By Katie Tamola
The co-host of “The View” talks to Shondaland about her new, devour able novel.
Let’s face it: You deserve a vacation. Well, consider yourself lucky because Emmy winner and co-host of The View Sunny Hostin has written you one in the form of Summer on the Bluffs, her debut novel that is full of life. Meet Ama, the heart of the novel, and godmother to Perry, Billie, and Olivia. Ama is an amazingly talented Wall Street alum who faced extreme sexism and racism in her career but worked hard to craft herself a beautiful life, complete with a beach house in Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard.
When Ama’s husband passes away and she begins to consider her next chapter, she invites her goddaughters for one last summer together, just as they used to spend when the girls were little. The girls are all adults now with disparate careers and personal triumphs and hangups. This summer is unlike any before, as Ama has informed the girls that, at the season’s end, she will be giving the house to one of them. What unfolds is a summer of questions, love, and answers as the family holds on for dear life.
We caught up with Hostin to talk about her love of Oak Bluffs, Black excellence, cherishing the love you’ve got, and her new, devourable novel.
KATIE TAMOLA: Your book has a very interesting premise. How did you pick that as a jumping-off point?
SUNNY HOSTIN: Well, you know, I love Martha’s Vineyard. I go every single summer, and I’ve been doing that, certainly with my kids for the past 18 years, but I’ve also been doing it since I was a teenager. So, when I go with my kids, I walk along this road in Oak Bluffs, the East Chop area, and I walk along the water, and there’s this house. The house is actually on the cover of the book — sort of a doctored picture of it. But I always thought, wouldn’t it be great if somehow I just got that house? I don’t know who lives in it right now, and they don’t look like they’re moving, but it would be really amazing to have a house like this. Right on the water, and they have hydrangeas all in front of it, and there’s a gravel driveway. It would just be kind of amazing. That’s kind of where Ama’s house came from, just my incredible love for the island.
Then I thought: Imagine someone gifting you this house. As I thought of the characters and the storyline and the plot, I thought, wow, that’s how Ama gets these girls there, she tells them she’ll give one of them her house, which they all love.
KT: Ama, the matriarch and heart and soul of this book, is referred to as “the Witch of Wall Street,” with her coworkers joking that she used her Creole heritage to cast spells on the market during her career as a trader. In your own career, have you often witnessed outward expressions of racism like this?
SH: Well, you know, I think a lot of those things are said when we’re not in the room. But there’s no question that, at least in my career, I’ve experienced what are now called microaggressions. For me, I kind of call them these “little indignities” that I’ve experienced. I wrote about them in my memoir [I Am These Truths: A Memoir of Identity, Justice, and Living Between Worlds].
I’ve definitely experienced that kind of questioning of your excellence. Ama is a character who earned everything that she has. She’s quite wealthy, and she’s very communal. Ama is very intentional about sharing with her goddaughters, sharing with the African-American community, you know, showing others what she’s learned, and her appreciation of art and culture.
But, of course, it would have to be instead of her keen intellect and her keen sense of finance — people will say it must be her casting spells. Sort of diminishing her excellence. I think that is sort of the lived experience of many women of color, and many, many women across different industries. And that’s something that I explored in the book.
KT: This book deals with it all. Happiness, love, the idea of the perfect couple, grief — everything. What was the hardest part of writing this novel, process or content wise?
SH: I think the hardest part was making sure that I explored, making sure that each character was complicated and full yet joyful. Making sure that no one appeared to be fantastical. Making sure that Martha’s Vineyard, and Oak Bluffs in particular, was real, because this is a real experience. African-Americans have been summering on Oak Bluffs since before the Harlem Renaissance. People now know more about it because the Obamas are there. But this has been for African-Americans for a really long time, and I wanted to make sure that that came across — that kind of elegance, that kind of joyfulness, came across. And that Black excellence. I wanted that to really leap off the page.
I started out kind of writing this beach read because I feel like there aren’t enough light reads centering [on] people of color, centering African-Americans. I never find it. That’s why I wrote the book because, you know, Toni Morrison says that if there’s a book that you want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it. Well, I was looking for a nice summer read, and I couldn’t find it. I was looking all over for a cover with a Black person on the cover, and I didn’t see it.
I thought it was important to center that. I also didn’t want it to be so light. Because I think the lived experience, particularly of women that are coming of age in their fears and in their love lives, is very complicated. I wanted to explore the issues that we face. Issues of colorism, issues of trying to get pregnant, issues of wanting to have it all and maybe not being able to have that, issues of interracial dating, divorced parents, homosexuality being accepted by the community — all those things. I thought, you know, if I’m going to write a book about the lived experience of women in a multigenerational experience, then I need to do it right because I know there’s a thirst for it. And I needed to explore those issues honestly. I was really nervous about it.
KT: That does seem like a lot to cover in one book!
SH: The other thing that was important to me is that I wanted to craft male characters that were also noble and present. The character of Omar was important to me. The character of Damon was important to me. And Carter, someone who is elegant at that age, that was also hard to write because I feel like Black men in particular are depicted in the media poorly, and sort of in this one way. I have had such a beautiful relationship with my dad. He’s always been present in my life, always supportive. In fact, he sold his house in North Carolina and has been living with us since November. And we don’t even want to let him go to Florida, where he’s already bought a place. We’re like — we’re keeping him here as long as we can because he’s wonderful! I wanted to make sure that I wrote characters like that, because we don’t see them enough.
KT: You have this beautiful quote about young people and love in the book: “Young people and all their foolishness, she thought. You spend a quarter of your life or more looking for love. Then you spend the next twenty-five years figuring out how to love. Then you spend the remaining decades knowing just how little time you have to love.” What advice would you give young people, or anyone, about love, especially after meeting the characters you’ve crafted?
SH: You have to cherish it. That’s what’s most important because you’re just not promised tomorrow. You don’t know what’s going to be. I think my advice is — I’ve tried to live it; I’ve been married over 20 years — my advice is to nurture the love each and every day. Once you have it, nurture it and hold on to it. Hold on to it dearly because you truly are not promised tomorrow.
KT: This is book one of a three-book series. Are we going to meet a set of new characters in the next book or will there be continued focus on Ama, Perry, Billie, and Olivia?
SH: Well, I am about 100 pages into the next book. You will meet new characters, but you will also see Olivia again, and you will hear from Ama and Carter again. And that’s all I know right now.
KT: What was your favorite part of your summers as a young woman?
SH: My favorite part of summer as a young woman was my trips with my friends to Oak Bluffs. We would actually scrape our money together. We’d all rent a house together, and all pile in. I don’t know how we all fit into homes; we would all pile in and have parties. And we generally had one mixtape at the time, and we would just play it over and over and over and over again. I remember those days fondly; it was just beach, music, and fun. That recipe still stands, doesn’t it?
Read this interview on Shondaland.com.