Cat, Deputy Editor

Thirty-year-old Eleanor isn’t concerned with anything outside of her weekly ritual. But sometimes “fine” isn’t good enough, and when a love interest and unexpected friendships cross her path, Eleanor slowly ventures into social interactions and takes tentative steps toward confronting the great pain in her past. Her description of learning to dance the “YMCA” is worth the price of admission alone.

Brimming with heartbreak and humor, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine was shortlisted for the U.K.’s Lucy Cavendish Prize in 2014 and was a hot title at the 2015 Frankfurt Book Fair. Rights were sold in 26 countries, and soon after its U.S. publication in May, Reese Witherspoon’s production company, Hello Sunshine, announced plans to bring it to the big screen.

We asked Honeyman, who lives in Glasgow, Scotland, some questions about her standout debut.

Did you have any idea that the world would receive Eleanor Oliphant with such open arms?
Definitely not! As a debut writer, I was managing my expectations for the book very rigorously throughout the process of completing and submitting the manuscript. I still can’t quite believe what’s happened with it—I’m pinching myself!

What reactions to Eleanor have surprised you the most?
I’m delighted by how incredibly generous readers have been. When we first meet Eleanor, she’s not, on the surface, a particularly likable character; people have talked about feeling protective toward her, which has been wonderful to hear.

In Eleanor, you have created a wholly original heroine: She is a social outsider, but she’s doing her best to avoid self-pity. She is—she must be—fine. Where did this determined voice come from?
I wanted to show that Eleanor is a survivor, that she’s damaged but not broken by what has happened to her. I also thought it was important, if the character was going to work, that Eleanor never displays or experiences self-pity, however distressing her circumstances. I wanted to leave space in the narrative for the reader to draw their own conclusions about her life and her experiences and how she’s responded to them, and hopefully, to empathize with Eleanor as a result.

At one point, Eleanor says, “Loneliness is the new cancer.” In the way people used to fear saying the word “cancer,” loneliness is often considered embarrassing, even shameful. Why did you decide to write about it?
The idea for the book was initially sparked by an article I read about loneliness. It included an interview with a young woman who lived alone in a big city, had an apartment and a job, but who said that unless she made a special effort, she would often leave work on a Friday night and not talk to anyone again until Monday morning. That really struck me, because when loneliness is discussed in the media, it’s usually in the context of older people. When I thought more about it, I realized that there were plenty of potential routes to a young person finding themselves in those circumstances, through no fault of their own, and how hard it can be, at any age, to forge meaningful connections. From this, the story and the character of Eleanor slowly began to emerge.

“People have talked about feeling protective toward [Eleanor], which has been wonderful to hear.”

Eleanor is aware that love could change her, to help her “rise from the ashes and be reborn.” She sets her sights on local musician Johnnie Lomond, and through the internet and social media, she’s able to believe that love with him is possible. What are your feelings about the false intimacy that can be formed through social media?
Eleanor’s passion for Johnnie is a crush— I tried to show, in her responses to him, that it’s a very juvenile passion. Although she’s 30 years old, emotionally she seems much younger because of what’s happened to her. I’m not sure about social media more generally, but in the book, it was a very useful way of allowing the reader to see aspects of Johnnie which Eleanor, in the throes of her crush, is oblivious to.

I would be terrified and delighted to hear Eleanor’s initial impression of me. She’s so eloquent and specific with her harsh judgment. How would Eleanor describe your book?
That’s a tricky one! Although Eleanor’s directness causes her some problems socially, the first-person narrative allows readers to know that there’s no deliberate intention on her part to offend. It certainly makes life a bit awkward for her sometimes, though!

Some of my favorite moments of the book are when Eleanor ventures into areas of physical self-improvement, as her descriptions of getting a bikini wax or a manicure had me laughing aloud in public. What was the most fun to write?
I don’t have a favorite scene but did make myself laugh when I was writing the ones you’ve mentioned, so it’s very reassuring to hear that they made you laugh, too—thank you!

Eleanor has a spectacular vocabulary and perfect grammar. Has your own speech improved after spending so much time in Eleanor’s head?
Sadly not, I suspect! I wanted to make Eleanor’s voice a distinctive component of her character, and a big part of that was her unusual and mannered way of articulating her thoughts, both internally and in conversation. In some respects, her speech mannerisms result from her loneliness and lack of social interaction, and unfortunately, they also sometimes serve to reinforce this. As a writer, trying to capture that particular voice was both a challenge and enormous fun.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine.

Author photo credit Philippa Gedge Photography UK.

This article was originally published in the August 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The reading world is in love with curmudgeons—perhaps because we all feel unbearably awkward at times—and Eleanor Oliphant, the lonely heroine of Gail Honeyman’s debut novel, is the latest hit.

Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade

Icebreaker: Beth Vrabel

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

This BookPage Icebreaker is sponsored by Running Press Kids.

In her new novel, Caleb and Kit, Beth Vrabel, the award-winning author of A Blind Guide to Stinkville, captures the power of new friendship—and the complicated heartbreak of needing to let someone go. Twelve-year-old Caleb is smaller and more protected than any other kid in his grade. He has cystic fibrosis, and his single mom does her best to keep him healthy and safe (while balancing her own life, like going on dates). But this summer, Caleb wanders off into the woods rather than attend summer day camp, and he meets the nonjudgmental, wild and free Kit. But as Caleb joins his new friend on adventures, he begins to realize that Kit has troubles of her own.

Cat: This book is such a balance of tough stuff and sweetness. I don’t know if it was a phrase that you picked or your publisher picked for you, but your books are described as having “grit and heart.” This sounds like a literary mantra that totally sums up what Caleb and Kit is all about.

