This week on The Write Question, host Lauren Korn speaks with debut novelist Eliana Ramage, author of To the Moon and Back (Avid Reader Press, Simon & Schuster).
About the book:
Steph Harper is on the run. She has been all her life, ever since her mother drove five-year-old Steph and her younger sister through the night to Cherokee Nation, a place they had never been, but where she hoped they might finally belong. In response to the turmoil, Steph sets her sights as far away from Oklahoma as she can get, vowing that she will let nothing get in the way of pursuing the rigorous physical and academic training she knows she will need to be accepted by NASA, and ultimately, to go to the moon.
Spanning three decades and several continents, To the Moon and Back encompasses Steph’s turbulent journey, along with the multifaceted and intertwined lives of the three women closest to her: her sister Kayla, an artist who goes on to become an Indigenous social media influencer, and whose determination to appear good takes her life to unexpected places; Steph’s college girlfriend Della Owens, who strives to reclaim her identity as an adult after being removed from her Cherokee family through a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act; and Hannah, Steph and Kayla’s mother, who has held up her family’s tribal history as a beacon of inspiration to her children, all the while keeping her own past a secret.
In Steph’s certainty that only her ambition can save her, she will stretch her bonds with each of these women to the point of breaking, at once betraying their love and generosity, and forcing them to reconsider their own deepest desires in her shadow. Told through an intricately woven tapestry of narrative, To the Moon and Back is an astounding and expansive novel of mothers and daughters, love and sacrifice, alienation and heartbreak, terror and wonder. At its core, it is the story of the extraordinary lengths to which one woman will go to find space for herself.
About Eliana:
Eliana Ramage is the author of To the Moon and Back, a Reese’s Book Club pick. She holds an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has received support from Lambda Literary, Vermont Studio Center, Tin House, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center. A citizen of the Cherokee Nation, she lives in Nashville with her family.
Eliana Ramage recommends:
Nothing More of This Land: Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity by Joseph Lee (Atria/One Signal Publishers)
Big Chief by Jon Hickey (Simon & Schuster)
By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land by Rebecca Nagle (HarperCollins)
Lauren Korn recommends:
To the Moon and Back by Eliana Ramage (Avid Reader Press, Simon & Schuster)
There There by Tommy Orange (Vintage Books)
Heart the Lover by Lily King (Grove Press)
Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Grove Press)
The Employees by Olga Ravn (New Directions Publishing)
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Vintage Books)
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The Write Question team for this episode was Lauren Korn, host, co-producer, and editor; and Chris Moyles, co-producer, editor, and sound engineer. This episode is supported by Montana Book Co., located in downtown Helena, Montana, since 1978, offering new books for all ages, vinyl records, and community activism. For delivery in Helena and shipping online, visit mtbookco.com.
The Write Question logo and brand (2022) was designed by Molly Russell. You can see more of her work at iamthemollruss.com and on Instagram @iamthemollruss.
Funding for The Write Question comes from members of Montana Public Radio; and from the Greater Montana Foundation—encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans. A hat-tip to Humanities Montana for supporting this program since 2008.
The Write Question is a production of Montana Public Radio.
