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WORK TITLE: Next Year, For Sure
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://www.zoeyleighpeterson.com/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY: Canada
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in England.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author. Formerly worked as a sign language interpreter.
AWARDS:Received Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction and the Peter Hinchcliffe Fiction Award.
WRITINGS
Contributor of stories to anthologies, including The Journey Prize: Stories: the Best of Canada’s New Writers, selected by Miranda Hill, Mark S. Medley, and Russell Wangersky, Emblem/McClelland & Stewart (Toronto, ON), 2013; and Best Canadian Stories 13, edited by John Metcalf, Oberon Press (Ottawa, ON, Canada), 2013. Contributor to periodicals, including Grain, Malahat Review, New Quarterly, and Walrus.
SIDELIGHTS
Zoey Leigh Peterson had already earned a reputation as a prize-winning author of short stories before the publication of her first long fiction, Next Year, for Sure. On its surface, the novel explores the meaning of a commitment between Kathryn and Chris. “It tells of their comfortable and compatible nine-year relationship,” wrote Laurie Cavanaugh in Xpress Reviews, “which may or may not be coming apart.” The relationship becomes complicated when Chris develops a crush on Emily, a younger woman. “With Kathryn’s reluctant blessing,” explained a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “normally risk-averse Chris embarks on a relationship with Emily.” Soon Kathryn begins to find herself attracted to Emily. “Debut novelist Peterson,” stated Kathy Sexton in Booklist, “has written a book that concretely explores the beginnings of an open relationship.”
At the same time, however, the novel moves beyond a simple three-part love story. “When people ask what Next Year, for Sure is about,” Peterson told a Powell’s City of Books interviewer, “I say it’s about a lot of things. It’s about a couple who stumble into polyamory. It’s about friendship, and particularly the pain of ending a friendship. It’s about the secret sadness of a seemingly happy couple. It’s about the challenge of growing and changing within a relationship–platonic or otherwise. It’s about connections between people that feel too big to be called `friendship’ but aren’t allowed to be called `marriage.’ And more than anything else, it’s about loneliness, the loneliness of adulthood.” In that sense, Next Year, for Sure is as much about the way relationships happen as it is about a nontraditional relationship involving three people. “The core of the novel’s strength lies in a deeply intelligent understanding of what repels and draws people to each other,” stated Casey Plett in Quill & Quire. “Next Year, for Sure … gently offers hard questions as to the different needs of good-hearted humans.” “Peterson’s commitment to exploring the idea of monogamy,” declared a Kirkus Reviews contributor, “is refreshingly attuned to the shifting power dynamics between two–then three–players.”
Reviewers noted the respect with which Peterson treats her characters beginning their experiment in polyamory, pointing out that both Chris and Kathryn are individuals worthy of respect and love. “Accounts of polyamorous lives have been everywhere lately, at least in my circles. I hear anecdotes and podcasts, read memoirs and articles, wonder about rumors and strategies,” wrote Liz Harmer in the Winnipeg Review. “My irritation with most of these accounts is that polyamory sounds just like monogamy: filled with rules and limits, less romantic than logistical. But if it isn’t about romance, what’s it for? Peterson’s novel beautifully depicts these characters as people with lives, not lifestyles. Committed people do sometimes fall in love with other people, and this isn’t a symptom of a bad relationship or of a broken person.” “The writer Trevor Corkum asked me how I would define my mission statement as a novelist in exactly five words,” Peterson said in her Powell’s City of Books interview. “My first reaction was that this was an impossible question, but then almost instantly I blurted out, `Good people doing their best.’ And that really does sum up my concerns and preoccupations, both in writing and in life. The questions that interest me are not the conflicts between good and evil, but the conflicts between good people trying to do the right thing as they see it. These five words have become a lodestar for my writing ever since.” “It’s all too easy to fall in love with these characters as they messily fall in love with each other, and to empathize with their desire to be true to themselves without harming the people they care so deeply about,” concluded Stacey May Fowles in the Toronto Globe and Mail. “Life is so often about finding the balance between our own fulfilment, and a vital respect for the needs of others, and Next Year, for Sure articulates this conflict with innovative grace and candour. And … Peterson has … offered a robust look at positive alternatives.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, February 2017, Kathy Sexton, review of Next Year, for Sure, p. 20.
Globe and Mail (Toronto, ON, Canada), March 3, 2017, Stacey May Fowles, review of Next Year, for Sure.
Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 2016, review of Next Year, for Sure.
Publishers Weekly, January 16, 2017, review of Next Year, for Sure, p. 35.