Beth: “Grit and heart” is very meaningful to me in that it can tell stories to children who often shy away from dealing with the reality of their lives. Their lives are very messy, very complicated. Just like an adult’s life is a delicate balance of good and bad, a child’s is as well. We underestimate the amount of strength that children have. I think of my own two children . . . you can deliver bad news to them however minute, and they jest. They move on from it. They pick up and they move forward. And I think that it’s the same for most children, that we want to protect them but we end up sheltering them. We don’t have to. They’re capable of making these connections with a strength that we underestimate over and over and over again.

Absolutely. And giving kids the opportunity to find that power is so important, but it can be hard to let them go as a parent. But I think that’s what happens with Caleb. He finds his way to his own power, but it takes some doing.

Yeah. Caleb has all the information about cystic fibrosis, about his personal challenge. He’s done the research. He’s present at the doctor’s appointment. He knows what his numbers should be. But then you have Kit, who has not been given the information. She has to draw her own conclusions about what’s going on in her life. She still finds that grit. She still finds that power, and to me, that shows how we all will draw our own conclusions if we don’t have the right information, so we might as well just give people the opportunity to know the truth. If that makes any sense.

Yes, it does. Caleb and Kit seem to balance each other. What do you think is most important about writing characters like Caleb and Kit, who are struggling to find their own power? How do you honor them while also writing their difficult stories?

I think the most important thing in undertaking something like that is to not have it be a book about that issue. I did not set out to write a book about cystic fibrosis, and I don’t think that I did. I wrote a book about Caleb, who happens to have cystic fibrosis. That was really driven home to me in the process of writing my last book, A Blind Guide to Stinkville, which features a protagonist who is legally blind due to albinism. . . . My daughter has a form of albinism, much more mild that Alice’s, the character’s. She wanted to read a book with a character who is just a regular girl doing regular things and who happens to have this shared challenge. But when we looked for that book, and then spread that search out to look for a comic book or a movie . . . everything we found was purely about being blind or purely about having albinism. These characters tended to be villains or witches, or [have] all sorts of magical components instead of just being a regular person who happened to be born with an additional challenge.

And so it meant a lot to me to portray Alice as a typical kid, and then when it came time to write Caleb and Kit, I wanted it to be a story about friendship, about being in that situation that we all find ourselves at some point in our lives, when you realize you need to break up with a friend for whatever reason.

I think you made that clear right away. On page eight of my galley, there’s a wonderful bit about how trees have to grow apart from each other to share the sun, and there’s that one line that kills: “I wondered if it hurt, twisting away from your friend like that.”

Oh, and that hurts so bad.

That is such a hard concept.

It is. And you know, we’re not taught how to do that. We’re taught to—“OK, somebody hurt your feelings, tell them it’s OK. We’re all friends here”—instead of being taught that sometimes friendships don’t work out. And that’s OK!

When I set up to write this book, it was important to me that Caleb had an additional challenge because it was so important for my daughter to have that. I wanted that experience for other children as well. So, that’s when I set out to include cystic fibrosis. That’s when Caleb became very difficult to write.

In your acknowledgements you said it was so difficult that you almost dropped the first-person perspective and went to third person. That would’ve been a big change.

That was a weak moment for sure. I know each person’s process is different, but for me, I get to the point where I can really see a character in front of me and feel what they’re feeling. I can refer to them in conversations the way I would my children. Usually at that point the story is good. It’s cooking. It’s ready to fry onto the page. But with Caleb, that became very difficult. I didn’t want this [cystic fibrosis] for him. And I had to get over that and stop feeling sorry for him. Stop having the cystic fibrosis come first and have it be about Caleb.

I feel like there were two main things that really helped balance how tough Caleb’s life is, and as we learn more about Kit, how tough Kit’s life is. First, Caleb’s mom—who is my new favorite literary mom—and second, the setting of the woods.

[chuckles] I love her.

Her relationship with Caleb is so great, and yes, he does have to rebel against her. Even the greatest moms have to be rebelled against. But she’s just fighting for him, and when he gets in these moments of self-pity, she won’t let him stay there. She is a total hero.

I really like her, too. I’m glad you said that. She’s so, so strong, and yet she still carves out some time for herself, too. For herself to have this new relationship, this new part of her life—as Caleb’s getting independence, she’s getting some, too.

The world doesn’t revolve around Caleb.

Yeah! And she makes sure that he knows that “I’m always there for you, but we have our lives, too” and . . . it’s in a much gentler, more caring way than Caleb’s dad. And then, the woods!

The woods! In so many children’s books—well, all types of literature—woods are so scary. It’s where the fear and the unknown is, and you go in there and you come out changed. Caleb comes out changed, sure, but he meets his new friend, Kit, in there. And in your descriptions of those woods, I could picture forests that I grew up tramping around in Tennessee, that were sunny and secluded and precious.

The woods were always a natural place for me growing up. I thought when I was a kid that I lived in the woods. I didn’t. We had a little creek in our backyard and a few trees, and that was my thing. That was my world. And when I was writing Caleb and Kit, I actually did have a house in the woods. We lived in Connecticut, and we could look out and see some fox running through. We had some black bears. It was a magical place for my kids to run out and play and come back holding frogs, or they’d tell me about the turkey they just saw.

It’s so natural to me that Caleb would have this wildness inside of him. He just desperately wants to make his own decisions and be free. But his life is so structured and devout, so having Kit as part of that wildness was really important to me.

I love this idea of finding a friend exactly the moment you need them. Caleb meets Kit exactly when he most needs her, and later we find out it’s mutual. Have you ever had that?

Yes, I have. We moved to Texas in March, so our kids had a month and a half of school. My son could walk to primary school, and I’d be waiting there for him, and I’d wait for him to come back. He started [hanging] with a buddy, and I met that buddy’s mom who [lived] down the street from us. She had just moved to the area, too, so we were talking about how difficult it is and how we were worried about who our kids were going sit with in the cafeteria, and how are they going find these connections? Somehow or another, she said, “I think we’ve all been there. Even if you’re an adult, sometimes I feel like that moment when you walk into the cafeteria and you wonder who’s going let you sit beside them.”

