Elin Hilderbrand’s Nantucket "Swan Song" achieves perfect pitch

Note: Text has been edited and does not match audio exactly.

Margaret Hargrove: Hi, listeners. I'm Audible Editor Margaret Hargrove, and today I'm excited to be speaking with bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand about the final book in her prolific Nantucket summer series, Swan Song. Welcome, Elin.

Elin Hilderbrand: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.

MH: So, Elin, I hope you don't mind, but I’d like to start at the end. So, why now? Why does now feel like the right time to stop writing your summer books?

EH: So, I've written 30 novels. Swan Song is my 30th novel. Twenty-seven of them are set on Nantucket. And I have come to the end of what I consider to be quality material. The last three have been very challenging to write just because I've endeavored not to repeat myself. I want to have fresh takes on the island and the dramas unfolding. And I never want to deliver a book that is subpar. I never want to turn in something that feels like it's warmed over or phoned in. And so my instincts tell me—my instincts are always pretty good—my instincts tell me that this is the time to put the business plan that I've been basically following for the last 24 years, which is one Nantucket book per summer, and for seven years I did two books a year, and just put an end cap to this part of my writing career, which is, you know, Nantucket summer novel, those are coming to an end.

MH: You do say in the author's note, "For now."

EH: For now [laughs]. Yeah, I mean, it's so funny because of course, as soon as I said I was going to retire, I have two or three ideas for Nantucket-based novels. Now, before anybody gets too excited, I desperately need a break. I have been on deadline basically my entire adult life. For sure my children's lives. And so on my first novel, back in 2000, my son was six months old. So I have been on deadline for their entire lives, and they've never known me not stressed out. And so I need a break, and I think my kids, even though they're now young adults in their late teens, early twenties, they would love, I think, to have my full attention.

MH: So, as your last Nantucket novel, the premise of Swan Song is very fitting. Police Chief Ed Kapenash is just days away from his own retirement when on the same night one of the island's most luxurious homes burns down under suspicious circumstances and a young woman goes missing. Was it your intention to parallel Chief Ed's swan song with your own?

EH: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I always knew that the chief would be retiring when I'm retiring. The chief started, appeared, in the summer of 2009 with my novel The Castaways. And he's popped up every year or two since then and has really been my one sturdy recurring character. When you have a lot of drama in your novels, you need a police chief. And Ed has served. And I tease this a little bit in the last couple of books by saying that he'd been suffering from chest pain, and so we know that he's got some health issues. So, now is the time for him to retire, and I definitely wanted that to resonate with my own retirement.

MH: Speaking of characters coming back, I think your fans will be delighted to find memorable characters from your earlier stories pop up in Swan Song and see how their lives have moved on and changed over the years. Which character were you most excited to bring back in Swan Song and why?

EH: Well, I think I was most excited to give Blond Sharon a star turn. So, to go back, Blond Sharon appears the first time in the summer of 2015 in my novel The Rumor. And a little side note: When I do speaking events, people always ask me, "Do you ever put real people in your novels?" And the answer is no, real people don't fit into fiction in a way that makes sense because in fiction everything is crafted to move the narrative, and real people just don't fit. That said, when I wrote my novel The Rumor, I wanted to have a subject deal with the subject of gossip and rumors on Nantucket. And so I thought to myself, "I'm going to put every single person on Nantucket who gossips into this book." And Blond Sharon at that time was based on a friend of mine who is blond and whose name is not Sharon but is not far from Sharon. And I know she read the book and she did not recognize herself. And so I thought, "This is so funny. People never recognize themselves when they're portrayed even a little bit negatively." So that was a good lesson for me.

"Love triangles are just the best, the best to write about, especially when you're writing beach books, because you’re creating a lot of tension, a lot of drama, a lot of gravitas."

Anyway, Sharon, in later books, turns out she has a sister named Heather. I also have a sister named Heather. And then in this novel, she decides she wants to be a writer. And so now, really, the way things have evolved, I am Blond Sharon. And I wanted to give her a star turn in this novel. I wanted her to have her own storyline, and I think it's my favorite storyline in Swan Song.

MH: I love that you take nuggets of real life and put them into your books. You lived on Nantucket for 30 years. How do the other local residents feel about your novels? I’m just curious, what sort of feedback or ideas have you received over the years?

