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In the course of a heavy workday with a lineup of 20 patients, she received an urgent text from her American editor to call her immediately.Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.Unlimited online access to National Post.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.Unlimited online access to National Post.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountorAnderson’s response to that message was brief. “I can’t call you because I’m seeing patients.” Those patients had priority. It was only during a short break later that she was able to contact her editor and learn that her novel, The Wild Beneath, had become actress Reese Witherspoon’s latest choice for her popular reading club.“I remember folding into a chair and crying,” Anderson says now. But she had to collect herself. “It was probably one of the most joyful moments of my life, but I also knew I had to keep going with my patients.” Her workday continued.She’s adept at compartmentalizing her life. “Writing this book was a huge priority to the point that I would get up every morning at 5 o’clock to write it. And then would have my clinical day after that because I work full time in medicine.”The Wild Below is a novel immersed in the magic and mystery of the Pacific Northwest and the waters Anderson came to know and love as a child. But it’s something of a wonder to her that this book ever happened at all. “I never planned to write fiction,” she stresses. “It was never on my agenda to write a novel.”Then came an ordinary winter morning in 2019 when something strange happened: a book that in many ways was “fully imagined” abruptly entered her life.She was doing a three-point turn on her driveway in Ontario. The sun was blinding and she had forgotten her sunglasses. An otherworldly image entered her mind — someone standing on the beach, and that someone would later take on the name of Walker in the book. There was a humming sound. “This character was saying something to me about metamorphosis … I was transfixed.”Weeks later she started writing.She wrote and rewrote The Wild Beneath four times. There were lives she needed to explore — not just lives that intertwined with each other but also with the ocean that is a dominant presence in the remote community of Hale’s Landing. And for much of the book it’s a community on life support after a devastating tsunami that will test its survival and resilience to the limit.The Wild BeneathKelly AndersonHarperCollinsA young woman named Annie faces an especially cruel testing: her parents have been swept away in the storm, her world is shattered and even the ocean water that was once a friend has become a menace. But she has a support system: there’s Annie’s childhood sweetheart, Evan, who has long learned to live with her strangeness; there’s her indomitable grandmother Ruth; and there’s Walker, the mysterious young man she rescues from the wreckage and with whom she senses an elemental, ethereal connection.“Many humans encounter moments in their lives where everything is swept away, where they lose everything,” Anderson says. “In its place, there is grief and a loss of identity. Everything Annie knew is lost and she goes through a period of not even being able to recognize her identity … she has lost some thread of herself. But I believe there are always ways to find finding the way home to ourselves.”Anderson herself was seeking her own way back when she began writing this book. She doesn’t use the word “burnout” but does say “I was drowning in my own life.” There was the challenge of practising medicine in a beleaguered system: “I think the practice of medicine is sacred. People at vulnerable places in their lives put those lives in your hands.” There were also the pressures of family: two young children and a husband in slow recovery from a traumatic brain injury. Every numbing day seemed to look the same: “I had forgotten in my own life what it meant to be a person.”So was the creation of The Wild Beneath of therapeutic value? Anderson, 44, is talking to Postmedia from the West Coast, her current stop in a North American publicity tour. She pauses in answering the question and then says that the book has changed her in a positive way, “I think authors often try to answer their own life questions inside a novel. For me it was a question having to do with when our lives are feeling really mundane and we have lost the spark of living, How do we find our way back? When I look at the book now, I think it really addresses the question of what matters most in human life.”Yet, when it comes the power of the ocean, questions remain unanswered. And in making the ocean a major character in her novel, Anderson is unhesitatingly embracing the drama of the unknown. Standing on the edge of that unknown in the Pacific Northwest always gives her a sense of awe.“The ocean gives us more than we can contend with in our human brain. We know more about outer space than we do about the depths of the ocean. I think that at a time of environmental uncertainty, there’s the reassurance that the ocean still has a mystery that remains unrevealed to us — full of life … but with unknown paths.” Join the Conversation This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.