Xpress Reviews, February 24, 2017, Laurie Cavanaugh, review of Next Year, for Sure.
ONLINE
Powell’s City of Books, http://www.powells.com/ (February 27, 2017), “Powell’s Q&A: Zoey Leigh Peterson, Author of ‘Next Year, for Sure.'”
Quill & Quire, https://quillandquire.com/ (March 1, 2017), Casey Plett, review of Next Year, for Sure.
Winnipeg Review, http://winnipegreview.com/ (April 18, 2017), Liz Harmer, review of Next Year, for Sure.
Zoey Leigh Peterson Website, https://www.zoeyleighpeterson.com (October 25, 2017), author profile.
Zoey Leigh Peterson was born in England, grew up all over the United States, and now lives in Canada. Her fiction has appeared in The Walrus, The Malahat Review, Grain, The New Quarterly, and has been anthologized in The Journey Prize Stories and Best Canadian Stories. She is the recipient of the Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction and the Peter Hinchcliffe Fiction Award. Next Year, For Sure is her first novel.
Q&AS
Powell's Q&A: Zoey Leigh Peterson, Author of 'Next Year, for Sure'
by Zoey Leigh Peterson, February 27, 2017 5:57 PM
Next Year, For Sure by Zoey Leigh Peterson
Photo credit: Vivienne McMaster
Describe your latest book.
When people ask what Next Year, for Sure is about, I say it’s about a lot of things. It’s about a couple who stumble into polyamory. It’s about friendship, and particularly the pain of ending a friendship. It’s about the secret sadness of a seemingly happy couple. It’s about the challenge of growing and changing within a relationship — platonic or otherwise. It’s about connections between people that feel too big to be called "friendship" but aren’t allowed to be called "marriage." And more than anything else, it’s about loneliness, the loneliness of adulthood, the loneliness of watching your lifelong friends disappear into their careers or families and leaving you bereft.
I explain all this to people and then they usually say: “So polyamory, huh?”
What was your favorite book as a child?
I don’t know if it was my favorite, but I still remember the release of Superfudge, the much-anticipated sequel to Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. The school librarian knew I was obsessed with Judy Blume and told me that when the book came out, she’d let me be the very first one to borrow it. I’ve never waited for anything like I waited for that book.
But then when it finally came, I realized that I’d only get to keep it for two weeks and then some other kid was going to want it. And instead of simply reading the book like a reasonable person, I decided to transcribe the entire book by hand, word by word, so that I could read it at my leisure. I spent the entire two weeks trying to render a perfect copy of the opening pages and then I had to give it back unread. I still haven’t read it.
What does your writing workspace look like?
I have a little standing desk, but I tend to wander around my apartment with a legal pad and pen, perching to scribble down a word or two wherever they come to me. I spend a lot of time sprawled on the floor.
The one thing that I absolutely require in a workspace is a big blank wall so I can map out the story. This is what my bedroom wall looks like these days:
An image of the author's wall with post-it notes.
Right now, it’s a bit more elaborate than usual because I’m working on another novel. But even when I’m working on a short story, I really can’t think without a nice big wall covered in sticky-notes.
What do you care about more than most people around you?
I get really into things. Whatever I care about at any given moment, I probably care about that thing more than most of the people around me — Jungian psychology, heist movies, pin-hole photography, Quaker history, winemaking. That’s just my natural state. But usually only for a couple of months and then I’m on to something new.
The one consistent thing is music. If I ever find myself in a room with two or three people who care about music as much as I do, I’m going to drop everything and start a band right then and there. Forget novels.
Share an interesting experience you've had with one of your readers.
One of the best experiences I’ve ever had with a reader was my eighth-grade English teacher, Mrs. Riley. One of the first assignments she gave us was to write a ghost story. We’d been studying Edgar Allan Poe in class, and I was devouring all of Stephen King outside of class, so I was pretty excited to try my hand at writing something terrifying.
When I got my graded story back, there were all the usual corrections and comments in red ink, but then at the end of the story Mrs. Riley had attached several pages of handwritten notes detailing her reaction to the story. She wrote that she’d had to get up halfway through the story and turn all the lights on in her house. She said that she couldn’t go to sleep after she finished it because she was too scared. She walked me through the story scene by scene and told me how each scene had made her feel, how it had moved her, how it had worked on her.
No one had ever done that for me. I’d been writing for years and got lots of praise for my writing, but no one had ever been moved by my writing and then told me exactly how they’d been moved. It changed everything. All I cared about for the rest of eighth grade was writing short stories for Mrs. Riley — scary stories, sad stories, funny stories. And every time, she would give me extensive notes about how the story made her feel. It was incredibly generous of her, and probably the single most important thing to happen for my writing.
