Mikki Brammer's The Collected Regrets of Clover is a big-hearted and life-affirming debut about a death doula who, in caring for others at the end of their life, has forgotten how to live her own. Mikki chats about Clover and her other memorable characters, and addressing her own regret in the writing of this astounding book.
Clover comes across as quite emotionally intelligent and good with people, and yet she has ended up as a loner. What was your thinking behind that?
Having lived in big cities like Barcelona, New York, and Paris, I’ve always been intrigued by the fact that large metropolises with millions of inhabitants are often where people are loneliest. And that even though we live in one another’s pockets, we can’t seem to find a way to connect. It’s easy to class loners as misanthropes or anti-social people, but the more I read about the psychology of loneliness, the more it became clear that often people become that way by circumstance. Once people see you a certain way, it’s difficult to get them to see you any other way. In Clover’s case, her interest in death is what initially isolated her from others, even though she quite likes people and is very intuitive and empathetic, and then solitude kind of became a habit. So I wanted to show that, while loneliness is something many people experience, it’s not always because they are loners or lack social skills. I think a lot of people get stuck in the box of being a “loner” but are actually quite social and emotionally intelligent when given the chance to flex that muscle.
Several of the main characters—Grandpa, Claudia, Leo, and Bessie—are elderly people. Why was this important to you?
My brother and I were raised by a single mother in Tasmania, and so that meant that a lot of our extended family—grandparents and great aunts and uncles—stepped in to help. And it was many of those people who shaped my outlook on life by igniting my sense of curiosity and adventure, and fostering my passion for reading and storytelling. I think most of us have at least one elder who played a significant role in our lives and I wanted this book to be a love letter of sorts to those treasured people. I also wanted to make sure the elderly people in this book weren’t just side characters who served Clover’s narrative. It was important that they had rich, interesting back stories that revealed them as flawed human beings whose own challenges and regrets forged the deep wisdom they share with Clover.
Having considered so many people’s regrets while writing the book, did this help you address any of your own?
Now that I’m well-versed in what people tend to regret at the end of their lives, it does serve as a kind of motivator for me, and I often try to ask myself “will I regret not doing this?” I did find it interesting that many regrets were simple things like not treating yourself to the fancy laundry detergent (which I have since done!). That said, I don’t believe that regrets are necessarily a bad thing; if we learn and grow from them, they can help us become better people. For example, when I lived in Barcelona in my early twenties, I was very shy and didn’t know how to dance, so I always said no when someone asked me to dance with them. Anyone who has lived in Spain knows how much dancing—salsa, especially—is part of their culture, so I felt like I was missing out by not joining in. When I came home from Spain, I took dancing lessons so that I would always be able to say yes whenever someone asked me to dance while traveling. And I’m so glad I did because it’s led to many fun experiences—dancing the two-step in Texas, swing dancing in Paris, and, many years later, salsa in Spain. If I hadn’t had that initial regret, I wouldn’t have been able to experience those things, so in the end it served me well!
The Collected Regrets of Clover by Mikki Brammer is out now.
YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY
Extract: The Collected Regrets of Clover by Mikki Brammer