Take 5 with Matthew Norman: All Together Now

We’re thrilled to bring you a Take Five interview with multi-published author and WU contributor Matthew Norman! Matthew has written four novels, including his latest–ALL TOGETHER NOW–which releases in just two days. 

Matthew lives with his wife and two daughters in Baltimore, Maryland and holds an MFA from George Mason University. His first novel, Domestic Violets, was nominated in the Best Humor Category at the 2011 Goodreads Choice Awards, and his second novel, We’re All Damaged, was an Amazon bestseller. Visit his blog at thenormannation.com, and follow him on Twitter and Instagram @TheNormanNation.

Read on to learn about his latest book–what it’s about, its unique challenges, and more!

Q: What’s the premise of your new book?

A: Here’s the pitch. Thirty-five-year-old billionaire Robbie Malcolm has a secret that he’s keeping from the world: he’s dying.

As he takes stock, Robbie realizes that his wealth means nothing if he can’t help the people who matter most. So, he invites his oldest friends—Blair, Cat, and Wade—to their beloved Fenwick Island in Delaware to share his secret and to reveal plans for each of them that he believes will change their lives forever.

However, Robbie isn’t the only one with secrets. The bonds the friends formed as teenagers still exist, but adulthood has brought a whole new set of complications, like unrequited loves, marriages on the brink, and so much unfulfilled potential. Robbie’s plans may look good on paper, but are they any match for the utter disaster that is real life?

Q: What would you like people to know about the story itself?

A: Like with most novels, there’s a lot going on here. There’s romance and comedy. I take on the limits of unlimited wealth. There’s marriage stuff galore, with plenty of child-related stressors. And I threw in plenty of bits about the sheer brilliance of the Beatles. (The title comes from one of their lesser-known songs.) First and foremost, though, this is a book about the power of enduring friendship. There’s just something great about old friends, right? They’re like siblings that we’ve chosen.

Q: What do your characters have to overcome in this story? What challenge do you set before them?

A: The four main characters have each run face-first into the most dreaded antagonists of all: the realities of adulthood. I was drawn to this because it’s such a universal human experience. When we’re young and idealistic, we have energy and optimism—we have big plans and no particular reason to believe we won’t achieve our loftiest goals. But then, a decade or so into adulthood, we so often find that our lives are miles away from where we hoped they’d be. You really only have two choices at that point: give up and sink into despair or accept imperfection and find happiness.

Q: What unique challenges did this book pose for you, if any?

A: I struggled early on with the tone of the book. I just couldn’t nail down how I wanted the damn thing to sound. My instinct as a writer is to lead with comedy and rapid-fire dialogue, but, as you can imagine, that’s a dicey proposition when you’ve given one of your main characters a terminal illness. I wanted to write something that was fun to read, but I didn’t want to shy away from the gravity of the situation I’d created. Eventually I settled on a kind of airy melancholy. The cover image captures that perfectly, I think. All Together Now is a smiley face that’s been knocked sideways. It’s sad, but it’s doing its best to look on the bright side.

Q: What has been the most rewarding aspect of having written this book?

A: Four books in now, I continue to marvel at the pure jubilation that comes with successfully finishing a novel. All in, they take years to write, and for so much of that time they feel like they could simply collapse into utter ruin at any second. More specifically, though, for this one, I’m happy that I’ve managed to write something that fits nicely on the shelf with my other novels but pushes me into some new emotional territory. Plus, it was fun to write about the Beatles. If you haven’t heard of them, you should check them out. They’re gonna be huge.

Learn more about Matthew and his novels on his website.

Writer Unboxed

Writer Unboxed began as a collaboration between Kathleen Bolton and Therese Walsh in 2006. Since then, the site has grown to include ~50 regular contributors and a variety of guests on rotation throughout a given year.

In 2016, the Writer Unboxed team published a book with Writer’s Digest / Random House. AUTHOR IN PROGRESS: A No-Holds-Barred Guide to What It Really Takes to Get Published is a comprehensive guide focused on helping writers over/around/through hurdles faced at every stage of the novel-writing process. It’s received some ***** reviews; we hope you’ll check it out.

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