Now she and I are really great friends, and I’m so thankful that I have her. But I think that is unique. You reach this point where you are lonely and you wonder if anybody else feels what you are going through. And you think that only happens when you are kids, but it happens your whole life.

This is why I tell people, you should probably go back and read children’s books because there are some things that you still need to work on. Like finding friends at exactly the right time.

Right. I know. My mind always goes back to middle grade. It’s when you’re starting to realize your connections to a greater picture and where you belong and whether you want to fit in or stand out.

Author photo by 179 Pictures

Beth Vrabel, author of heartfelt middle grade novel Caleb and Kit, talks with Deputy Editor Cat Acree. Sponsored by Running Press Kids.

Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book

Lisa Bevere

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

Bestselling author Lisa Bevere has inspired millions of adult readers with books such as Without Rival and Lioness Arising. Her first picture book, Lizzy the Lioness, with illustrations by Kirsteen-Harris Jones, is the story of a playful lion cub who’s tired of being little. When Lizzy wanders away from the pride, she finds herself facing danger that she’s just not big enough to overcome. As Bevere makes very clear with this sweet story, being little is never a weakness, and sometimes asking for help is the bravest thing to do.

Why was this an important story to share with young readers?
We live in days fraught with confusion and peril. Our children have never been so inundated with conflicting messages and the demise of social boundaries. Our day demands bravery. I wanted children to know that they are never too young to have a voice and that there are times when the bravest things they can do is to ask for help.

Lizzy the Lioness was inspired by your own “Lizzy,” your granddaughter. You’ve said that strength and bravery are “particularly important” concepts to share with your granddaughter. Why?
I love Lizzy’s fierce innocence. She is strong and wants to do everything that her big brother and sister can do. I didn’t want to see this desire to put her at risk. I decided to fictionalize a story I’d read where a pride of lions rescued a little girl from her abductors in Ethiopia. I thought it would be fun to make Lizzy the littlest lion cub and create a fun story where being little wasn’t a detriment to being a hero.

This isn’t your first time using the metaphor of a lion to address the behavior of humans. Why do you return to these regal creatures?
Lions can’t help but inspire. . . . They are fierce and nurturing, free and yet intimately connected to their pride family group. In the wild plain of life, they know who they are, not to mention, they roar. I wanted this visual and relational connection made for the readers. Brave happens in the context of community where the voice of everyone is heard. I wanted to empower and validate this connection for children.

While Lizzy the Lioness has a great message for kids, there’s an author’s note at the end for parents, teachers and guardians, with conversation starters for talking to kids about asking for help. What do you think is the most difficult thing about talking with kids about this subject? And what is the best way to approach it?
I found that my boys wanted to unburden their soul as I was putting them to bed. I had hoped to make this release happen when I was wide awake and ready to be wise at 4 p.m. Bedtime was not my time of choice, so I felt that adding in tools that could make intentional conversations happen would be helpful when parents were tired and children were tender.

Also children follow what we model even more than what we say. Somewhere down the line adults have thought asking for help is a sign of weakness rather than a sign of strength. I wanted to sneak in the message to parents and mentors that it is courageous to ask for the help they need as well.

So often in children’s literature, the youngster at the heart of the book must navigate tough situations all alone. Why was it important to encourage kids to turn to the adults in their lives?
Whether we feel qualified or not, related adults (parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and guardians) are their best guides, not peers. Our vulnerability and experience can go along way to teaching others from both our mistakes and successes. To that end, I want to create intentional conversations that located specific needs so the adults could equip the children with whatever they needed.

What do you love most about writing?
Writing gives me the ability to mark trails that others may follow.

What’s next for you?
For now I’m going to keep climbing the trail set before me.

“Brave happens in the context of community where the voice of everyone is heard.”

Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book

Icebreaker: Kathryn Otoshi

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

This BookPage Icebreaker is sponsored by Macmillan Children’s.

Kathryn Otoshi is an award-winning author-illustrator, best known for her self-published books One, Zero and Two, and her co-authored book Beautiful Hands. Her new wordless picture book, Draw the Line, is a tale about two boys with a powerful message that sneaks up on readers.

First, the two boys draw separate lines, then discover their lines can combine into one. The line becomes a thread between them, something they can play with. But when one boy’s feelings get hurt, the line becomes a focus of their tension, and the two boys pull and pull until the line splits right down in the middle, in the book’s gutter, creating a literal rift. In happy moments, yellow swirls around the heads of the boys, who are depicted in black and white; in heated moments, purple boils, darker and darker. But there is a way to repair the pain between them, and it’s quite simple: One friend must reach out.

Cat: There’s so much I loved about this book. The color! The gutter! But before we get into all that, I want to talk about you a little bit. This is your first book with a major publishing house. Congratulations!

Kathryn: Thank you!

I’ve read that you change your artistic style to match each new story you write. I’d love to hear how you chose the style to fit Draw the Line’s concept, and how the book’s wordlessness ties into that.

Well, it was hard, to be honest with you. I wasn’t quite sure how to draw this book. I kept doing different sketches, and it was too loose and I had a little bit of the Goldilocks syndrome when I couldn’t get the line exactly right—which is funny because it’s called Draw the Line. I did illustrations over and over to make it look organic and fresh and spontaneous. It’s a hard thing to do.

Another thing about the illustrations, if you look closely at the boys—it was a fine line (I guess that’s a pun, but I didn’t mean to make it right then) to make the boys, especially the one with the black hair, to look like he could be white or Asian or Hispanic, and it’s hard to do that with a line. And then the other boy, he’s definitely mixed. He has light hair, and he could have a dark tan or he could just be a different skin color, certainly mixed. But it was much harder than I thought.