Tell us something you're embarrassed to admit.
I don’t know why it embarrasses me, but I hate telling people that I’m face-blind. Sometimes when I do tell people, they think I mean that I’m just “bad with faces” the way some people are “bad with names.” Nope, I’m talking about an almost complete inability to recognize faces. Once, my best friend came up to me on the street and I couldn’t figure out who she was because she was wearing a new hat. I was married to her at the time.
Introduce one other author you think people should read, and suggest a good book with which to start.
I recommend Rhonda Douglas to everyone. I think she’s more known for her poetry, but I’d say start with her new story collection, Welcome to the Circus. And in particular I’d suggest starting with the story called “God Explains the Collapse of the Cod Fishery,” which blows my mind with its goodness. Imagine if Grace Paley wrote a George Saunders story. It’s a little like that, but more like Rhonda Douglas.
What's the most interesting job you've ever had?
I used to be a sign language interpreter, which was an amazing job in two different ways. First, there’s the actual act of interpreting, which is the only thing I’ve ever done that lit up every single part of my brain at once. Cognitively, it is one of the most intense and exhilarating things I’ve ever experienced.
And second, being an interpreter thrusts you into all these situations that you might never experience otherwise. One minute you’re in a closed-door meeting with a head of government, and the next you’re holding on for dear life while a deaf-blind teen takes jet-skiing lessons. There’s nothing quite like it. But now I’m a public librarian, and that’s pretty good, too.
What scares you the most as a writer?
I live with an almost constant fear of wasting time. There’s the ongoing battle with distractions and procrastination, of course. But even when I am writing and writing well, I worry that I am somehow wasting time — that the paragraph I’m writing will be cut in the final book, that I should be writing a different book altogether, that the world will stop publishing books before I finish the one I’m writing.
It’s not a healthy outlook, but I’m an incredibly slow writer with only so many years to live. I feel like I don’t have a minute to lose.
If someone were to write your biography, what would be the title and subtitle?
Well for starters, if someone were going to write my biography, I would ask that they please don’t. I honestly can’t think of a worse fate than having a biography written about me.
But as far as titles go, I have only one suggestion. A couple of years ago, the writer Trevor Corkum asked me how I would define my mission statement as a novelist in exactly five words. My first reaction was that this was an impossible question, but then almost instantly I blurted out, “Good people doing their best.”
And that really does sum up my concerns and preoccupations, both in writing and in life. The questions that interest me are not the conflicts between good and evil, but the conflicts between good people trying to do the right thing as they see it. These five words have become a lodestar for my writing ever since.
So maybe Good People Doing Their Best: A Misguided Biography.
Offer a favorite sentence or passage from another writer.
I have notebooks full of them. The only way I can think to choose just one is to pull one out at random and see where my finger lands:
When we first got the automatic [garage] door opener I loved to roll under the door and clear it at the last second. It was fun to think I could be sliced in half if I made even one tiny tactical error, until my sister told me the door was designed to stop as soon as it made the slightest contact with any surface, even flesh. Thanks for ruining my fun. I remember the way her knees looked while she stood on the driveway saying to me as I rolled under the door, don’t let’s be the kind of family that fights about who gets to kill themselves next.
That's from A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews. So much of what I love about Toews is in that passage — the humanity, the understatement, the lightness, the darkness.
Share a sentence or passage of your own that you're particularly proud of.
I always struggle when I have to write a short bio for myself. I’ve only written one that felt true:
“As a child, I was swallowed by a whale and everyone called the whale by my name. I'm still in here.”
What's the best advice you’ve ever received?
Ironically, the most useful advice I’ve ever received is something I can’t quite remember. It’s this thing a film theory professor told me once, which he attributed to Jean-Luc Godard. It might have been something like this:
After you experience a work of art, you should ask yourself three separate questions, and in this exact order: First, what do you think about the work the artist made? Answer that before proceeding. Second, what do you wish they’d done differently? Answer fully, then proceed. Third, what will you make?
I might be misremembering the three questions, but the idea of breaking down your reaction into separate categories — what you feel about someone else’s work, and then how you yourself would have done it — has maybe informed the way I read and write ever since.
And if anyone out there knows what Godard actually said, please, please, please let me know!
Write a question of your own, then answer it.
The question I ask myself every time I sit down to write is, “Why am I doing this? Why am I putting myself through this when there are other things I could do — things that I actually enjoy doing, things that the world needs more.”