EH: When I started out, I mean, of course, nobody knew what this was going to become. I had absolutely no idea. So, when I started out, I think people were sort of amused by it. And then I think they continued to be amused. And people on Nantucket read them and enjoyed them because they could recognize things. And then it became like a very sort of prestigious thing to, like, get the signed book, read them every summer. It was something they did along with getting their tomatoes at Bartlett Farm and getting their beach chair to go to Great Point. They got my book and it became sort of a tradition.

And then eventually I had people thanking me for mentioning their restaurants and thanking me for mentioning their boutiques and galleries. And then people would be begging me, "Can I be in your [laughs]—Just put me in your book." And I have raised a lot of money by auctioning off putting people's names in the books. And so I think I've not heard any negative comment about the novels from people on Nantucket except for some longtime residents who feel like maybe there's more traffic now, it's busier now, and they are blaming me.

MH: So, do people come up to you at, let's say, The Chicken Box, for example, and say, "Oh my gosh, this thing happened, and you have to write about it"?

EH: Oh, yeah. Well, that happens to every writer. I get approached on Nantucket in the summer wherever I go. Wherever I go, people see me and love it, because think how fun it is. A lot of them are on Nantucket because they read my books, they're visiting, and then they bump into me, and we're on Nantucket and it's like this great synchronicity, like this great energy. Like, “Here we are on Nantucket with Elin.” And so I always try and take pictures with people. But yeah, every single writer gets approached with someone who says, "Oh, I have a great idea for a novel. You've got to write about this."

MH: Switching gears a little bit, you narrate the final chapter of Swan Song. Why did you want to do it?

EH: I mean, it felt so right for me to do it. The last chapter is my goodbye to my readers and it's very personal. And I broke down crying halfway through. And not only was I crying, but my engineer in the podcast studio was crying because he's been here a long time. And he really felt it. And he didn't even read the first part of the novel. I was just reading the last chapter and he was crying. And so I had to stop and do it again, which was fine. But it's really my goodbye to Nantucket, and so it was very important to me that they hear my voice.

MH: How did it feel to step into the recording booth as a narrator for the first time? Do you think you would do it again?

EH: Oh, yeah. No, I loved it. I loved it. I have a podcast called Books, Beach & Beyond. And so I've grown very comfortable speaking into the microphone and hearing myself played back. It takes a while to sort of develop a taste for that. It didn't take very long, but I really enjoyed my time recording the last chapter of this book.

MH: So, Erin Bennett has been your go-to narrator since 2012. She's narrated more than 20 of your novels. I have to say, she does a really fantastic Australian accent in Swan Song.

EH: Oh, I can't wait to hear it. That's so funny.

MH: How did you first come to work with Erin?

EH: So, Erin was chosen by my publisher. And I just followed their lead because I was so, you know, I didn't know anyone. And everyone raves about Erin, and I know now, because I know a little bit more about the audio industry. I even know other narrators and I know the ways that your listeners have their favorite narrators. And it's acting. I mean, she is an actor and she does such a phenomenal job. And I know she wins all kinds of awards. And I'm nothing if not consistent, and so it's been very important to me that Erin just continue to narrate my books.

MH: There's a fun bonus chapter in the audiobook that features a conversation between you and Erin. And she mentions that you two only recently met when she came on your podcast. How would you describe your working relationship with her?

EH: Well, I'd never met her. I've never met her in person. The only time I met her, she came on my podcast and she was in the studio, so I didn't even really get a good look at her because she was in the booth. But our working relationship is, you know, I'm aware that for over 100,000 readers, she is the voice of these books. And we have this wonderful, wonderful relationship and we have, like, a connection, and I am so grateful to her. She does such a phenomenal, phenomenal job.

MH: Has anything about Erin's narration surprised you when you listen back to it?

EH: I guess when we first started, I just thought she would read it. I didn't realize how much acting was involved. And so that to me was so delightful.

MH: And since she's become your go-to narrator, do you hear Erin's voice when you write?

EH: No, I don't. I hear my own voice. And that is such a funny question. No, I hear my own voice. And I'm writing, or I'm also finished writing at this point, a novel with my daughter set in a New England boarding school coming out in September of 2025 called The Academy. And even though it's a completely different kind of novel, I still sound like myself. I'm like, "This is an Elin Hilderbrand novel." And then it's an intangible. Like, I can't say why, but when the lines come out, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is so me." So, it's definitely my own voice I hear in my head, thank goodness.

