Authors Interviewing Characters: Amy Lorowitz
Summer Husband
Lori Kramer, a stay-at-home mom, would go to any length to give her two daughters the summer experience of their lives – even getting a job at their camp and tagging along with them.
Aside from overseeing the chaos of four bunks filled with rambunctious kids and their counselors, Lori also manages to outwit her boss and outrun a bear – and that’s just during the first half of the summer! But those escapades are child’s play compared to her growing friendship and attraction to Teddy, the camp’s British soccer coach. Their clandestine meetings late at night behind the laundry shack soon turn hot and steamy as an August afternoon.
Lori never imagined that stepping outside of her conventional, underappreciated, New York City existence would turn her world upside down and change her life forever. Camp may be for the kids – but she’s the one having the most fun.
Amy Lorowitz interviews Lori Kramer
Author: Woodlands was your first sleep-away experience. What did you do in the summer when you were a child?
Lori: I went to a bungalow colony in Monticello, New York. Families rented bungalows for the summer. I like to say if the movies Dirty Dancing and Walk on the Moon had a baby, it would describe my bungalow colony experience.
Author: So why sleepaway camp instead of a bungalow colony?
Lori: They don’t exist in the same way they did as when I was child. Now it’s more like a cooperative where people own their bungalows and winterized them for use year-round.
Author: Why was your husband so against Zelda and Hazel going to sleep away camp?
Lori: Partly his ego. He wants and expects the girls run to greet him every time he walks through the door. If the girls were away all summer, no one would do that. Plus, he refused outright to pay for camp or go on vacation to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. That’s how I ended up going to sleepaway camp for the first time at the, let’s say, mature age of 39.
Author: Is there anything else you want to share with the readers about your marriage to Ronnie?
Lori: It wasn’t just one thing. It was an accumulation of minor issues that started to add up. He made all financial decisions without consulting me. He’d undermine me in front of our daughters and friends. I think mocking me somehow boosted his ego. Even though we decided together for me to be at home with the children, he made me feel like my opinions didn’t matter because I didn’t bring in an income. He treated me with such disdain that it made me doubt myself. We no longer meshed. There was barely any physical or mental intimacy.
Author: Do you think that if you went on the anniversary trip to Greece with Ronnie, you would have saved your marriage?
Lori: I think the Greece trip would’ve put a Band-Aid on what had become a festering wound. The wound would grow a scab, and then one of us would pick at the scab until it bled. It was only a matter of time before we would’ve broken the cycle by either going to counseling or we would separating.
Author: Tell me about your relationship with Zelda and Hazel.
Lori: I was the disciplinarian, the nag, always asking them to clean up after themselves and do their homework. The schlepper. The chauffeur. They adored their dad because he was barely around, but when he was, he’d swoop in and take them out for ice cream, cuddle with them while they watched TV. His refusal to pay for camp, well, that was the catalyst for me. I realized I had to redefine who I was in the family. I wanted to teach my daughters that if you really wanted something, you figure it out and make it happen. I made camp happen for them. Not their father. Me. And it turned out to be the best summer of their lives.
Author: How has your relationship with Zelda and Hazel changed since going to camp together?
Lori: There’s a mutual respect that hadn’t been there before. The relationships between the sisters and me, and mine with each daughter, needed mending and redefining. We learned how important we are to each other, and since our experiences at camp, we’ve bonded in a way that never would’ve happened under any other circumstances. And when we returned home, we needed and depended on each other in a way that never existed before.
Author: What did your first sleepaway camp experience teach you?
Lori: It gave me the time and space I needed to reflect on what I wanted and didn’t want in my life. It’s funny because it reestablished in me all the things I wanted my daughters to learn. Self-reliance, resilience, seeing what you’re capable of and learning how to face down a bully. Making lifelong camp friends. Zelda and Hazel were too young to get their first kiss, but I have to tell you, my first sleep-away camp kiss was worth waiting for. Do you want to hear more details about that?
Author: I think it would be more fun for our readers to read Summer Husband, to learn all about your experiences. But tell me what’s next for you?
Lori: The one thing I can say for sure is that I will be back at Woodlands next summer once again tagging along with Zelda and Hazel.
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BUY SUMMER HUSBAND HERE
Amy Lorowitz, a lifelong New Yorker, grew up in Brooklyn and graduated from SUNY Binghamton. She has spent her adult life living in Manhattan with her husband, only leaving New York for a three-year stint in Tokyo, Japan. She’s a proud mother of two daughters and Nana to two grandsons.
Summer Husband is Amy Lorowitz’s debut novel.
Category: Interviews, On Writing
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