And then also, the black and white aspects of [the book] became very important. In the beginning, I had planned the whole book to be black and white, and then we’d negotiate the gray zones. But it was [my editor, Connie Hsu]—thank god for Connie—who said, “Could we add a splash of color?” . . . Suddenly I realized the color in the illustrations could represent emotions, because I didn’t have words.

Oh, absolutely, and the use of color as representing emotion is one of the first things the reader really gets.

Thank you!

I think this book requires multiple readings, at different levels—the first reading is like the color reading, where there are these moments of yellow joy, and the royal purple as anger, and how it all comes together in the end. That’s step one. The color experience.

I so appreciate you saying that!

And when it does start to get really purple and really angry, it almost crossed over to sound. It was like, so dark and so intense that you could almost hear the color. As silly as that is to say! But with the color, you can hear the boys screaming.

That is the biggest compliment I’ve gotten on this book. I’m so happy it crossed over to that for you. I do work in layers. [The book can be read by] different kids from all ages, from the very young, 3 or 4 years old, to older kids. . . . When Connie and I started talking, we treated [the colors] as cast members, going in states and going out and really becoming their own personalities. If you notice, too, the colors are complementary colors, in that they are opposites. Yellow and then sort of a blue-violet color, because we’re talking about the black and white of things.

There was one moment in particular when someone, maybe a lesser author-illustrator, could’ve been tempted to insert words. It’s early in the story, when the boys’ line goes from being a drawing to being something else—when they pick it up and start playing with it. In that moment, it goes from Harold and the Purple Crayon creativity to being something else. Someone might have felt like there was something to explain, that the line is like the boys’ very existence. But you let the color do that for you.

That moment when they pick up the line is exactly how you feel when you have a true connection with somebody. Suddenly you realize, “Hey, we have a connection.” And it’s like magic. And you pick it up, and that’s how it grows. And sometimes it’s very much about chemistry and relationship and how you interact with somebody . . . it’s kind of how I feel about you right now! It’s exciting.

But what if I start asking questions that are totally off, or I start pushing my own agenda in this interview? That’s like when the boys start to yank on this thread that they’ve created together, and it starts to split right in the middle, in the book’s gutter. At first there’s this push and pull across the gutter, and then it splits and becomes that chasm.

I do see the gutter as a way to either separate or [act as an obstacle to] negotiate—how do we find a way to cross over it? In my book One, when Red crosses over the gutter, it’s a very aggressive movement across the stage. I meant it to be that way. So it was really cool how the gutter is something that the chasm grows from.

At the point when the boys start to create that rift, everything in the scene starts to feel less possible. Before, they were playing on this dreamy, limitless salt-flat plain, and then as soon as it’s broken, their world starts to get small and limited. At that point, the reader starts to be more aware of the setting. Is that something that you were playing with?

The tricky part was to make [the line] a horizon line. I did want it to feel like a little bit amorphous, and at the same time, the hopelessness that you were referring to feels like, “How is this going resolve and come together?” This sounds funny because it looks so simple, but it was really hard to do. That line was a character to me and had to become so many different things. It was a 1-D line and then a 2-D line and then a 3-D line. That line as a character becomes a chasm and later it becomes a road. How much can I stretch your belief in this line and what it could do? And that’s what I wanted the reader to experience as well as, what can we negotiate and work out with this line? And can it become something bigger?

When it becomes the horizon line, it becomes our thread of hope. And when the first boy walks away, it feels like it’s all over, when in fact he’s reaching out, even though he is the one who was hurt first. He starts to build the road. Which is a moment of great humility, and then the boys get on their knees, get dirty and start doing the difficult work of rebuilding.

We all want validation, but what I wanted to project subtly was that it’s not about the right or the wrong but how we come together and how we unite. We don’t reach out from the farthest points of the chasm. Here’s what you need to do: Go to the point. Take that journey inside yourself to what happened, where the rift started. Take a look at it . . . and if it is something you want to resolve, then you start looking at where our common ground is. Where our edges connect—literally. Where it’s closest and where the reset could happen.

When the boy reaches out close to where the rift started, he is able to bridge the gap. I had to do that with my parents, who I had a disagreement with. I didn’t want to go home for Thanksgiving at the time because I was upset . . . for different reasons. But I was working on Draw the Line at the time, and I’m like, I have to go home because I’m writing this book.

So I went home, and [at the time] with the elections, there were so many things going on with [so many] families. My parents were interned in the camps during World War II. I was projecting my own feelings on that, but ultimately I made the decision to go home, and instead of talking about what I didn’t understand, I talked to them about being interned in the camps during World War II, and what did that feel like? And talking about the strength they had, feeling the bigotry, signs [saying] “Japs go home.” And I was able to have a very meaningful conversation with them. And then eventually [I was able to] bring it over to current events. Very lightly. I [found] common ground in a different way.

Oh wow, you made me cry.

It’s not that we’re always right—but who is the person that has not the bigger vision, but the solution or can see beyond the confines of the box? And it’s the person—could be you—who has the greater vision on how to unite that has to reach out.

One thing that I wanted to mention that influenced me was a TV program I saw about how people think. For example, the name of a person or some subject matter . . . is like a button that goes straight to a hot plate in your head. The word goes into your head, and there’s a roaring flame to your nerve endings from point A to B. It’s just that that word always makes you angry. And in your head, you start losing your ability to think otherwise. It’s almost like nerve endings die off, and pretty soon the term narrow-minded really applies. We’ll say, “Oh, they’re so closed” or “close-minded,” but truly that’s the only pathway that’s been forged. That’s why I love reading and books and people who love to read, because it develops critical thinking, and you’re able to think beyond just that one path.

Do you plan on visiting schools for Draw the Line?