MH: You sort of tipped to my next question. You are collaborating on a new book series with your daughter. After writing solo for so many years, what has it been like writing with your daughter?

EH: Well, it's eye-opening. So, one of the most important things about The Academy is that I wanted it to sound like, I mean, it's a boarding school novel set now, so my student characters are all Gen Z. And Gen Z is a generation that has its own language, and I don't speak it. And so I needed Shelby Cunningham, my daughter, to write the student characters so that they were convincingly Gen Z and not to sound like Gen X writing Gen Z. So that has been her main job. It's told from multiple points of view. There's the head of school, there are the teachers. There's a short section with the parents. Those I can all handle. When I'm trying to sound like a 17-year-old, I definitely needed her help. I sent her the first half of the book. She went through it. She's making all these notes. She's like, "No, no, no, no. No one my age would ever say that. You are such a boomer." Leaving me little notes through it [laughs]. It was quite humbling.

"I don't think there's a single thing I would do differently...I'm proud of the books that I've written."

MH: You graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a degree in creative writing, and you briefly worked in book publishing and as a teacher before moving to Nantucket. What inspired you to start writing novels? Had you always wanted to write books?

EH: Always, always, since I was little. Yeah. When I was in second grade, cool story, at the end of the year in second grade, my second-grade teachers gave me the top author award. And as soon as they said it, I thought, "Yes, I am an author." And if somebody else had gotten that award, I would've been so upset. I didn't even really know it, but then as soon as they said it, I'm like, "That is me." And you know, I don't know if they saw any great talent in me at seven, but they knew that I loved to write stories. And their belief in me really set me on my path.

And when I was in high school, other kids were going to soccer camp and I went to creative writing camp. They had a creative writing camp at the University of Virginia, and I went for two years. And then I became a counselor. In college, I became a counselor at a creative writing camp held at Duke. And I was always writing stories and I started sending them out while I was in college. And my first short story, called “Misdirection,” was published in Seventeen Magazine in January of 1993. And so I always wanted to be a writer. I applied to the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop after I'd been out of college for a couple of years, and I was accepted. And then when I was at Iowa, I worked on stories and then, eventually, I started writing my first novel, The Beach Club.

MH: So, The Beach Club, like you said, your first novel, that was published in 2000, and Swan Song is now your 30th novel. So, after writing so many stories over the years, what helps you feel creative?

EH: I'm going to say reading. I read all the time. And reading really inspires me to want to get writing. So, especially if I get blocked, I'll just read. And I'm so established at this point that I'm not worried about borrowing somebody else's voice because I have my own voice. It's just like, when I read really good writing, especially, you know, I read a lot of literary fiction, really good writing, that is what inspires me.

MH: Do you have a favorite novel out of all of the ones you've written?

EH: I have two. My early favorite is The Blue Bistro. And for a long time if you were in a room with 100 Elin Hilderbrand fans, 99 would say that they loved The Blue Bistro. But of my recent novels, 28 Summers is my favorite. I absolutely love that book.

MH: Why? What about it?

EH: Yeah, it's so funny, the thing the two of them have in common is, of course, the love triangle. And love triangles are just the best, the best to write about, especially when you're writing beach books, because you’re creating a lot of tension, a lot of drama, a lot of gravitas. I mean, it's serious business. And so each of them have a love triangle. The relationship in 28 Summers, it's a rewrite of The Same Time Next Year, the movie with Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn. And in that play, it was actually started as a play, you only see those two characters. You don't see the people that they've left behind when they meet every year. And I thought to myself, "I can do better. I can do better or I can take this play and turn it into something that is richer and rounder and more dimensioned." And so that is why I love that book.

MH: So, now that you've come to your final Nantucket novel, looking back on your career over the past 25 years, is there anything you would change or do differently?

EH: That is such a great question. I don't think so. And the great thing about it is that I had no intention, I don't think I had any intention to write 30 books. I thought maybe 10. Three kids, 10 books. I thought that would be enough. And then every summer I kept having a new idea, and each book did better than the last book. And my career kept growing, and it really was like an upward trajectory. And that's another reason why I'm retiring, because you can't just stay in that forever. And so I figure, rather than watching the inevitable downslide, I would just stop now while I'm—you know, quit while you're ahead.

