SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Patrick "Kick" Kilpatrick is a former college swimmer who fears and hates the sea, but on a cruise one night, near midnight, he finds himself adrift alone and swimming for his life.
KATHLEEN ROONEY: (Reading) The victims of the Titanic, for example, saw a version of what I am seeing. Only they plunged into the frigid North Atlantic through no fault of their own, but, rather, a fatal combination of questionable captain meets exceptional iceberg. Me? I'm in the tepid Gulf of Mexico, and my ship is fine. Never better. Away she goes - no disaster, no emergency, except on the most personal level. Nobody aboard the Carnival Valor, your high-seas hero, here to rescue you from ordinary vacations and whisk you away to leisure, fun and amazing destinations, knows I'm here, and nobody knows how it happened, not even me.
SIMON: Will Kick survive? And as he reviews his life, does he truly want to? "Man Overboard!" - it's an exclamation point at the end, by the way - is by Kathleen Rooney, the bestselling author of "Lillian Boxfish Takes A Walk." She teaches creative writing at DePaul University in Chicago and joins us now from our studios at WBEZ. Thanks so much for being with us.
ROONEY: Thank you, Scott.
SIMON: Why doesn't Kick know how he wound up fighting for his life in the middle of the ocean? Kind of a big thing not to be aware of.
ROONEY: Yes. He does not know because he was extremely drunk when he entered the water. And so in the very first chapter, the mystery he has to solve along with us is, what happened?
SIMON: Tell us about the extended family that has surrounded him on this Thanksgiving vacation cruise, 'cause he's not - (laughter) he doesn't like family vacations. He doesn't like cruises.
ROONEY: Yeah. So his stepmom, Pam, is a huge cruise afficionado. She calls herself a Carnivore 'cause she loves Carnival cruises so much. And so the thinking was that for Thanksgiving, it would be easier for the extended family to just get together on a cruise with something to do for everyone. But Kick is mortally afraid of the ocean, even though he's a former champion swimmer. He's 33. He's from Omaha, Nebraska. He's sort of an every man. He's a physical therapist by day and a fitness instructor by night. But he's kind of going through a personal crisis and feels like there's got to be more to life, and he's trying to figure out himself and also why some people aggravate him so much.
SIMON: (Laughter) Let me ask you about the touchy relationship Kick has with Justeen, his girlfriend.
ROONEY: Kick is - as I mentioned, he's 33. Justeen is 44. And Kick has this history of being kind of emotionally immature in relationships and moving from one to the next. But he does have real feelings for Justeen and even loves her, but he's very self conscious about their age gap, and he's also very leery, I think, because of past rejections of committing to her. And so when he's on this cruise, they are on a break, but, you know, as he's floating in the ocean, trying not to die, she keeps coming up in his mind in ways that...
SIMON: Yeah.
ROONEY: ...Kind of indicate to him that she means a lot to him.
SIMON: Let me ask you to read a section which is a little tough to hear - 3 a.m., November 28, Kick Kilpatrick in the sea.
ROONEY: (Reading) Subtropics or not, I am hyperaware of being wet and cold, hyperaware of my blood and muscles, hyperaware of being solitary and wretched. The magnitude of what's happened - or what I've done - keeps hitting me. A never ending, irrevocable uh-oh, like coming down from doing tree work in the yard and missing that last rung of the ladder, but times infinity. As much as I didn't want to go on this cruise, as much as I didn't want to go on living at all, maybe.
SIMON: Boy, that maybe lands with a thud to the heart, doesn't it?
ROONEY: Yeah. I think he's grappling with some real darkness and some questions he has to answer for himself.
SIMON: And, by the way, we want to tell people, if you or someone you know is dealing with thoughts of self-harm, help is available at the National Lifeline. You can call or text 988.
The novel is laugh-out-loud funny, even as it sails through choppy emotional waters. How do you balance that as a writer?
ROONEY: For me, funny and sad go together, kind of like chocolate and peanut butter. They enhance one another. And for me, the saddest books are the ones that have wit and humor, because I think through humor, you get those flashes of what makes life glorious and mysterious. And so I hope that people come for the comedy and stay for the existential reckoning.
SIMON: He has an encounter with a sea turtle that becomes his conversational partner. Sea Turtle is, I should explain, quite well-spoken, and he blames...
ROONEY: Yes.
SIMON: ...Kick for oil spills and global warming. But he also says, you need to do more than just want to live. How does that make Kick begin to move his mind and memories?
ROONEY: I think the sea turtle and then he - if people like animals, they're in for some treats because there's lots of other sea creatures - sea horses and jellyfish - and they all kind of prod him in this direction of thinking of what he wants with his relationships with other people, his relationships with Justeen, and also kind of a realization that the world is maybe bigger than he thought. And I think the animals are a way to kind of point that out.
SIMON: I say this with respect to you. The sea creatures get all the best lines. Does that help Kick hear them in a way that he won't listen to himself, or, for that matter, members of his family?
ROONEY: Yes. One of the things he's sort of starting to realize is that he will be a little better adjusted if he thinks about other people more than just himself and his own pities and woes. And I include people to mean animals, and I think his encounters with these other sentient creatures are sort of a way - you know, as one of the creatures tells him, everybody out here is going through something, everybody from the smallest planktons up to the biggest whale sharks.
SIMON: As the story proceeds, it becomes clear that Kick needs to determine reasons to keep on going, doesn't he?
ROONEY: One of the things that Kick experiences is something I think everybody experiences. When your life is happening, things are so quick and you're working and you're seeing people, and you don't have time to stop and really contemplate. And so when Kick is just in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, he's kind of forced to think about a lot of stuff. And one of the things he realizes is that he's facing death, and he thinks about things like, if I don't want to die with these things unresolved, then that must mean I don't want to live with them unresolved. And so I want it to be almost like a thriller, where you don't know what's going to happen, and every chapter is one hour in the water, but he's kind of working his way toward finding life again.
SIMON: Kathleen Rooney - her new novel, "Man Overboard!" Thank you so much for being with us.
ROONEY: Thank you. I appreciate it, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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