And here’s the answer I keep coming back to: When I’m in the middle of writing a story, I always get really scared that I’m going to die. I start to worry about aneurysms and oncoming traffic, and I desperately don’t want to die — not until I finish the story I’m working on.
It’s not that I actively want to die when I’m not writing a story, but I’m not scared about it. I’m sanguine. I think, “Death is part of life, so I might as well be ready and at peace with it.” Which is fine if you’re actually dying, but might not be the best way to live.
I want to want to live. I want to cling to life. And being in the middle of writing a story is the only thing that gives me that desperate-to-live feeling.
Top five books I’m saving, saving, saving:
In the spirit of Superfudge, here are my top five favorite books that I’ve never read.
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
I’ve owned this book for years and I believe that when I eventually read it, it will be one of my all-time favorites. But for now, I’m just savoring the title, like a seed I carry around with me without planting.
The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford
There’s a story in this collection that is arguably my favorite short story of all time. It’s called “Children Are Bored on Sunday” and I have read it at least 30 times. Every time I read that story I think, “God, I want to read every story Jean Stafford has ever written,” and then I put the collected stories of Jean Stafford back on my shelf.
Cruddy by Lynda Barry
I took a class with Lynda Barry once and hearing her talk about writing this book changed the way I write. (After years of trying to write it on a computer, she threw out the computer and wrote the whole book with a paint brush.) Someday I’ll read the book, or I won’t, but either way, it has shaped me as a writer.
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
I’ve been wanting to read this book since it came out, but instead I’m reading all her other books and saving this one for the perfect moment.
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I actually have read this book, but I was 14 and understood none of it. All I knew is that it was probably the greatest book I’d read in my young life and that it was utterly wasted on me. I’ve been circling around it ever since, getting ready.
÷ ÷ ÷
Zoey Leigh Peterson was born in England, grew up all over the United States, and now lives in Canada. Her fiction has appeared in The Walrus, Grain, and PRISM international, and has been anthologized in The Journey Prize Stories and Best Canadian Stories. She is the recipient of the Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction (The Malahat Review) and the Peter Hinchcliffe Fiction Award (The New Quarterly). Next Year, for Sure is her first novel.
Next Year, for Sure
Kathy Sexton
Booklist.
113.11 (Feb. 1, 2017): p20.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Next Year, for Sure.
By Zoey Leigh Peterson.
Mar. 2017. 256p. Scribner, $25 (9781501145858).
Chris and Kathryn have been together for nine years--they are each other's person. They share everything, which is
how Kathryn learns that Chris has a crush on Emily, a woman he met at the laundromat. Because Kathryn wants Chris
to be happy, and to get Emily out of his system, she encourages him to ask her on a date. Only, Chris starts falling in
love with Emily, who also befriends Kathryn, which forces Kathryn to recognize her own loneliness and sadness over
the course of her relationship with Chris. When she visits the communal house Emily lives in, she discovers her own
new possibilities. Kathryn and Chris are reminiscent of characters in Miranda July's novels: quirky, vulnerable, and
somewhat of emotional wrecks. Unfortunately, Emily falls a little flat and hovers around being a stereotype. What's
most impressive is that debut novelist Peterson has written a book that concretely explores the beginnings of an open
relationship, its joys and pitfalls, and pulls it off in this easy-to-read and sympathetic character study.--Kathy Sexton
Sexton, Kathy
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Sexton, Kathy. "Next Year, for Sure." Booklist, 1 Feb. 2017, p. 20. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA481244760&it=r&asid=a4f4f6576cb1ee607b2a57014c898733.
Accessed 1 Oct. 2017.
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Next Year, for Sure
Publishers Weekly.
264.3 (Jan. 16, 2017): p35.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Next Year, for Sure
Zoey Leigh Peterson. Scribner, $25 (256p) ISBN 978-1-5011-4585-8
After years of serial monogamy, Chris has, he assumes, finally settled down with his girlfriend, whom he dubs
"Kathryn the Amazing." Nine years into this relationship, however, Chris can't stop thinking about a vivacious,
gregarious young acquaintance, Emily. With Kathryn's reluctant blessing, normally risk-averse Chris embarks on a
relationship with Emily and tacitly encourages Kathryn to explore other relationships as well. This experiment in
polyamory, however, soon highlights homebody Chris's weaknesses, not to mention his inability to forecast the
potential pitfalls of such an arrangement. A certain amount of introspection is bound to accompany decisions as lifealtering
as those explored here, but at times the self-reflection and second-guessing threaten to entirely halt the
narrative's forward momentum; the novel is almost entirely lacking in either humor or sexiness. The structural
playfulness that characterizes many of the novel's later chapters offers some respite, but feels tacked on when compared
with earlier chapters' more conventional storytelling. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Next Year, for Sure." Publishers Weekly, 16 Jan. 2017, p. 35. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA478405238&it=r&asid=05176a1a62135aa6dcd0e744d7c70c49.
