This article is one in a series of interviews with expats in Stavanger. Its purpose is to share with everyone what your fellow expats are doing and also to help advertise the businesses/services/events that these expats are involved in. If you would like to or know of a business/enterprise to be interviewed, feel free to contact us!
Interview with Maggie Mylebust, author of ?Fly Away Home?
??Fly Away Home? tells the story of Maggie, the descendent of second generation Norwegian immigrants to America. Growing up in New Jersey, she spends her summer vacations on an idyllic island in Norway. Years later, in the wake of an abusive marriage, Maggie and her three young children return to the island, where she rekindles a relationship with her childhood sweetheart. Pulled between two worlds, Maggie continues to seek meaning, identity and happiness. As her family grows, Maggie moves between continents, she learns that life comes full circle, from the hopes and dreams of her forebears to the place where she can finally find peace.
?Where are you from?
I was born in New Jersey in the USA but my grandparents were Norwegian. You could say that I grew up feeling like a Norwegian in America but now, living in Norway, I feel like an American. Even though we?re very much part of the local community now, I still have my accent and my friends and family aren?t all in Norway.
?Today we live in the house featured in ?Fly Away Home? on the island of Eiger?y, just beyond Egersund.
?How long have you lived in Norway?
Altogether, I?ve lived in Norway now for 18 years. Along with my Norwegian husband and our two children, I also lived in Houston for two years and in the Netherlands for three years.
?You?ve just published your memoir, ?Fly Away Home?. What inspired you to write the book?
I didn?t start out intending to write a book. I just wanted to write down my family?s stories for my children and their children and all the generations after them, and even that idea grew out of my love for scrapbooking ? I wanted some words to go along with the photographs. I wanted to future generations to understand why some of the family were in America and some of them were in Norway. I went to a ?Write your life stories? workshop in the Netherlands to help me get started. I sent the first few chapters to my teacher and she told me to keep them coming. I just took it a chapter at a time, never really thinking it would be end up as a book for anyone other than my family to read. I still maintain that I?m not a writer, just someone with a story to tell.
?As well as being a family history, your memoir is also a love story. What advice would you give to expats moving to Norway for love?
Give yourself time to adjust. Just because you?re in love with a Norwegian doesn?t mean that you?re going to be in love with his/her family, culture, lifestyle or country. Try to be as open as you can to all the new experiences but ultimately allow yourself time to settle in. Make use of all of today?s technology for comfort ? your favourite TV shows or magazines, talking to friends back home. When I initially came to Norway with my kids in 1988, there was only had one TV channel, which was in Norwegian and I didn?t have much to read because we?d left in such a hurry!
?Also if you?re going to become part of the community, you really need to learn the language. I know how hard that can be ? years later and my Norwegian-English dictionaries still sit on my desk every day.
?Ultimately you need to make his/her place your place too.
?You?ve raised six children, moving from continent to continent. Do you have any advice for expats raising kids in Norway?
Some of my children are settled in Norway now, raising children of their own and some are in the USA. And one of my sons feels most at home in the Netherlands so I know how complicated it can be.
?Two of my sons were born in Norway but when we moved to Houston, they became Americans, attending local schools. They sort of forgot that they were Norwegian and I regret that. Don?t let your kids lose the culture of ?home? wherever that might be ? it is where they came from and where they may have to go back too. Remind them of who they are and where they come from.
?Also you need to realise that the Norwegian education system is different from many others. It is not necessarily better or worse, it?s just different. Sometimes I think our kids adjust better to that than we do as parents!
?What reaction have you had to your book so far?
I?m really pleased by how the book has been received. The first and most important reaction was that of my family ? they obviously had to read it before publication and they have all been very supportive. At the moment, it is only available in English but I?m hoping that it will be translated in to Norwegian soon. The book has been featured by Stavanger Aftenblad and I?m doing a photo shoot for Hjemmet magazine soon.
?Norwegians tell me that they love the local elements of the book while expats tend to identify more with my experiences of adjusting to life in Norway and then to expat life in Houston and the Netherlands.
Thank you, Maggie.
?Fly Away Home? is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It is also for sale in Egersund. For more information and to follow Maggie?s blog,?click here.?
Maggie has kindly donated has five signed copies of ?Fly Away Home? for Stavanger Expats to give away. To win one of these copies, simply comment below on your favourite peaceful spot in Norway. We will pick out five winners on 31st October 2012. The winners will be notified by email.
?Book review: ?Fly Away Home?
It would be easy to say that Maggie Myklebust?s book is just another expat memoir, of limited interest to those who haven?t lived the expat life. But to do so would be unfair.
In many ways, it?s a love story. The girl eventually gets the right guy but unlike a conventional romance, it is not quite a case of living happily ever after. It turns out that learning to love with life in Norway is a little more complicated. Being part of a family with roots and history in two lands is even more complicated. And in the midst of all that, working out who you are turns out be pretty tricky as well.
??Fly Away Home? has the pace of a novel, yet Maggie Mykelbust is brutally honest about the upbringing and marriage that led her to flee to Norway almost twenty five years ago, and the challenges which followed that flight. She writes about her past as if she?s reliving it rather than remembering it, however painful it may be.
?As someone who loves to read and loves to eat, it takes a rare book to come between me and my meals but this one did. I can?t help but wonder what Maggie might do next.
Source: http://www.stavangerexpats.com/interviews-with-expats-maggie-mylebust-author-of-fly-away-home
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