Yes! Absolutely. I’m doing a lot of different school visits. I can just see school visits being so playful for this book. I usually divide up the audience so that there’s an aisle, so that I can make it more interactive and talk with them as I’m speaking. It’s boring to watch someone behind a podium. . . . [I want to] find a way to experience the divide and have the kids come together. . . . Basically the point is crossing over that line and realizing you always have something in common with somebody else. And maybe have [kids] physically embody that, that feeling of commonality.

Illustrations © Kathryn Otoshi

Kathryn Otoshi, author of Draw the Line, a wordless picture book that begs for rereadings, talks with Deputy Editor Cat Acree. Sponsored by Macmillan Children’s.

Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade

Linda Williams Jackson

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

Linda Williams Jackson follows up her critically acclaimed debut, Midnight Without a Moon, with a new story starring 13-year-old Rose Lee Carter. A Sky Full of Stars opens in 1955 in racially divided Stillwater, Mississippi. After Emmett Till’s murderers have been acquitted, Rose finds herself caught amid growing racial tensions and differences in opinion about political activism. How should her black community respond to police brutality and a failed justice system? Is the only answer to meet violence with violence, or can peaceful protest make a difference? Growing up during a tragic, pivotal time, Rose—who later goes by Rosa—inspires as she finds her courage and her own sense of self.

What kinds of responses did you see from readers of Midnight Without a Moon, and how does A Sky Full of Stars respond?
The overall reader response for Midnight Without a Moon has been tremendously positive. It has been a delight to hear many readers claim it as their favorite middle grade novel of 2017. When ARCs for A Sky Full of Stars began to find themselves in the hands of readers, I didn’t know what to expect. But the response has been great, with some reviewers even claiming it to be a better novel than Midnight Without a Moon, and for that I am very grateful.

What do you love most about Rosa?
What I love most about Rosa is that she can remain optimistic in the midst of trouble. With everything going on around her—the racism from the outside and the abuse from the inside—she continues to hold onto her dream that she can one day make a better life for herself.

Rosa hears of different ways to respond to the injustices in her time; some black Southerners want to march in peaceful demonstrations, while others want to use their “Fist. Feet. Guns.” What advice do you have for kids who might wonder how they should respond to injustices—in the justice system or in their day-to-day lives?
First of all, educate yourself on what is going on. Don’t rely solely on social media posts from your friends to inform you. Read the real news for yourself. Discern fact from fake, then decide what you want to do to help. Perhaps that help is by speaking out, but please do so in an intelligent, informed manner. And be respectful. Always be respectful.

Rosa’s textbooks are completely whitewashed—they don’t even mention Frederick Douglass. Even in 2017, much of black history has only begun to receive its due attention. What’s one little-known story from black history you wish all young readers could learn about?
Almost every young reader knows about Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. But one little-known story that most probably don’t know is the connection that Mississippi has with this historical event. And most young readers probably have never heard of the little all-black town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, that was a huge part of the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement. This is the little-known story from black history that I want all young readers to learn about in A Sky Full of Stars—the history of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, and its connection to Martin Luther King, Rosa Park and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

How do you write about historical racism for a young audience? What are the greatest challenges in doing so?
I never set out to write about historical racism for a young audience. Instead, I set out to share a story about historical racism with ANY audience, but told from a young person’s point of view. From that intent morphed a story geared toward any audience, but more targeted for a younger audience. The challenge, however, in actually writing for a younger audience is not talking down to the audience by assuming that children can’t handle difficult topics.

What do you love most about writing for a younger audience?
What I love most about writing for a younger audience is having the opportunity to tell a story from a young person’s point of view. I spend a great deal of my time around children, so what interests them interests me. Therefore, I consider it a privilege to put myself in a young person’s shoes and relive youth in the form of a story.

Will we see Rosa again?
Yes, there will be more of Rosa’s story. But mostly, I would love to see Rosa’s story in movie form or as a TV series. I think young readers would love that, too.

“I consider it a privilege to put myself in a young person’s shoes and relive youth in the form of a story.”

Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade

G. Neri

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

Childhood buds Truman Capote and Harper Lee bonded over their shared loves of big words and Sherlock Holmes stories in G. Neri’s beloved middle grade novel Tru and Nelle. They return for three Christmases in Tru and Nelle: A Christmas Story, as the two friends come of age amid troubled times in Monroeville, Alabama. These Christmases aren’t always cheery, as Tru and Nelle face family struggles, racism, the injustice of the judicial system and much more. But hope—and good friendship—finds a way.

Tru and Nelle have started to grow up here. What kinds of individual changes did you want to explore, and what kinds of changes to their relationship?
I wanted to show the arc of a friendship. The first book focused of their childhood year, but the second is really about their coming of age as adolescents. The big thing I was trying to write about was that when you move away, everything changes in a friendship while you’re gone. Especially in your teen years. If you are away for two years, that’s like a fifth of your lifetime. You are undergoing big changes, which makes reunions so difficult to navigate. By the time you may find your rhythm, you’re torn apart again and have to start all over the next time.

Why did you continue their story through three Christmases?
I was thinking about the play, Same Time, Next Year, and what a wonderful narrative device that was to show the arc of a friendship. To tell a story over three separate reunions of sorts was always there. I was also struck by the beauty of Truman’s Christmas short stories, too, and wanted to pay homage to them as well. Whereas the first book was a tribute to To Kill a Mockingbird, this one focuses more on Tru’s world and the deep love of family in the face of the lack of understanding form the outside world.

The story opens with scenes about the good old days disappearing—there’s a sense of things lost, of favorite memories slipping away before childhood has even ended—but it seems to make way for new questions for Tru and Nelle. Tough goodbyes and forts burning down sever them from parts of their childhoods, but it opens them up to adolescence. This is a messy, gradual process; why signal this transformation with such sudden and sharp events?
Look, the teen years are a tough and glorious times of upheaval and discovery. The transition can be devastating for some but always life affirming if you can make it through intact. I was trying to find physical manifestations of this inner struggle, both the pain and joy of it. I wanted to show that, while things may be tough, they will get better and you’ll be the stronger for it later on.