Accessed 1 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A478405238
9/30/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1506831232551 3/4
Peterson, Zoey Leigh: NEXT YEAR, FOR
SURE
Kirkus Reviews.
(Dec. 15, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Peterson, Zoey Leigh NEXT YEAR, FOR SURE Scribner (Adult Fiction) $25.00 3, 7 ISBN: 978-1-5011-4585-8
In this psychologically perceptive debut, a young couple struggles with the realities of nonmonogamy. Kathryn and
Chris are "the perfect couple"--all their friends think so. And when Chris starts to harbor feelings for his friend Emily,
Kathryn encourages him to act. As the novel moves through their yearlong experiment, alternating narratives paint a
tender emotional conflict between two lovers at war with their own happiness. Peterson's deft portrait of their
relationship takes unexpected turns: there's the communal household that offers Kathryn a glimpse of a different life;
the unlikely, but sweet, friendship that develops between Emily and Kathryn; and the rich offering of Chris' emotional
inner workings, by turns myopic and generous. At times Peterson risks pathologizing Kathryn, who suffered a
psychologically abusive childhood that leaves her vulnerable. Still, Peterson's commitment to exploring the idea of
monogamy is refreshingly attuned to the shifting power dynamics between two--then three--players. And if Emily
doesn't completely click into full view until the end of the novel, it may be because she started as a kind of Manic Pixie
Dream Girl in Chris' imagination. "You're making her too mysterious," Kathryn points out in exasperation. Ironically,
it's Chris' emotional weaknesses that help buoy Kathryn, who comes out of the affair stronger, more rooted, more open-
-and with a new family to boot. A crisp, exciting exploration of love, friendship, and everything in between. Peterson's
one to watch.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Peterson, Zoey Leigh: NEXT YEAR, FOR SURE." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Dec. 2016. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA473652386&it=r&asid=54d4baf7af2687d352f62113a2778726.
Accessed 1 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A473652386
9/30/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
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Peterson, Zoey Leigh. Next Year, for Sure
Laurie Cavanaugh
Xpress Reviews.
(Feb. 24, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC
http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/reviews/xpress/884170-289/xpress_reviews-first_look_at_new.html.csp
Full Text:
Peterson, Zoey Leigh. Next Year, for Sure. Scribner. Mar. 2017. 256p. ISBN 9781501145858. $25; ebk. ISBN
9781501145872. F
[DEBUT] Like a mumblecore movie in literary form, this first novel by short story writer Peterson delivers the tale of
thirtysomethings Kathryn and Chris. Unfolding through rambling conversations that have an improvisational, wispy
feel, it tells of their comfortable and compatible nine-year relationship, which may or may not be coming apart as serial
monogamist Chris develops an infatuation for quirky new acquaintance Emily. When Kathryn decides that he should
get it out of his system and date Emily, they obsess over the idea together, as Kathryn's only other friend is preoccupied
and disapproving. Readers feel they are sharing Kathryn's and Chris's unexpected yearlong experiences when exposure
to Emily and her communal household becomes the catalyst for them both to take stock of their lives together and
separately.
Verdict Dialog and thoughts take precedence over story line in this oddly moving, often funny debut novel about a
heterosexual couple in an unnamed city who--with all their shared showers and snuggling--have been ignoring the state
of their own relationship. Fans of Lena Dunham and Noah Baumbach movies may especially enjoy. [See Prepub Alert,
9/12/16.]--Laurie Cavanaugh, Thayer P.L., Braintree, MA
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Cavanaugh, Laurie. "Peterson, Zoey Leigh. Next Year, for Sure." Xpress Reviews, 24 Feb. 2017. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA489080901&it=r&asid=3a677ad8ff10ed3dcb14b5ff9dc06d55.
Accessed 1 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A489080901
Zoey Leigh Peterson's Next Year, For Sure, reviewed: A lively yet sensitive debut
Open this photo in gallery:
Zoey Leigh Peterson’s debut novel deals with the complex emotions surrounding monogamy, jealousy and fidelity.
