Before I wrote The Jetsetters, which is set on a fictional cruise ship called The Splendido Marveloso, I had never set foot on a megaliner. Friends had told me about the delectable buffets, disco dancing under the stars, and nachos at midnight. My favorite essay, “Shipping Out: On the (nearly lethal) comforts of a luxury cruise,” by David Foster Wallace, is set on a cruise ship. Something about a floating universe in the middle of an ocean seemed wonderfully surreal to me, a place where anything was possible.
One July morning, as summer temperatures hovered above a hundred-and-ten degrees, I was flipping through a travel magazine while my children ate Lucky Charms (and Flintstones multivitamins…I was doing my best!). I saw an advertisement for a Mediterranean cruise. A small voice in my mind said, “Amanda, you do not belong in a Texas kitchen in a worn-out, pink bathrobe. You belong on that cruise ship balcony, gazing out at a foreign sea!”
I’m forty-seven years old, and nobody lives forever. When a small voice in my mind speaks to me, I listen. But as with many fantasies, life gets in the way. I have the novelist job I’ve always dreamed of, three children with wildly different schedules, and a husband who’s often traveling for work. Life can be hectic and finances tight so unfortunately, I can’t just hop on a plane to Europe.
But the next morning, I woke with a fictional cast of characters in my mind, a family who would win a Mediterranean cruise and come together. Suddenly, I realized I could write my way into my dreams.
As I wrote, I thought of my own family. I have two sisters who both live in San Francisco, California, and my mom lives in Savannah, Georgia. Our time together is rare and precious, and I miss them with a constant ache. How wonderful it would be, I thought, if we were all together on a cruise!
From the start, I could clearly see the fictional Perkins family in my imagination—each member fragile and seeking to feel comfortable in their own skins, each with secrets they don’t believe anyone will ever understand.
I wrote feverishly, creating Charlotte and her cat, Godiva, sending Lee from Los Angeles to Savannah. When I was grocery shopping, I asked myself what each Perkins family member might buy for dinner. I chose a home for each one on Zillow.com, noting their kitchens and bedrooms…perusing Yelp to choose their favorite local restaurants.
But when it came time for the Perkins to board a cruise ship, I was stuck. What did a balcony cabin look like? What was actually served at an endless buffet? Were there really water slides and movie theaters on these marvelous ships?
Thrilled beyond measure, I realized I would have to go on a cruise…for tax-deductible research!
I found a ship called the Carnival Vista, which had just been built in Italy and was embarking on a few voyages in the Mediterranean before heading to its permanent home in Galveston, Texas. Hitting the “purchase” button to reserve a balcony stateroom on a journey from Athens, Greece to Barcelona, Spain, was one of the most thrilling moments of my life. The web site proclaimed, “Welcome to Fun!” I was ready.
I left my small daughter with her father and took my two sons to Europe. When we first saw the Vista from a parking lot in Piraeus, Greece, I gasped. It was bigger than I’d ever imagined, crowned with an insane, multicolored waterslide.
The ten days that followed were a blur of joy, ancient ruins, pasta, and endless cheeseburgers from Guy’s Burger Bar. With no chores or dishes, my boys and I were able to spend hours playing cards, talking, and really connecting in a way we were never able to at home. I could relax, the endless “To Do list” in my head short enough to give me room to breathe. I documented everything from our shore excursions to the comedy club onboard.
“If anyone found your phone,” my son said, scrolling through my snaps of carpet, lighting fixtures, and the twenty-four hour frozen yogurt machine, “they’d think you were crazy.”
Each night, I took my notebook and a mug of tea onto my balcony. As the sun set over the ocean, my pen moved quickly as I started to understand how a cruise would allow my fictional jetsetters to come together in new and surprising ways. I wrote a pivotal scene inspired by a cooking class my boys and I took at a Sicilian estate. When numerous announcements relayed that a passenger hadn’t made it back on the Carnival ship in time, I envisioned how a Perkins family member might be stranded in a European port city.
I was surprised by how my own sons and I came to know each other better after ten days with nothing to do but enjoy each other, win trivia contests, and watch musical revues side-by-side. I had moments of just gazing at my boys, time to listen, and evenings spent reading by the side of a rooftop soccer field while my boys played with kids from all over the world.
When I got home with pile of maps, menus, receipts, and snapshots, I finished the first draft of “The Jetsetters”. My own cruise had shown me how the floating world of a ship could enable the Perkins family to be vulnerable with each other, to open up and truly see each other…maybe for the first time. Back in my pink bathrobe, I worked to give the Perkins family what we all desire: to be known and accepted by those we love the most.
I’ll never forget the nights we spent on that Mediterranean cruise. I was over five thousand miles away from Texas, but tucked in between two of my favorite people, the sea rocking me softly to sleep, I was home.