Among many things that unite them, Tru and Nelle are outsiders. How do you think these “differences” from the rest of their small town impacted the writers they would become?
It’s the glue that bonds them together, through thick and thin. They may be opposites from each other, but they are each other’s yin and yang, and stand together against the outside world. Their outsider status also allowed them to be great observers of small-town life since they were not popular. They turned their pains and joys into writing and produced amazing literature because of it.

I especially enjoyed the character Sook, as I grew up reading and loving Capote’s A Christmas Memory. What is your favorite event from Tru’s and Nelle’s real lives that inspired something they wrote later on?
Mostly that they acted like detectives from an early age, solving small-town crimes together. It always amused me that they were still at it as adults, and that experience informed In Cold Blood, which they collaborated on in the research phase.

The scene of the murder trial is somber but incredibly well handled for the age group. What is the best way to approach topics of racism, mental illness, the failure of the judicial system, etc. with young readers?
I always like what E.B. White said: “Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick and generally congenial readers on earth. They accept, almost without question, anything you present them with, as long as it is presented honestly, fearlessly and clearly.” I believe in being honest in a human way about these issues. Kids don’t want a lecture or a moral at the end of a story. Start a dialogue with open questions that allow the reader to form their own answers. Let them discover and draw their own conclusions. That’s what life is all about.

Will we see Tru and Nelle again? What are you working on next?
I wrote a short story about them in old age which will complete this trilogy of sorts. But now I can put them to rest (unless less someone wants to make a Netflix series about them). I have two books coming out in 2018: When Paulie Met Artie, a picture book about the childhood friendship between Simon & Garfunkel (coming in March), and a graphic novel about my cousin, the racehorse thief turned advocate, called Grand Theft Horse (late fall). I’ve also just returned from two months in Antarctica and will be beginning a new book about that adventure, starting in the New Year.

“They turned their pains and joys into writing and produced amazing literature because of it.”

Fiction, Historical Fiction

Fiction Historical Fiction

Charles Frazier

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

With his much-anticipated fourth novel, Charles Frazier returns to the Civil War setting of his National Book Award-winning novel, Cold Mountain.

Varina centers on an unexpected and controversial figure: Varina Howell Davis, wife of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy.

You’ve said that after Cold Mountain, you didn’t think you’d ever want to write about the Civil War again. Why have you returned to this setting?
I don’t really think of Varina as a Civil War book. The present time is 1906, and the book covers most of her long life. But she calls the war—especially the chaotic weeks following the fall of Richmond—“the axle of her life.” Everything turns around it. In a sense, American history and culture do the same. That war and its cause—the ownership of human beings—live so deep in our nation’s history and identity that we still haven’t found a way to put it behind us for good. I think of historical fiction as a conversation between the present and the past, and Varina Davis’ life offered me a complex entry point into that dialogue.

Why did you want to tell Varina’s story?
I like writing about strong, complex women, but I hadn’t known much about Varina Davis until I ran across a fragment of fact—that shortly after her much-older husband Jefferson’s death, Varina moved from Mississippi to New York City, intending to be a writer at age 60. During those years she became friends with Julia Grant, Ulysses S. Grant’s widow. Along with personal affection for each other, they apparently saw their friendship as an emblem of national reconciliation. Eventually I became interested in a fictional version of Varina in old age, looking back, stitching together history and memory and invention, hoping to make sense of her long life filled with privilege, loss and persistence. Her dramatic, problematic life was a narrative situation begging for interpretation and interrogation.

What was the most daunting part about telling this story?
Varina looks back at seven or eight decades of American history from the perspective of the early 20th century, so one immediate problem was how to structure the story, how to order all that time. The book is partly about memory—both true and false—and I realized very quickly that I wasn’t interested in calendar time. I wanted to move fluidly through my character’s life, following a memory pattern, not in a straight line. I wanted quick shifts from scene to scene, place to place, time to time. As a writer, I always want to meet the reader at least halfway, so I enjoyed finding ways to create a variety of fixed points in the swirl of time and memory, an internal logic to the narrative shifts.

When writing historical fiction, how do you navigate memory, history and invention?
When I write about historical figures, I’m always in search of a fictional character, not a biographical sketch. My research process tends to be inefficient and intuitive, and a majority of the research I do never finds a place in the book. I read a great deal of primary sources—letters, journals, newspaper articles—and biographies, but eventually I have to step away from the foundational facts of history in order to find my fictional character. So, discovering which plants would be edible during April in upstate South Carolina or getting in the car and driving the route Varina took as she fled south trying to reach Florida becomes more useful to my writing than reading 50 more Jefferson Davis letters.

What was the most surprising thing you learned about Varina during your research?
It was less about Varina than about someone else whose path crossed Varina’s during the Civil War. Strange but true, a 4- or 5-year-old multiracial orphaned boy, nicknamed Jimmie Limber, lived in the Confederate White House in Richmond alongside the children of Jefferson Davis. He was photographed along with Varina’s children and is mentioned in several memoirs by her friends and acquaintances, and he was the subject of wild rumors. The story of their meeting is somewhat hazy—Varina may have seen him being beaten on the street and taken him home, or her own sons may have known him from the little boys’ street gang they belonged to called the Hill Cats. Either way, Jimmie Limber stayed with Varina and her children as they fled from Richmond at the end of the war until they were captured by Federal troops in south Georgia. He then came under the care of a teacher from Boston working with freed slaves on the Sea Islands, and soon after, at about age 6 or 7, he may have been sent to an orphanage. At this point he drops out of the historical record.