STACEY MAY FOWLES
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
MARCH 23, 2017
MARCH 3, 2017
TITLE Next Year, For Sure AUTHOR Zoey Leigh Peterson GENRE Fiction PUBLISHER Doubleday Canada PAGES 258 PRICE $24.95
Never exploitative or sensationalizing, Next Year, For Sure is a lively yet sensitive novel that examines both the possibilities and struggles inherent to loving beyond typical constraints. While Zoey Leigh Peterson certainly doesn't gloss over any challenges when it comes to polyamory, she does ask readers to confront their own beliefs, biases and judgments, which, after all, is exactly what great and relevant literature should do. Peterson's debut novel invites readers to examine what a couple can potentially face when they make the decision to open up their relationship, and their lives, to another love.
When Kathryn's long-time boyfriend Chris goes on what is described as a "non-date" with Emily, Kathryn spends some time alone at home going over the implications of their new relationship dynamic. Kathryn has consented to – even enthusiastically encouraged – her partner pursuing another woman, but when she finds herself watching "a toxic amount of sitcoms" and pacing around the apartment, waiting for him to return, she feels some natural doubt.
"Somewhere Chris and Emily are enjoying their time together. Kathryn can afford to be happy for them. That feeling exists inside her, like a seedling poking through the dirt." This idea is a simple one, but as Peterson goes on to reveal, people are exceedingly complex, as are their feelings around monogamy, jealousy and the concept of fidelity.
With this energetic, fast-paced debut, the author has taken an empathetic and open-minded look at a couple who have made the conscious decision to define relationships outside the dictated status quo. It is a thoughtful, warm meditation on what it means to love, querying our widespread cultural reluctance to expand our definitions beyond traditional narratives and typical pairings.
Chris and Kathryn are in no way painted as a couple who is lacking, broken or needing to fill a void – in fact, quite the opposite. Their nine-year connection is one forged from deep respect and understanding, their coupling one that employs secret coded language and enjoys incredible comfort and intimacy. While the addition of Emily does require them to ask important and hard questions of themselves and each other, it also enriches their lives, revealing more about their deepest feelings than they initially imagined.
Throughout the novel, the reader is given insight into both Chris and Kathryn's mindsets as this new phase of their relationship unfolds. At one point, Emily asks Chris what it is he wants, and he pointedly replies, "I want not to be an asshole." At another, Kathryn realizes Emily has become her best friend. The path of the prose functions much like the human mind in action – second-guessing, re-examining and reassuring as the plot clips forcefully along. "You figure out the right thing to feel, and you make yourself feel it," Peterson writes, underscoring how both inner and outer forces mould our core perspectives. It often seems Chris and Kathryn are driven not solely by their wants, but by a deep-seated need to make each other happy, whatever the cost, and their journey in doing so is documented with both humour and thoughtfulness.
One of the more interesting points in the book is underscored by contrasting Kathryn's lacklustre social group with the introduction of Emily's inviting (if offbeat) communal home. While Kathryn's friend Sharon, and later the women who gather for her bachelorette party and wedding, gleefully judge and deride the very idea of Chris seeing another woman – even pity Kathryn for it – Emily's home and "her people" become a welcoming place of refuge. While Sharon cruelly implies Kathryn is rubbing her "sex orgy" in people's faces, Emily's world is full of music and kindness, her housemates offering a sanctuary away from the judgment she feels from those who claim to support her. Emily and her friends are rendered with an obvious feel-good vibrancy, emphasizing the increasing distance Kathryn feels from those who cannot accept the life she and Chris have chosen – regardless of how happy they assert they are.
Having said that, there's nothing prescriptive about Next Year, For Sure. Peterson doesn't assert that any relationship or living situation is more valid than another, nor does she valorize or demonize particular characters to press the reader into making specific judgments. What she does do is emphasize the importance of affection and human connection in all its various configurations, and subtly condemn any cultural judgments that ultimately prevent them. The argument here is less for the validity of one relationship or another, and more for kindness and respect, while still looking closely at one's own comfort levels.
It's all too easy to fall in love with these characters as they messily fall in love with each other, and to empathize with their desire to be true to themselves without harming the people they care so deeply about. Life is so often about finding the balance between our own fulfilment, and a vital respect for the needs of others, and Next Year, For Sure articulates this conflict with innovative grace and candour. And though it may be easy for some to criticize those who choose to love outside of typical monogamous structure, Peterson has, with a light hand, offered a robust look at positive alternatives.
Stacey May Fowles is a regular contributor to The Globe. Her new book, Baseball Life Advice: Loving the Game That Saved Me, will be published in April.
