Sarah Sawyer is an exceptional English teacher on Williston’s campus, but now you can call her, excitingly, a published novelist.
In the weeks before its Oct. 8 release, the anticipation surrounding Sawyer’s first novel, The Undercurrent, was high, and Sawyer was excited to share her work with the Williston community. Only a few lucky individuals on Williston’s campus had laid eyes on her fiction–a story that centers around a new mother who becomes invested in the disappearance of a girl in her Texas hometown–but, unsurprisingly, they all raved about her craft-filled pages.
Sawyer has been teaching English at Williston for 25 years, and has been in love with writing for even longer. She started working on her debut novel, The Undercurrent, in 2021. Though it only took about eight months for Sawyer to write the original manuscript, the editing process added an extra year to the timeline. Now, after multiple years in the making, The Undercurrent is finally, as of Oct. 8, on shelves, published by Zibby Books.
Some of Sawyer’s closest friends and colleagues at Williston were lucky enough to read the novel before its release. Robert Hill, Williston Northampton’s Head of School, describes it as “a proverbial page-turner” that was “thoroughly enjoyable.” Or, to the liking of Gen-Z, he says that The Undercurrent was “fire.”
In terms of more specific stylistic choices within the novel, The Undercurrent “has more than just a complex plot … there are lots of hidden gems of meaning,” Hill said. The “toggle back and forth from past to present … made it a fast read,” a new experience for Hill, as he describes himself as a slow reader.
Kyle Hanford, one of Sawyer’s colleagues in the English department, also praised the nature of time in the novel.
“I love how the novel is not linear; it goes from 1987 to 2011 with each chapter,” he said. Hanford, when asked to describe the novel in one word, said it “Can’t be done. One word will not suffice.”
Sawyer herself described her work as “mysterious, intertwined, and metaphorical.” The entire experience of publishing and writing a novel, she said, however, was “surreal.”
The balance between writing a novel and teaching is not for the weak, which Hanford touched upon.
“Sarah is a renaissance woman that can do so much and do it so well. She is talented in so many facets of her life from being an incredible wife, mother, teacher, coach, and sage with unbelievable advice and wisdom,” he said. “What do I think of this feat of teaching and writing a novel? It doesn’t surprise me in the least.”
“Its fun to have people read it,” Sawyer said when referring to those who know her personally. Sawyer mentioned that having her two kids, Anna and Will, read her book was “funny” and that they picked up on specific details an outsider reader would not be able to appreciate. Hill also shared this experience.
“[The Undercurrent was] filled with witty observations that are so characteristic of the Mrs. Sawyer we know,” he said. Likewise, Hanford “loved hearing Sarah’s voice in the pages” and made it clear that “if you know Sarah, you’ll hear it, too.”
Gillian Flynn, author of the 2012 mystery Gone Girl, which was turned into a 2014 movie of the same name, in a blurb on the book’s front cover, describes The Undercurrent as “quite simply stunning.”
Flynn’s movie, starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, made about $360 million at the box office.
Additionally, Chris Whitaker, author of All the Colors of the Dark, said The Undercurrent is “a stunning achingly beautiful and gripping mystery.”
Anna Sawyer, Sawyer’s daughter and a former Williston student who graduated in 2024, has read her mom’s novel.
“I genuinely loved reading it! It was so well written and the story makes you want to keep reading,” Anna said. “The characters and setting are so well described and make the story fun to read.” There were “some parts of it that reminded me of my childhood or stories from her childhood that [made] me remember it [was] my mom’s writing,” which made Anna feel “tremendously proud.”
Anna used the word “marvelous” to describe The Undercurrent, “because everything about it is so amazing…and I know how much time and work she put into and it truly paid off.”
Even though Sawyer “is being very humble about it,” Anna believes the novel “is going to do super well.”