She steals ten thousand dollars from her parents to get as far from them as possible. She flees to Asia, where she re-names herself Carlie. The Lonely Planet path of hook-ups, heat, alcohol, and drugs takes on a terrifying reality when seen through the eyes of a teenaged survivor. Fortunately, Carlie is taken under the wing of a compassionate couple who convince her to come to Japan with them. Living in Tokyo in the late 1980s, teaching English and practicing tai chi, Carlie has the chance at another journey: one to find the self-respect ripped from her as a child and the healthy sexuality she desires. “A taut piece of writing, one of those one-foot-in-front-of-the-other-and-we-call-it-walking stories that left me holding out hope.” -Dale Peck "Truly original and heartbreaking without being sentimental. I’ve not seen incest written about like this before. We get a brilliant and strange view into it." -Michael D. Collins (Keepers of the Truth)

This novel deals straightforwardly with the sexual abuse of a child. The good news is, the book follows the healing of the woman she grows into being.

JH: What inspired you to write As Far as You Can Go Before You Have to Come Back?

ACH: Every survivor of any less-than-nurturing situation needs to name it, to claim it. "This happened to me," we all want to say. "This is my truth." My truth is that I am an incest survivor. In addition, I spent a number of years living and traveling in Asia. It was intuitive to set the novel there. The specific "BOOM" moment came one afternoon in my mid-20s. I had just gotten out of treatment for PTSD and all I could handle, work pressure-wise, was a reception job. I made $8.50 an hour. So, this one afternoon, I was especially furious about the financial situation. I thought: why didn't I just steal a bunch of money and run away? The answer, of course, is that those who are abused later in their childhoods or in their teens have the functionality to consider running away. Children who are groomed from a very young age don't. The abuse is part of your life. You learn to deal with it as reality, or you die. However, these were not the thoughts I had after, "Why didn't I just steal a bunch of money and run away?" My mind was busy exploding with the idea for a novel--beginning, middle, end. First, the abuse and stealing $10,000. Then to Hong Kong, because most shoestring travelers go to Hong Kong first. Next, traveling to SE Asia. The Lonely Planet Trail is the perfect place to hide from parents who might want their $10,000 back. And then, Japan. I spent that majority of my time in Asia in Japan. It became a place of great balm and healing. Back to the book: the final image (which I cannot reveal, here, for fear of ruining all tension) gave me the drive to go through all that every writer who publishes a book goes through. The image gave me solace as well as energy in the years that it was hard to write while working full time, or when I had babies and then young children; solace because I was writing toward something beautiful, and energy because, well, someone had to write it if it was going to get published.

JH: What one thing do you love most about writing?

ACH: I love everything about writing: finding a fresh but universal idea; getting down that critical first draft; revising for as long as it takes--for years, even; and then finding your publisher. I hated the rejection but the challenge was a high. If forced to choose, I would say revision. You've got a draft to work off, so it's easier that the first draft, but there is a lot of fresh writing going on. And you have some idea of the shape of the book. You just get to keep making it better and better and better.

JH: What’s next for you in the way of writing/publishing?

ACH: I'm well into my second novel, "Crazy Medicine"--which is the English translation of the Thai word for a drug cocktail of meth and caffeine ("ya ba"). This novel also takes place in Asia, focusing on Thailand and Cambodia. A Carlie-aged girl Lena, is wandering around Asia looking for a high she can't find as a way to blot out the deep pain of her childhood. She finds that high dealing drugs. At its core, the story is the yin to the yang of Carlie's. Carlie moves toward healing. Lena has many options to do so, yet goes the opposite direction. If you read "Crazy Medicine" without reading "As Far as You Can Go," you would think I was the sickest, saddest person in the world. In reality, it's all part of my life-long exploration into why some people choose the light while others, the dark.

JH: How can readers contact you?

ACH:

https://allehall.wordpress.com

BIO:

Alle C. Hall's writing placed as a finalist for The Lascaux Prize and first in The Richard Hugo House New Works Competition. Other work appears in New World Writing, Evergreen Review, Litro, Tupelo Quarterly, Creative Nonfiction Magazine, Hobart, Brevity's blog, and Necessary Fiction. The former Senior Nonfiction Editor for jmww journal, the former Associate Editor of Vestal Review, and a current reader at Creative Nonfiction Magazine, Alle is a Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net nominee.

JH: Thanks for visiting BBMF today and sharing your work with us, Alle. Best wishes for continued success, and please come back when your next project is ready for the world.

Please feel free to leave a comment below for Alle.

All good things,

Joy

Please leave a comment.

JOY E. HELD'S Newsletter

Discussion about this post