Next Year, For Sure
by Zoey Leigh Peterson
In her debut novel, Zoey Leigh Peterson — whose short fiction has appeared in Best Canadian Stories and The Journey Prize Stories anthologies — delivers an intimate and funny portrait of messy polyamory. Expertly crisp writing and nuanced protagonists make for a reading experience that is equally entertaining and thought-provoking.
Next Year For Sure Zoey Leigh PetersonChris and Kathryn are sweet 30-somethings who have lived together for nine years and have what everyone around them describes as an enviable, almost perfect relationship. They are so comfortable and secure with each other, they even admit their crushes. One day, Kathryn tells Chris to ask out one such crush, a young free spirit named Emily who works odd jobs and lives in the kind of communal house that comes complete with a chore wheel. Chris does approach Emily, the two begin going out, and Chris’s formerly “perfect” life with Kathryn rapidly starts to change.
Pleasantly, the change is unpredictable. Old relationships falter while new ones mushroom, but none of it relates to any standard tale of infidelity or marital wrongdoing. Jealousy and betrayed feelings arise, but Kathryn does not descend into irretrievable despair, nor does Chris’s relationship with Emily pinwheel into the expected duality of ecstacy and guilt.
Peterson’s concerns in Next Year, For Sure lie more in the realm of excavating what Chris and Kathryn actually need from others – friends and lovers both. “What she secretly wanted,” Kathryn thinks of a couple she and Chris are old friends with, “was for the four of them to be married somehow.… [Not] where you’re in each other’s beds, but the promise, that explicit understanding, that [they] were bound to each other, the four of them, for life.”
The narration shifts fluidly between Chris and Kathyrn; their psychological development is rendered both smooth and surprising thanks to sharp prose and a number of plot turns the reader rarely sees coming. Secondary characters are numerous and hard to keep track of, but always consistent and fun – Emily’s aforementioned living arrangements providing a lot of the book’s mirth and warmth.
The core of the novel’s strength lies in a deeply intelligent understanding of what repels and draws people to each other. Next Year, For Sure does not attempt praise or indictment of any particular kind of romantic relationship. Instead, it gently offers hard questions as to the different needs of good-hearted humans. In this, Emily proves to be the book’s only flaw: while acting as both inciting figure and consistent bringer of joie de vivre, her inner life is shrouded compared to the in-depth portraits of Chris and Kathryn. Even some secondary characters eclipse Emily in complexity.
This is a relatively small quibble; overall, the book succeeds in its empathetic perception and pleasurable writing. A smart literary love story that doesn’t depress or bleaken the soul is a welcome rarity indeed.
Reviewer: Casey Plett
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
DETAILS
Price: $24.95
Page Count: 272 pp
Format: Paper
ISBN: 978-0- 38568-677-8
Released: Feb.
Issue Date: March 2017
Categories: Fiction: Novels
‘Next Year, For Sure’ by Zoey Leigh Peterson
Posted: APRIL 18, 2017
Book Reviews
nextyearReviewed by Liz Harmer
A synopsis can tell you most of what you already know about Next Year, For Sure, Zoey Leigh Peterson’s debut novel: Chris and Kathryn have been together happily for nine years when they decide to try opening up the relationship. He has a habit of falling in love and a “high cuddle drive,” while “nothing invigorates Kathryn like a good crush.” This good crush comes along in the form of Emily, an outgoing odd-jobber who lives in a house full of eccentrics. Chris pursues Emily with Kathryn’s blessing, and together all three—and later a fourth—sort out feelings of belonging and jealousy, intimacy and isolation. All of this happens in what I took to be a perfectly Vancouver setting: they cycle rather than drive, go camping and kayaking, and walk through the city in the rain. Chris and Kathryn have quiet jobs, and their experiment in living comes with thoughtful caring rather than spiteful betrayal. They move around in a quiet melancholy rather than a high drama.
None of this accounts for the way the novel pulled me in nor for the grip it had on me. I finished reading sorry it was over—not unsatisfied but unhappily yanked away from my immersion in their world. Next Year, For Sure has that rare je ne sais quoi, that inexplicable allure also familiar to us in an intense crush. If we’re lucky, we’ll feel lovesick at least once in our lives, made desperate by the proximity of a particular person, as Chris is by Emily: “Whenever he talks to her he comes away feeling hollowed out and nauseous like after swimming too long in a chlorinated pool.” He wants to share her life just as he shares his life with Kathryn. This is more than sex and more than friendship. What Peterson has done with this gorgeous novel is not to expose the titillating qualities of a polyamorous relationship, but to inquire deeply and truthfully into the nature of romantic love.
