Interview with James Rebanks, author of The Place of Tides

1. What does a day in the life of James Rebanks look like?

90% of my days are super normal. I live in a remote place on a farm and do regular work like anyone else. This week I concreted a farm track with some friends; and I can tell you they couldn’t care less that I wrote some books.

2. What was it that made you want to embark on a voyage to Norway and spend time in solitude with "duck women"?

I was tired, a bit burnt out, and a bit lonely after losing some of the people I’d always looked up to. And I was at that age when you start to ask whether you have lived a good life.

3. You say, "I imagine the last human on earth being a woman on a rocky shoreline," which is incredibly powerful. What was it about your time on the island with Anna Måsøy and Ingrid that made you think this?

It was more that I’d become gloomy about humanity and what dickheads we often are. I felt like the world was screwed. And I looked back at all the people I’d ever met and thought, ‘I wonder if that woman I once met knew something the rest of us have forgotten’ so I went to find out, and she kind of did.

4. Can you recall a particular moment on the island that was transformative or particularly beautiful for you?

The first time I went was one of the most ‘wow’ moments of my life. The scale of the place is breathtaking. And then when I went and worked there there were many such moments. The long artic days with that strange twilight were very affecting, and I spent an hour watching a pod of orca playing in the bay, that will be one of the best hours of my life, I am sure.

5. There's a brief mention of the solitude-induced madness that some face when left alone on the island. Was there a point on Fjærøy where you felt you'd crossed that threshold, and if so what was the feeling that followed?

The slow pace of the island and lack of modern world stimuli meant that I had to stop being so manic, and then I was thrown back on myself, and it was like being a drug addict going cold turkey.

I had a few rough days where I felt quite anxious and had way too much time to think, and then I unravelled a little bit and felt very try emotional, and tired, and sad and lonely… I probably needed to just stop and reset and this was happening. Perhaps it was like rebooting a computer by turning it off and starting it again… I’m fine now, but I never want to be so manic ever again.

I try to live slower now and listen to my mind and body, which sounds like hippy shit, but it’s also needed, I used to attack life like I was a machine, and now I know I’m just a fragile monkey that has limits.

6. Can you talk about the process of writing The Place of Tides and what you took into consideration to immortalise a woman like Anna?

I love and admire ‘ordinary’ working people. I wrote in my first book about being from the ‘nobodies’ who get the shit done that makes life possible. Anna is one of the most heroic and modest nobodies I have ever met. If I can make the world think about, respect or love a woman from an old people’s home then I will die happy. We need better heroes that are the kinds of people that make the world, in its millions of little niches, better.

As for the writing process, I wrote in a strange way in short prose poems from the reality that I see, hear, smell and touch… maybe two page scenes where I try with everything I’ve got to capture moments, and then I stitch them together in to a story later when I begin to realise what my efforts are about. I love trying to capture moments, or what Wordsworth called ‘spots of time’.

7. Do think tourism, or the interest in becoming a “duck woman”, has increased on the islands since your book?

I don’t know. There was already a resurgence of interest created by Anna and others. If I can help that in any way, I will. There are now several younger women (and some men) taking on this work, and the community now respects this work highly (except for a few of the older men who are still confused why everyone thinks it matters).

8. In what ways do you think your attitude to farming and family life has changed since this trip?

I’m still a work in progress. I know that my family and my farm are incredibly important to me, never more so, and that these practical things are perhaps my greatest responsibility. My four kids are 19, 17, 13 and 7, and they couldn’t care less if their dad writes books, or has a little notoriety for that, but they do see and care about whether I am paying attention to, and loving, them, and helping them make their lives happen. I’m not the star of their movies, I’m an extra, and that’s OK, I’ve done a few things of my own to leave a little mark on the world, but I don’t need to have some massive ego about it.

9. Do you keep in touch with Anna or Ingrid?

Yes. And with Anna’s daughters. Anna came to visit me in England a year or two ago, and I’ll love her till the day I die.

10. What do you hope people take away from reading The Place of Tides ?

I hope they see the beauty of the world a little more afterwards, and perhaps think about whether they are living right, not to meet any notions of mine, but whether they’re living right for themselves. If they think I am a half decent writer then that’s a bonus, I have a little ego left on that subject, and the younger me dreamt of being on the shelves with my writing heroes, and meaning to other people what my heroes books meant to me. But older me knows that this will or won’t happen, and the world will keep turning, and either way it’s Ok. I have been blessed to have a wonderful life.