I don't think there's a single thing I would do differently. You know, possibly, because recently, in the last five or six years, I've been hyperaware about making the books more diverse and inclusive, and so maybe if I went back and rewrote some of the earlier books, I would make them more diverse and inclusive. But other than that, I think I'm proud of the books that I've written.

MH: You are known as the queen of beach reads, but I'm curious, what do you enjoy reading when you're on vacation or at the beach?

EH: I never go on vacation, Margaret. I'm only kidding [laughs]. When I'm on vacation, when I'm really relaxing, I mean, of course, I'm always reading. And it's so funny, I had Sarah Jessica Parker on my podcast, and she said, "A beach read is just what you have time to read when you're relaxing." And I really only read contemporary literary fiction. So I try and read the best books that I can. I like to say I read a little above myself. Like, I love Maggie O'Farrell. I think she's the best writer in the English language right now. I love the books that people are choosing for their book clubs, chances are I've read them. Anything that is interesting, and I love marriage novels. I love star-crossed-lover novels. So that's what I will pick up.

MH: Several of your novels are being adapted for the screen, including The Perfect Couple, starring Nicole Kidman, which I believe is coming to Netflix very soon. Are there any screen-related updates you can share with us about any of your adaptations in the works?

EH: So, yeah, Netflix will be bringing out The Perfect Couple this year. I know when, but I'm not allowed to tell you. And The Five-Star Weekend is in development at Peacock with a brilliant, brilliant screenwriter. So excited about that. And the Winter Street series, my holiday series, has been picked up by a studio called Wiip, who did Mare of Easttown. And the producers there are so excited about it, so I'm also excited. And that will have the same screenwriter as The Perfect Couple. And Swan Song has been optioned by an undisclosed buyer. I know who it is, but I can't tell you. And so Swan Song, fingers crossed, will also make it to the screen.

MH: You cohost a very fun podcast aptly called Books, Beach & Beyond that launched last year. What made you decide to dip your toe into the podcast pool?

EH: You know, honestly, it was an idea that I had for my retirement. And my cohost, Tim Ehrenberg, who is the marketing director at the bookstores here on Nantucket, he was like, "Oh, you're never going to have time to do that." And then, magically, last year, before I was ready, he said, "Guess what? Nantucket Magazine is discontinuing their podcast. They have this beautiful podcast studio and they're going to let us use it. We should start now." And last year was probably my craziest, most phrenetic year, but I said, "Okay, if you do all the work, I will come on."

And so we put together an unbelievable roster of guests. And I felt so gratified because one of the things that I am able to do now after 30 years of 30 books is call or email other authors and ask them to come on. And I started with Colleen Hoover. I emailed CoHo. I said, "You know, honey, I'm starting this podcast. Will you be our guest?" And she said, "Anything for you, Elin." And then I went to everybody else and I said, "Colleen Hoover's going to be on my podcast. Would you also like to be on the podcast?" And we got Taylor Jenkins Reid and Kristin Hannah and Jennifer Weiner and Jodi Picoult and Ann Patchett and all these incredible—Maggie O'Farrell. Incredible, incredible writers. And I have to say, I was humbled and honored and just gratified. And I think maybe the best thing about my job was being able to reach out and get these other extremely talented people to come and talk with us.

MH: So, one last question before we go, because I know that you're a huge Peloton fan, do you still Peloton?

EH: Yes, every day.

MH: Are you bike, tread, row, or a combination?

EH: Like I said, I am a consistent person, so I do a 45-minute ride every single day unless travel prohibits. And my favorite instructor is Jenn Sherman, who is just by far, I love her so, so much. She's like my girl. And then I love Emma and Dennis as well. Yes, dedicated, avowed Peloton person.

MH: Same here. I'm a bike and tread person, and I do it every single day. I just did 30 minutes this morning with Tunde [laughs]. So, love Peloton.

EH: I love Tunde. She's so beautiful. Oh my God, she is beautiful.

MH: Yes, I actually went, I've been to the studio a few times to take classes in person. I live close to the studio and she's amazing, stunning, stunning.

EH: Oh my gosh, that's my dream. I think my dream in retirement is to make it to the Peloton studio.

MH: Yes. It’s a great one. Well, Elin, thank you so much for your time today. I really enjoyed our chat. And listeners, you can get Elin's final Nantucket book, Swan Song, right now on Audible. Thanks so much, Elin.

EH: Thank you, Margaret.