Questions and answers with author Susan Tyler Hitchcock
1. Is this book true?
Yes indeed. The only changes I made were slight adaptations in the sequence of things and a few name changes for privacy or clarity. There were too many Johns along the way, for instance, and I wanted to save that name for my son. The overall story is absolutely true. We took the trip in 1992-1993, setting out on Labor Day and arriving back in Florida on June 1.
2. Does the sailing experience still make a difference for your children?
I am convinced that something very deep and fundamental happened to my children by spending a school year as “cruising kids.” First of all, they both love the water. Neither one is an active sailor, but both sail whenever possible and they love to swim and go to the beach. John still fishes, even if it’s in ponds and lakes. Second of all, they are adventurers. They love to travel and take kindly to talking to new people that they meet. Finally, they each have a world-view that includes memories of primitive living and what we in the United States would consider desperate poverty, yet they have lived with and talked with the people living in such conditions and they respect them as individuals and friends. Their sense of geography is better than many of their peers’ as well.
3. Have you sailed more as a family?
The four of us have taken three more sails together since the one chronicled in Coming About. In 1995-1996, we took six weeks over the holidays and sailed down the Bahamas. We spent Christmas—a grey and windy day, as I remember—all by ourslves at Norman’s Cay in the Exumas and got to Georgetown in time for New Year’s Eve.
In 1997-1998, we took a longer family sail, starting off around Thanksgiving and spending more than four months traveling the Northwest Caribbean. We were in Marina Hemingway, Havana, Cuba, for Christmas. That was the winter that Pope John Paul visited Fidel Castro, and all of us international cruisers had to leave Marina Hemingway in early January. Never mind the 20-foot waves out in the Gulf Stream! We skidded through those waves going west to Isla Mujeres in the Yucatan, then sailed down that coast through Belize to Guatemala. We left the boat in a marina in the Rio Dulce and flew home. A few months later, my husband, David, and son, John, plus other friends and family members along the way, brought the boat back to Florida from Guatemala.
In June 2000, we took a quick family sail across the Gulf Stream to visit Cuba again. This time we tied up at Marina Hemingway and traveled by land to visit Pinar del Rio.
Meanwhile, all four of us at one time or another have sailed with family to the Bahamas. Even though we no longer live on a boat, it continues to be a lifestyle we all love. David and I hope someday to cruise part of every year.
4. I’m amazed you and your husband are still together. It seemed like a difficult marriage as portrayed in your book.
It has been interesting to watch people’s reactions to my portrayal of our marriage in Coming About. Some people understand. Others wonder why we’re still together. Some women admire David and some can’t stand him. One woman, who sails out of a marina on the Chesapeake, told me that now, whenever they are aboard together and her husband gets too bossy, she calls him “Dave”! I had to laugh—and so did Dave. I tried to write authentically about the hard times and the commitment. We did bond more tightly by sailing together, and by my gaining strength and confidence in my own abilities to be an equal partner in the enterprise. I actually think we bonded even more through the writing, publication, and reception of this book.
5. Is there anything you regret in the writing of this very personal book?
I learned the hard way that when you bare your soul and your private life in a book, you lay yourself wide open to criticism. Some book reviewers took the opportunity to comment on our marriage or on my husband’s character—even on safety issues aboard our boat—rather than about how well the book was written or whether it accomplished its goal. The few short sex scenes that I chose to include (since it really would have been puritanical self-censorship to leave them out of a book about reviving a marriage) have received more attention than I would have expected. One woman angrily returned the book, saying she had expected to be able to read it out loud to her children. I have asked myself whether I regret putting myself, my husband, and our private life in the line of fire like that. The answer is no. I wrote an honest book. That was my intention.
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An excerpt