Much of the allure, in both love and reading, is in the details. Peterson’s world is populated by characters who are recognizable even when they are strange. I am convinced that these characters could be walking Vancouver from used bookstore to used bookstore, cycling home bursting with stories, or sharing meals with a big motley group of housemates. One chapter takes place in a mattress store, while another is structured around a camping trip. In a kayak, Chris notices that “across the back of [Kathryn’s] life jacket is stenciled the world MEDIUM. He thinks: Medium. Seer. Soothsayer. They turn back, unsure how far they’ve gone. They take turns paddling, and sometimes let themselves float along.” Details like this are atmospheric and revelatory, the prose gliding along and then opening into an understated metaphor. At an Indonesian restaurant he shares a bond with an old woman who fills water glasses: “later he began to surprise her with diligently-practised phrases in Indonesian. Thank you. You are very kind. I always feel thirst.” I always feel thirst!
In one of my favourite sections, Kathryn cleans the house Emily usually cleans as one of her odd jobs. The homeowner is depressed, and maybe so is Kathryn. She treats the house lovingly and with invisible care, cleaning things long left grimy. She watches The Biggest Loser in the woman’s living room, thinking about how easy it is to accomplish goals when you know what the goal is:
You break it down, you make a plan. So manageable, so quantifiable. But it all starts with: There’s this thing you want.
What if there isn’t this thing you want?
It occurs to Kathryn that not wanting things is a goal she has been working toward all her life. Now, though, she badly wants to want something.
Most plots are said to be driven by thwarted desire. Usually protagonists badly want something they cannot get. Next Year, For Sure isn’t driven this way. It occurred to me that goal-oriented desire is the kind of desire that produces monogamy and then adultery, whereas a person who is more or less happy in their relationship (sad, yes, but not because of the relationship, and not too sad) might suffer from other kinds of desire. Goal-oriented and thwarted desire might be the sort of desire that leads to plot-driven stories, as well. In both this novel and its desires, people are driven by more than a single goal.
To deal with her jealousy, Kathryn “map[s] that part of herself—honing in on that grasping, malignant part. She will find exactly where it is. Then she will cut it out by the roots. She knows how.” Chris, though, thinks she’s paving over her feelings. We know that before Chris she had been in an abusive relationship where she could not see the abuse, and so her choices are as worrisomely complex as though they were happening to our friends. Indeed, the couple loses friends over this experiment, and their happy lives cannot go on exactly as before. Should a person have everything they want? Can they? In the novel’s epigraph, Annie Dillard’s found poem “Signals at Sea” is quoted in full, and these worries are eerily and gorgeously highlighted. “Stop carrying out your intentions,” the poem warns us.
Accounts of polyamorous lives have been everywhere lately, at least in my circles. I hear anecdotes and podcasts, read memoirs and articles, wonder about rumors and strategies. My irritation with most of these accounts is that polyamory sounds just like monogamy: filled with rules and limits, less romantic than logistical. But if it isn’t about romance, what’s it for? Peterson’s novel beautifully depicts these characters as people with lives, not lifestyles. Committed people do sometimes fall in love with other people, and this isn’t a symptom of a bad relationship or of a broken person.
Next Year, For Sure had me wondering over two questions: not only “What do we want from our partners?” But also “What do we want from a novel?” Kathryn walks through the city late at night “to watch people make choices, to see how people lived.” In one passage characters spend a while trying to find a particular book—by, as it happens, Annie Dillard—to find the line that describes something so perfectly. And so, this, this is what I want from a novel. To watch people make choices, to see how they live, to find a line that perfectly describes some single thing, art so like life that I want to imitate it in my life and in my art.
Peterson’s stories have been published in major Canadian literary journals, won fiction prizes, and have been featured in Best Canadian Stories and The Journey Prize Stories. Next Year, For Sure felt peculiarly Canadian in setting and also in style, with its careful realism and its Alice Munro concerns. The novel’s style and the way the characters interact with their urban landscape doesn’t feel urban, but a little wild. The novel’s interest in ways of loving gives it kinship with early Barbara Gowdy—though it isn’t as dark as Gowdy or Munro—and with a recent non-fiction title (What Love Is) by UBC philosophy professor Carrie Jenkins, who is living polyamorously. Peterson belongs to a cohort of young Canadian short story writers like Eliza Robertson, Kevin Hardcastle and Kris Bertin, with her eye for sharp detail and her short story-writer’s care for the image and the sentence. Peterson has created a novel from these story-writing gifts without abandoning them or becoming overly dependent on them. But by now, I guess it’s clear I’m smitten. If there are flaws in Next Year For Sure, I am too love-blind to see them.