ALL THAT FILLS US - Autumn Lytle - One Free Book

Welcome, Autumn. Can you please provide a brief summary of your debut novel, All That Fills Us? All That Fills Us follows an anorexic woman named Mel who decides to embark on a cross-country thru-hike as a last-ditch effort to make something of herself. Along the way she meets strangers with their own stories, as well as ghosts from her past who can no longer be ignored. Despite the physical challenges of the thru-hike, her own dark thoughts pose the biggest threat she’ll have to overcome in order to find peace in the life and the body she has been given.

What enables you to write a story like this? I struggled with anorexia and an exercise addiction during my middle school years. The effects of both lingered long afterward and still appear today if I’m not vigilant. Both my story and Mel’s story are messy and involve an abundance of doubts, backtracking, and sarcasm. There are a million other little things that connect Mel’s story to my own, but most importantly the heart of our stories is the same.

Can you tell us a little about your own personal connection to this topic? I will never forget my mom crying over how frail my body felt when she hugged me. Shortly after that, I found myself in an exam room at our family’s pediatric clinic, being told that I needed serious help that included therapy. I remember thinking, even at twelve years old, that there was no way my life story qualified for therapy. I had a good life and a family that loved me. Sure, kids at school could be mean, but everyone dealt with that. I felt like the disorder was my fault and my burden to bear alone, so I was determined to fix it and prove that I could still be the good girl with the promising future who helped others instead of adding to their struggles. Luckily, there were people in my life, like my mom, who stood by my side despite my best efforts to push them away. I had to learn that accepting help isn’t a weakness and there doesn’t have to be justification to personal suffering to make it real.

Your main character, Mel Ellis, has a history of struggling with an eating disorder. What do you hope to portray by telling her story? I hope to portray an honest view of the disorder that will give readers a true glimpse of the realities of living with anorexia, as well as to make those suffering from it feel less alone. I want to turn my experience into something useful and life-giving to others. Like other mental health issues, anorexia can be a lonely and lingering experience. The road to recovery is never easy, straight, or smooth. Through Mel’s story, I hope to portray the difficult and winding road that accompanies a longing to get well, to show that doubting and backtracking and relearning the same lessons over and over are totally normal parts of the healing process. I also think Mel’s story speaks to anyone who has ever doubted their self-worth or felt like their story wasn’t big enough to matter.

Mel meets a lot of people on her journey, and many of them are normal people whose normal lives were interrupted by this strange girl on a mission. They save her, bit by bit, not with grand gestures, heroic feats, or by saying the magic words to unlock healing. They do so by showing up, listening, and offering what little they have to give. I’m hoping readers can recognize the small, otherwise normal life-givers in their own lives and strive to be more like them, as Mel ultimately does.

Can you tell us a little about the personal journey that Mel embarks on in this novel? The really cool thing about having an anorexic character head out on a cross-country thru-hike is that she’s forced to face her disorder head-on. She literally won’t survive the trip if she refuses to see what the disorder is doing to her, so she has to relearn that food is a life-giving thing instead of an area of her life where she can punish herself. Through the people she encounters and the natural world that constantly surrounds her, she slowly begins to understand the concept of grace and accept that she is a willing candidate for it. She is so hard on herself at the beginning of this book and honestly a little hard to love because of it. She hides behind a thick veil of sarcasm so people can’t see how much she’s grown to hate who she’s become.

My editor told me it was so hard to restart the book on each of her read-throughs because Mel grows so much over the course of her journey and it was painful to see her back at rock bottom. I wanted to avoid writing a story where all of Mel’s problems vanish and that by learning to love herself, she gets to live happily ever after. That’s not life and that’s not what recovery looks like. So even though Mel grows and heals, the ending of the book stresses that the process is never truly over.

In writing this novel, you chose to face an often-difficult topic head-on. What do you think readers will take away from the honesty with which you wrote the book? To me, there’s no point talking about mental health issues if we’re not going to be completely honest. If we hold back, it feels like we have something shameful to hide—like our true selves are too unlovable to be brought to light. Yes, an eating disorder leads to ugly thoughts, but that doesn’t make the person struggling with it ugly. The heart of a person and their disorder are two very separate things, and I knew I could only get that message across if I was entirely honest with my readers. Such crazy things go on in people’s heads when in the throes of anorexia. I hope my honesty gives a clear voice to some of those thoughts so those struggling through them know they aren’t too far gone to be understood. For those trying to help a loved one through the healing process, I hope my honesty can help blaze a path toward empathy.

Why did you choose to have Mel embark on a physical cross-country journey while also taking on the emotional journey of facing her inner demons? What parallels can be drawn between the two? I wanted a more visual representation of the healing journey. Recovering from an eating disorder can feel so cyclical, so I wanted to show the reader that even through all Mel’s missteps, she is still moving forward. Still moving toward a goal. I also wanted to pick a route that wasn’t known for its beauty or popular in the thru-hike community because that’s how recovery feels. It’s not full of breathtaking views and it’s not an accomplishment that feels like a big bragging right. Recovering from an eating disorder looks odd to the outsider.

We’re taught as a culture to eat less and exercise more, but in recovery we celebrate weight gain and rest days. And for that reason, I wanted a lesser-loved, lesser-known trail that doesn’t instantly endear the reader to the journey. Recovery isn’t something the addict sees as glamorous or even really looks forward to most of the time. They do it because it’s the only way to get to where they need to be, even if it will take everything they have to get there. I’m not saying I do all these complicated feelings justice, but I try to use Mel and her journey to at least touch on those points.

What do you hope readers will gain from reading All That Fills Us? I wrote this book for so many reasons. I wanted to give voice to the ongoing struggle and persistent hope that so often coexist in a person wanting healing while reminding those struggling with mental illness that even though it feels like they’re walking through the wildness of recovery alone, there are so many of us walking the same path and encountering the same struggles. I also wanted to show a brief snapshot of God’s presence in the natural world and capture the cyclical and merciful struggle of letting go of the expectations put on us by ourselves and the world and become who God has always designed us to be.

Where can our audience go to connect with you? I’m on Instagram and Facebook, and those who want to read more from me can check out the ramblings on my website and sign up for my newsletter at www.AutumnLytle.com .

Thank you, Autumn, for sharing your debut novel with my blog readers and me.. I know your book will touch many of our hearts.

Readers, here’s a link to the book.

http://ow.ly/mszG50Kl70n

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