Photo by Erin Nelson.
Billy Ivey, author of “A Sea Between Us,” sits at his kitchen table.
Billy Ivey’s writing journey started with writing napkin notes to his five kids, and now he has written a nonfiction memoir about a Cuban immigrant’s journey for a better life for his family in the United States.
The story of “A Sea Between Us” came to Ivey from friends who lived in Nashville. Chet and Mary Virginia Frist were having work done on their kitchen about six years ago, when Mary Virginia struck up a conversation with the man building their cabinets, Yosely Pereira. After hearing his story, she shared it with her husband, and the couple knew his story was one that needed to be told. They called Ivey to see if he would be interested in writing a book about Yosely’s story.
“I thought, ‘That’s cool. I've always wanted to write a book,’” said Ivey, an Oak Mountain-area resident. “I have tons of ideas but have never had the discipline or opportunity to really sit down and put those thoughts together.”
Ivey agreed to meet Pereira and after hearing his story in broken English, immediately fell in love with it. After that initial meeting, the Frists spent 14 hours recording Pereira, along with his wife Taire, telling his story. The Frists sent Ivey the recording footage, and he watched it multiple times, took notes and began writing.
Two months later, Ivey and his wife Bethany, along with the Frists, traveled with the Pereiras to Cuba.
“He took me where he grew up, where he built his boat and where he put it in the water,” Ivey said. “We just drove throughout the entire island of Cuba, and I took notes and mental pictures and actual pictures, and I was able to come back and take the real core pillars of his story and write around it.”
Ivey began writing Pereira’s real-life story, but had to put it all together and create dialogue. He said it was a great opportunity for him to write the story. and the fact that it’s a true story makes it all the more powerful.
While writing the book, Ivey was working full-time at Big Communications and writing on nights and weekends. He said it got to the point where he couldn’t do both. Knowing this opportunity was “not even a once in a lifetime” for him, and with his wife’s blessing, he quit his job. He had been a freelance creative contractor before, so he decided he would go back to that while focusing on finishing the book.
“I really wrote the bulk of the book over three long weekends, including sabbaticals in a Nashville hotel and at Weiss Lake,” he said. “Start to finish, it took me 16 months to get completely done with the book.”
It was 2019 when a publishing company bought the book and the editing process began. Ivey had originally written the story from the perspectives of both Yosely and Taire Pereira, but he ultimately decided this needed to be Yosely’s story.
It follows Yosely Pereira's story of growing up in communist Cuba. From the time he was around 10 years old, he knew that wasn’t how life was supposed to be. He spent his life trying to figure out how to get to America, during which time he met and fell in love with wife and had two children and was willing to risk his life to provide a better life for them.
A carpenter by trade, Pereira built a boat and survived three nights through storms, capsizes and shark attacks to make the 90-mile voyage from Cuba to the U.S. Once he arrived, he began working and raised enough money to bring his family over.
The book’s title came from a direct quote from Taire Pereira, who said, “the same water separated us and we had to go across to be together again.”
“It is so full of unbelievable things, you have to say this is a true story,” Ivey said. “It’s a story of a guy who risked his life for love, and it worked. I am honored that my name is on the cover.”
On June 2, the publisher sent advance copies of the book to both Ivey and Pereira.
“Thank you for sharing my story,” Pereira told Ivey. “Hundreds of thousands of people will be impacted because of this.”
“He truly believes the telling of this story will make some sort of difference,” Ivey said. “I think he feels guilty for being celebrated as a hero, but he’s my hero. His determination of love for his family and the commitment to do this for them.”
“A Sea Between Us” is set to release Aug. 2. For more information, visit aseabetween.com.
As for Ivey, he wants to write more books, even though this process has been excruciating and disappointing at times but, overall, gratifying.
“To me, writing the book has been one of the most gratifying experiences of my life,” Ivey said.
“It's exciting to think about something I spent a long time doing finally being out there for the purpose of which it was created. This whole experience has been kind of a God thing.”
