The Shippers by Katherine Center
This book is for anyone who could really use a hug right now.
Our real poems are already in us and all we can do is dig.
JONATHAN GALASSI
Author’s Note
SPOILER: This book will end well.
People will struggle but grow. Folks will change for the better. And the two central characters, the cuties you’re about to meet, will, after many shenanigans, fall madly in love.
But …
Is that a spoiler, though?
My big sister hates spoilers. She will throw her hands out and shout “No spoilers!” when I tell her about books I’m reading. For her, not knowing what’s going to happen is the biggest part of what pulls her through the story.
But there must be different kinds of readers in the world.
I, myself, hate not knowing what’s going to happen at the end. I hate it so much, in fact, that if I don’t know how a story ends, I will google it beforehand. And I’ll be honest—mostly these days, especially since the pandemic, I only want happy endings.
I only want a story that gives me something that matters to look forward to.
I can’t remember the last time I voluntarily signed up to read something I knew in advance would feed my heart through a meat grinder.
I want to feel something, yes. I want to feel all the things, in fact—including surprise. I want the details of a story to be endlessly surprising. My greatest hope when I start reading a new story is that it will take my heart on a Tilt-A-Whirl carnival ride of every single possible emotion along the way. But—and this is essential—by the end … I want us all to be okay.
Better than okay, if possible.
So for me, as a reader, getting the “spoiler” that the main characters in a love story will end up together just makes me want to read the story more.
Maybe it’s the opposite of a spoiler.
What would that even be called?
An enhancer, maybe?
I think those of us who love love stories are junkies for that joyful, blissed-out feeling of anticipating the happily ever after that’s a guarantee of the genre.
All genres have their guarantees, by the way: Sleuths will solve the mystery, thriller heroes will defuse the bomb in the nick of time, superheroes will vanquish the villains at last. Part of what we like about the genres we like is the anticipation of those guarantees. We like to see the mystery solved, and the hero triumphant, and the villains vanquished. It feels good.
Nothing wrong with feeling good, right?
I suspect people who really love literary fiction have a higher tolerance for the feeling of having no idea where a story is headed. Maybe they even like that feeling? That’s fine. That’s cool. It takes all kinds of readers to make the world go round.
I’m just here to talk about love stories.
Because here, once again, is another installment in my infinite series, “Why Love Stories Are Criminally Underrated.”
In an interview recently I got asked, “Why do you write love stories?”
And my answer was, “Why would I write anything else?”
What better thing is there to write about than love? Love’s the best thing humans ever invented. It’s our crowning achievement as a species.
What more beautiful, glorious life could I possibly create for myself than one built on studying, reading, obsessing over, and writing love stories?
My whole job is to bring more love into people’s lives. And by extension into the world. A world that, to be honest, could be thriving a bit more in the love arena.
And it’s hardly “a job,” either. It’s just my life. It’s just what I do all day: think about love, and stories—and how to do justice to them both.
How sublime.
People say to find your why—and that’s mine: I believe in every cell of my body that love is good for you.
I believe that helping us all, myself included, open up our battle-scarred hearts and let in more connection is the most important thing I could possibly do with my time here on this earth.
I’ve argued elsewhere (see my author’s notes for my last four books) that love is the best kind of therapy. That love stories are good for the soul. That love stories can save the world.
All true.
But here’s another great thing to add to the list: Love is good for your health.
For real. Google it!
Falling in love bolsters your immune system. Love soothes anxiety, prevents colds, mitigates depression, lessens pain, and promotes healing. New studies on the biochemistry of love show that experiencing loving feelings lowers stress. It counteracts the production of cortisol in the body, and it strengthens the vagus nerve—which calms and regulates mood, heart rate, digestion, and inflammation.
This isn’t just some half-true nonsense that floated through my Instagram feed, by the way. I looked up the studies! This is real.
You can add “reading romance novels in the bubble bath” to your self-care list, along with yoga, and laughter, and balancing your circadian rhythm.
I’m always amazed at the number of people who come through my signing lines when I’m on book tour and tell me that they found my books during a brutally hard time in their lives: as they recovered from surgery, or while their mother was sick, or after a divorce.
Maybe they’d heard my books were funny, and they needed some laughs—or that my books were page-turning, or hopeful, or uplifting. But I can’t help but think part of it—maybe the biggest part of it—is that my stories, at their cores, are love stories. And we all know, deep down, from the day we’re born, that love is nourishing.