Weirdness Journal Entry #3: The Lightning Bottles

Welp, time for another entry in the weirdness journal! 

In case you’re just joining us now, the weirdness journal is a collection of all of the strange synchronicities and oddities surrounding the writing and publishing of my upcoming novel, I Think We’ve Been Here Before, a book which, incidentally, is about synchronicities and oddities and which has been absolutely mired in them from its conception. The story was born out of a billion conversations with a couple of good friends about synchronicities and quantum entanglement and deja vu, and it has felt as though the simple act of writing about these things has acted as a lightning rod, but for a different sort of energy, attracting all manner of strange coincidences and eerie fortuities. Like, one day I was working on the part of the book that’s about a girl desperately trying to make it home from Berlin to her family as the world is ending, and worrying that she won’t be able to get there in time, grappling with how to spend the rest of her life and not waste the whole thing wishing she was somewhere she can’t get to, and later that morning someone (who knew nothing of this book) sent me a Voxtrot song they thought I would like, called Berlin, Without Return. The first line: Do you spend your whole life trying to get back home? Weirdly specific, Voxtrot! 

Anyway. That’s not what this entry is about. 

This entry is about the one and only Marissa Stapley. 

So about a month ago I was sitting in a coffee shop staring at my computer screen (I spend so much of my time doing this, much less of it actually typing things). I’d been tasked by my Canadian publisher with the daunting job of finding some Canadian authors to blurb this book (most of the endorsements I’d already obtained were from American authors, because, to this point, most of my author life has been States-centric). I'd been putting it off—I’d already used up all of my bravery on the American authors!—but that day I realized I couldn’t any longer. I needed to just do it, already. I consoled myself: these people don’t know who you are, and if they feel offended by your presence in their email inbox, they can just delete you and will forget about you within five minutes.

One of these emails went to Marissa Stapley, and I felt especially apologetic as I hit send on that one. Authors often talk about how success in the literary world is a moving target, but Marissa is one of those people who has, in my humble opinion, quantifiably achieved it. She was the first Canadian author to have a book selected for Reese Witherspoon’s book club! She is critically-acclaimed, she is New York Times-bestselling, she is multiple-times optioned for TV!

I felt sheepish, asking if she wanted to read my book, is what I’m saying. But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, and this girl did it (applause). Much to my delight, Marissa graciously emailed back quickly and said she’d take a look, so I sent the book over before I could second guess myself anymore. 

Hurdle one, down.

I was even more delighted when Marissa emailed again, only a few days later to say that she was halfway through, was enjoying the book, and wondered if I might read and blurb her upcoming novel(!!!), The Lightning Bottles, set to publish exactly one week before mine. 

I tried, sort of, to feign nonchalance. I said I would love to, with maybe one too many exclamation points (playing it cool is for cool people). 

Okay, so here’s where it gets strange.

Marissa had her publisher send over the ARC and when it arrived I opened it immediately, settled in on my couch with a blanket and a playlist of 90s grunge music. I had only a vague idea of what the book was about; I knew it was set in the 90s and followed the story of a fictitious alt-rock band, which was all I needed to know to be very excited about it (the intersection of literature and music is my happiest place, and the 90s might be my favorite decade). It felt lucky, to get the chance to read this book early.

One page in, I noticed a funny little coincidence: The first chapter of her book was set in Berlin. It caught my eye because the first chapter of my book is also set in Berlin. I laughed to myself. I mean, my book is set only half in Berlin; the other half is set in Canada, alternating back and forth, so it’s not exactly the same, but still. 

Interesting, I thought, that our books come out around the same time and both have Berlin in common.

By the end of the chapter, I’d noticed another little similarity: a major theme in Marissa’s book was, apparently, street art, which is true of my book as well. In both of our novels, there's a central question, a mystery, and street art is a thread woven throughout the entire novel pointing to or hinting at the answer.

Neat-o, I said to myself. And, considering these books are coming out at the same time, we might have been writing some of these scenes at the same time. Wild!

I turned the page—only to find that Chapter Two of Marissa's book, like mine, was set in Canada. Goosebumps! It was at this point that I got out a sticky note and a pen and started keeping track of all the little similarities. 

We both have a character named Petra! I scribbled. We both have… for the sake of keeping this spoiler-free I won’t go into anything else. :)

Our books are nothing alike on the surface—mine's about a rural Saskatchewan family facing the possible end of the world, hers is a portrait of a two-piece alt-rock band facing the possible end of their career/relationship, and yet...it's as though we were both drawing from the same invisible inspiration bucket, interpreting the very specific prompts in ways that would suit our respective novels. 

What does it mean? Don't say nothing. 

I generally don't think anything means nothing, but lately this feels extra true. I mean, I almost didn't reach out to Marissa in the first place. The chances of us writing these sister books at the same time, of them coming out at the same time, of them being this oddly same-but-not-same, of me getting to read an early copy of hers...? 

At the very least, it's weird enough for the weirdness journal.

And in any case, you should preorder Marissa's book. Like I said, it comes out the week before mine, and seems to be somewhat entangled with mine in a nerdy quantum physics kind of way. Plus, I LOVED IT. I've been thinking about it all week, and it's sent me off on several musical rabbit trails. Here, I'll make it easy for you; click on this: