Interview with Kelly S. Thompson, Author of Still, I Cannot Save You
Dr. Kelly S. Thompson is a former military officer with an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC and a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Gloucestershire. Dr. Thompson won the House of Anansi Press Golden Anniversary Award for fiction, the 2014 and 2017 Barbara Novak Award for Personal Essay, and was longlisted for the 2021 CBC Nonfiction prize and a National Magazine Award.
Her essays, fiction and poetry have appeared in literary magazines, trade publications, and anthologies. Her memoir, Girls Need Not Apply, was an instant Globe and Mail bestseller and was listed as one of the top 100 Books of 2019.
Dr. Kelly S. Thompson’s memoir, Still, I Cannot Save You, is out now from Penguin Random House. She sat down to answer questions on grief, honesty, and the value of literature and art.
Jacquelyn Scott: Congratulations on the release of Still, I Cannot Save You! What is this memoir about?
Dr. Kelly S. Thompson: Still, I Cannot Save You is a memoir about grief around complicated relationships, with themes of abuse, addiction, and love.
My sister, Meghan, was an addict for many years, which really damaged our relationship, so the book starts there. When she was sober and became a mother, we reconnected, only to have her receive a terminal cancer diagnosis the day after giving birth, so a lot of the book is steeped in some really emotional, tricky moments together, but full of beauty and love.
Not exactly light and frothy subject matter! Ha.
Scott: What are some pleasures and challenges you had when revisiting the past with your sister?
Dr. Thompson: Meghan’s death was so...horrific on so many levels. Right when I thought it couldn’t get worse, it somehow did because her husband was abusive in a wide variety of ways, she was leaving behind two children, and a lot of her choices were difficult to rationalize, even in the face of her death. The scene where she dies was especially hard to write because she physically suffered so deeply that whenever I closed my eyes to think about it, it was deeply traumatizing. I spent a lot of time talking about that in therapy, journaling, and, well, crying.
What was nice, though, was to return to times when my sister and I were reconnecting in ways, which reminded me of the value of sisterhood. For a long time, I had accepted that I would live a life without my sister in it, so reuniting was a gift I’ll always cherish. My sister really taught me how to be a caregiver, and how to show love through action.
Scott: How did you balance humor with the heavy topics of addiction, abuse, and terminal illness?
Dr. Thompson: This is the best question! My sister and I had very similar senses of humour, and I think like a lot of kids, half of our banter related to making fun of our parents a little bit ;-) So a lot of the humour is in the dialogue. We joked that we had a lot of death jokes, which the hospice employees understood entirely!
Laughter has always been our family’s way of coping. And the book is full of so many hard moments that I had to find space for levity. My mom has MS and also is a cancer survivor, and my Dad is a cancer survivor too. I found out I couldn’t have kids on the day my sister gave birth and found out she had cancer...so all this to say, like everyone, we’ve carried some serious loads of luggage that, if we weren’t laughing about it, we wouldn’t have been able to keep going. I think anyone who has really emotionally bonded with someone–those inside jokes, those secret, shared moments–will see themselves reflected here.
Scott: How did you practice self-care when refacing those traumas for your memoir?
Dr. Thompson: I remember when I toured for my first memoir, I was shocked to discover how emotional the process was, rehashing all my most upsetting moments in interviews, in readings, that kind of thing. Also, when you write memoir, people feel free to share their own painful experiences with me, and sometimes I carried that with me long after the book tour. I wanted to help everyone who was suffering, even though I’m not a professional.
At the same time, thinking of the person who needs my book in order to feel seen helps me to keep going when it feels difficult. I wrote this book because it didn’t exist when I was dealing with my sister’s death.
I also really ensured I was in regular therapy, taking my medications, and reaching out to people I love when I was struggling.
Scott: How do you balance honesty and privacy in your work?
Dr. Thompson: I think some people have a sense that if you give them part of your life, you owe them your whole life. I’m naturally a very open person, so that often works in my favour, but ultimately, memoir is a curated selection of scenes from my life, not an autobiography, which would summarize everything I’ve experienced. So, I just trust that I share what I am comfortable sharing and keep private what I’m not.
A reader will sense, though, if I’m not being forthcoming. Memoir demands that the author shine the same harsh light of emotional interrogation on themselves as they do on other characters and experiences in their lives. So, you have to be willing to do the work.
Scott: Are there any themes you find yourself returning to again and again?
Dr. Thompson: A lot of my writing focuses on taking a life experience, turning it up towards the light, and trying to make sense of it. I do often return to a theme of personal growth–things I thought I knew when I was younger but my understanding of that knowledge has changed with education, time, and progress. But grief was a new theme for me, so much so that I did a Creative Writing PhD examining how we write about grief!
Scott: What do you think the value of literature and art is in today’s culture?
Dr. Thompson: Ah! What a wonderful question.
Literacy gives us power to move within the world, and art is something that can be created, cultivated, and cherished by absolutely anyone, all while building a sense of community. But I’m not foolish enough to think that barriers aren’t in place that limit some people’s access to literacy and art, including racism, misogyny, and homophobia. That’s why libraries are EVERYTHING because they provide us free access in a safe, welcoming space.
I often think that there is nothing quite like sitting with a book that exposes an experience that is either similar or different to our own. By that I mean, books have the power to effect change, because we are forced to hear a story through another person’s eyes, even if that person is a fictional character. If the author has done their work well, then the reader has a sense of being in someone else’s shoes, which builds the compassion and empathy that the world needs today!
Scott: How do you like readers to connect with you?
Dr. Thompson: Oh, readers connecting is the BEST part of the job! Email! Social Media (where, I warn you, I post a LOT of dog photos!)! In person! However they contact me, I always, always respond. [Here are links to Dr. Thompson’s social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.]
Goodreads is a place I tend to not go because it can be devastating and harsh..bad reviews are allowed, of course, and people can have their opinions, but it can be totally gutting to read people who are slamming not only my writing and art, but my life.
When I wrote my first book, which looked at sexual harassment in my military career, I received at least one email a day from someone who shared my story on a personal level. But there was also some horrific hate mail from people who told me I should be raped silent, amongst other things. I delete the nasty emails, but keep the lovely ones for days I need to be reminded to keep going.
Scott: What are you currently reading or working on?
Dr. Thompson: I’m actually working on a thriller right now! I love to read thrillers, and so I have a bit of a feminist take on one that is about to go off to my agent! Fiction has been borderline paralysing because I’m overwhelmed by choice. Unlike nonfiction, anything can happen!
But I read really widely and broadly. When I need to be soothed about the ugliness in the world right now, I turn to Ivan Coyote’s Care Of, which is a collection of responses to readers who wrote to the author. It reminds me of all the love and beauty in the world, all easily read in little snippets. I’m also into a lot of essay collections right now, like Samantha Irby and Lauren Hough.
Scott: What is the best piece of writing advice you’ve received?
Dr. Thompson: Embrace the word barf! Technically, this is my own advice to students, which is stolen a bit from Anne Lamott and her advice to give yourself permission to write "shitty first drafts." Sometimes, you have to not pressure yourself to write something stunning right out of the gate...let it just roll onto the page in all its ugly, which I affectionately call "word barf!" ha. Making the writing beautiful and full of rich metaphor and imagery can be a Later Kelly problem. Current Kelly just needs to get the words down!
Scott: Any last words?
Dr. Thompson: Reviews on Amazon, bookseller sites and Goodreads mean everything to authors, so if you love their book, please pop a review online. It can be the difference between their book being promoted by some of these outlets.
Keep reading!
From Penguin Random House:
Still, I Cannot Save You by Kelly S. Thompson
With honesty, love, and humour in this moving memoir, Kelly S. Thompson explores her relationship with her older sister, Meghan. Tested by addiction, abuse, and illness, the sisters’ relationship crumbles, only to be rebuilt into an everlasting bond.
Kelly Thompson, and her older sister, Meghan, are proof that sisterhood doesn’t always equate to friendship. While they were mostly temperamental opposites, growing up in a military family forged their connection—Kelly, an anxious child, looked to her big sister for protection, and Meghan, who was being treated for kidney cancer, adored her younger sister. But when, as a teenager, Meghan becomes addicted to cocaine and opioids, putting the family under new strain, Kelly is forced to reevaluate her family role as her relationship with Meghan is torn apart. As time passes, the distance between the sisters only increases as Meghan slips deeper into addiction and chooses a series of abusive partners.
Meanwhile, Kelly sets her own course, enrolling in the military at eighteen, moving across the country and marrying the love of her life, while pursuing her dream of becoming a writer. It’s only when Meghan becomes a mother that she and Kelly tentatively begin to face past hurts and reexamine what sisterhood really means. Just as they reunite, Meghan is diagnosed with terminal cancer the day after the birth of her second child. Now, as the family reels at the prospect of the biggest loss, Kelly and Meghan will draw on their mutual dark sense of humour and deep understanding of each other, to share all they can in the time that they have.
At once funny, inspiring, and heartbreaking, Still, I Cannot Save You is a story about addiction, abuse, tragedy, and illness, but above all, it is a powerful portrait of an enduring love between two sisters.
Get your copy from Penguin Random House.
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