I became interested in imagining a life for that little boy, and in having him, as a middle-aged man, seek out Varina. This fictional character, now called James Blake, wants to fill blanks in his memory to better understand his life, and over the course of seven Sundays in the late summer and fall of 1906, he and V visit to talk and try to reconstruct and understand history—the nation’s and their own—to re-examine their lives.

We’re in an era of recasting the legacy of the South and the Confederacy, particularly with the tearing down of Confederate statues. What do you think Varina can contribute to these conversations?
It’s important to remember how those monuments came to be where they are (or were, in a few cases). They didn’t spring up right after 1865, but are largely a product of the Jim Crow South. The Stone Mountain monument wasn’t even finished until the early 1970s. There’s a very strong argument that the monuments have much more to do with suppressing equal rights than commemorating ancestors. With that in mind, part of what drew me to Varina Davis was that she left the South—with no intention of returning—before the rise of the Lost Cause and Jim Crow, and even in her 70s tried to look forward rather than backward. So, the events of the past few years—among them the violence of white supremacists in Charlottesville, the church shootings in Charleston, the national debate over Confederate flags and memorials—certainly shaped the book, especially as they emphasize the extent to which the history of our country is built around the armature of slavery and the Civil War, and how far we still are from putting those issues behind us.

After fleeing Richmond at the end of the war, Varina writes, “Head full of sorrow, heart full of dreams. How to maintain the latter as life progresses? How not to let the first cancel the second?” What’s your answer to her questions?
The Buddhist suggestion that we should avoid despair or hope offers the beginning of an answer. If I come up with anything more useful, I’ll let you know.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of Varina.

Photo credit Mark Humphrey

With his much-anticipated fourth novel, Charles Frazier returns to the Civil War setting of his National Book Award-winning novel, Cold Mountain. Varina centers on an unexpected and controversial figure: Varina Howell Davis, wife of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy.

Debut Fiction, Fiction

Fiction Debut Fiction

Brianna Wolfson

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

In Rosie Colored Glasses, 11-year-old Willow loves her wild, free, Pixy Stix-obsessed, rules-be-damned mother, Rosie, and time spent with her rigid father, Rex, only seems to create more heartbreak. But Wolfson alternates Willow’s narration with the story of Rex and Rosie as they fall in love 12 years ago, revealing a charming, opposites-attract romance marred by Rosie’s opioid abuse. As Willow begins to grow up, she also starts to see her parents with clear eyes. As past and present converge, the reader discovers that for all the dysfunction in this family, there is also a tremendous depth of love—but that may not be enough.

Wolfson explores some of the most difficult questions of the modern American family with fierce empathy, tenderness and understanding. Here, she talks about different kinds of love, looking back on her own childhood and more.

Briefly, I’d love if you could share why this book is so personal and important for you.
In many ways, the story of Rosie Colored Glasses is my own story. I started writing this book after a telling the true and much, much shorter version of my story at The Moth, a live storytelling event, in San Francisco. The experience was life-changing. I had never before tried to weave together the experiences of my life, let alone talk about them to a room of strangers. Shortly after getting off the stage, a woman approached me and asked whether I ever considered writing something long-form. That teeny, tiny nudge got me to put pen to paper on the story that eventually became Rosie Colored Glasses.

“Getting into my parents’ heads certainly helped me build more empathy for them, and I wanted readers to enjoy this same process.”

As the story moves back and forth between Willow’s perspective and her parents’, the reader learns a lot about this love story, and we learn it a lot quicker than Willow does. Why did you want to explore this story from two different perspectives?
This choice says a lot about my own process and journey writing this novel. This book started out as a reflection on my childhood experiences, now as an adult. As I revisited the events of my past, I realized there must have been a lot to the story that I missed, being so young as the events unfolded. I started to really contemplate what those events must have been like for the other people involved in them—most notably, my mother and my father. In some ways it was very challenging to get back into those painful memories. But in other ways, it was very comforting to think about the ways in which my parents were both trying to take care of me during that time. Getting into my parents’ heads certainly helped me build more empathy for them, and I wanted readers to enjoy this same process.

Willow grows up a little bit throughout this book, as she learns about different kinds of love. Do remember having a similar realization as a child?
I do. But I also am not under any illusion that this experience is specific to me. I believe that every child’s transition to adulthood includes some realization that their parents are fallible humans. It’s why I believe that although all the characters in Rosie Colored Glasses have some very specific peculiarities and weaknesses, the story is ultimately very universal.

For all the mistakes made by the characters of this book, it’s clear that you, as their creator, have a lot of compassion for them. How would you describe your relationship to your characters?
In the early days of writing Rosie Colored Glasses, I got advice from a writing teacher to “write what you hate.” It makes for dynamic interactions and unexpected behaviors—everything an author wants in her writing. But somewhere along the way of spending hours and hours with these characters—thinking through their motivations and developing their core essence—you fall in love with them and you want them to have some good inside. I think part of the writing process is reflected in Rosie Colored Glasses. It also helped that the characters corresponded to real humans that I know and love.

One of the beautiful themes throughout the book is the different ways we show each other love—and how they can be misinterpreted or even missed entirely. What are the ways you find yourself giving love to those around you? Is writing part of that process?
My response is probably going to reveal something a bit embarrassing about me, but I am actually a big fan of the 5 Love Languages. To use the terminology, I’m big on giving quality time, physical touch and words of affirmation. And I prefer getting quality time above all else!

What are some of your favorite literary love stories? Do you prefer a happily-ever-after, or something more complicated?
I typically go for the darkest, twistiest stories I can find, but if we’re talking about favorites, I’ll pick a classic. “Beauty and the Beast” was my childhood favorite, and the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is one I return to most often. In this beautiful but tragic story, Eurydice is taken into the underworld after being bit by a snake, and Orpheus goes to retrieve her. Hades, god of the underworld, tells Orpheus that he will allow Eurydice to follow him out of the underworld but only if Orpheus agrees not to look back at her before coming into the light. Tragically, Orpheus can’t help but look back, and Eurydice is gone forever.

What are you working on next?
I am currently putting the final touches on a second novel. This one also contemplates family dynamics from multiple perspectives and draws from my past experiences. Something that Rosie Colored Glasses does not touch upon, but remains a very important part of my personal story and relationship to my concept of family, is my stepmother, stepsiblings and half-sister. This next work explores how blood ties families together, or doesn’t.

How much can we possibly know about our parents’ love story? For the children of divorced parents, that story is confusing, broken—a topic upon which to tread lightly. Inspired by her own childhood, debut author Brianna Wolfson shares the story of a family ripped apart, with children trying to find their place in the middle.

Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Mystery

Max Allan Collins

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

Honoring the centenary of Spillane’s birth, The Last Stand presents something special for fans: one of Spillane’s earliest unpublished novellas, completed by Collins, paired with Spillane’s last completed novel.

How do these two stories encompass Spillane’s career?
The novella, A Bullet for Satisfaction, dates to the early 1950s, the time of his first great success. It represents all the controversial elements that made Mickey such an innovator and superstar, specifically the level of sex and violence, but also his mastery of fast-paced narrative and first-person. Mickey mellowed as he grew older, and the rage and frustrations he brought home from military service in World War II—which were infused in Mike Hammer and his other early protagonists, and are so apparent in Bullet—were muted in The Last Stand. But he remained interested in male bonding, male-female relationships and strength of character. There’s also an element of vengeance, but not coming from the hero this time.

The Last Stand is a very different kind of Spillane novel. It’s quieter, with an emphasis on adventure over mystery. In your introduction to the book, you describe it as a “barely concealed rumination on coming to terms with aging.” How would you describe Spillane at this point in his writing career?
Mickey, I think, viewed himself as semiretired. He only wrote when he felt like it, more for fun than commerce—which I think was always true, though he liked to say his inspiration was “an urgent need for money.” On the other hand, at the same time he wrote The Last Stand, he was working on his final Mike Hammer novel, The Goliath Bone (2008). He portrayed Hammer as an older man preparing to marry his longtime secretary and partner, Velda.

Spillane frequently spun stories of vengeance. Why?
Vengeance is the specific theme of I, the Jury (1947)—Mike Hammer swearing revenge over the corpse of an army buddy who’d saved his life in combat. That so resonated with readers that Mickey realized this theme could separate him from run-of-the-mill mystery writers—he brought emotion into play.

The crime fiction landscape has changed quite a bit since Spillane’s first Mike Hammer novel, I, the Jury, was published. Where do you see Spillane’s (and Hammer’s) legacy in contemporary thrillers?
Lee Child’s Jack Reacher is an obvious descendant, just as in Spillane’s day James Bond and Fleming were his. You see Mickey’s fingerprints all over everybody who followed him and Mike Hammer, from Peter Gunn and Billy Jack to Mack Bolan and Jack Bauer. Shaft was a black Mike Hammer, even initially advertised that way. Fleming was sold as the British Spillane. Any tough hero with emotion who breaks the rules can point back to Mickey and Mike.

This article was originally published in the April 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

For 10 years, Max Allan Collins has skillfully and loyally acted as literary executor for pulp mystery master Mickey Spillane, who left behind a number of unfinished manuscripts after his death in 2006.

Historical Romance, Inspirational Romance, Romance

Romance Inspirational Romance Historical Romance

Icebreaker: Sarah E. Ladd

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

BookPage Icebreaker is a publisher-sponsored interview.

In Regency England, handloom weavers and textile millers are at war. The Industrial Revolution may bring progress, but it also threatens a simpler way of life—and the livelihoods of the villagers of Ambledale. Kate Hathaway is the daughter of a weaver; Henry Stockton returns from war as the heir to his family’s mill. In The Weaver’s Daughter, Sarah E. Ladd’s new kisses-only romance, love between Kate and Henry grows—but so does animosity between the village’s opposing sides. Kate’s brother has already chosen the side of the millers, splitting Kate’s family in two. Which side will Kate choose?

In this heartfelt tale of loyalty and forgiveness, love has the power to bridge any divide—but how do we begin? Ladd shows us the way.

Cat: Your Regency romances often explore spaces other than just your standard drawing rooms and ballrooms. Take us back to this world for The Weaver’s Daughter—why did you choose this moment of industrial change?

Sarah: For the Regency period as a whole, I’ve always been drawn more to the social structure of the time period, more so than to the balls and the parties and the gowns. I’ve always been more fascinated with the changes happening and the social structure.

Just for a little bit of background, this is a time when the middle class is emerging. We have the Napoleonic Wars, there were a lot of economic problems—just a whole bunch of changes really impacting the way people lived. The Industrial Revolution was obviously in full swing during this time period. I stumbled across some research years and years and years ago that just stuck with me. It was the Luddite movement that happened in the early part of the Regency. Basically, a bunch of the people who made their living by weaving were getting wind of newer technologies, and these new machines were taking their jobs. So they started revolting.

Anytime there’s change, there are adjustments all around it. Both sides of this argument really felt that they were in the right, and they were both fighting for it. I just thought, man, what a great setting for a story!

Within this feud, we discover sort of a Romeo and Juliet love story but not nearly as tragic or sad. The prologue gives us a glimpse of how far back this family feud and its pain go. It’s not just patriarch versus patriarch—it affects Kate’s former best friend, Frederica, who ditches Kate as the battle lines are drawn. What do you think makes it even remotely possible for Kate and Henry to come together? What do you see in their hearts?

If we start with Henry, I think that war changes people. When you are brought to a brink where you are literally dealing with life and death as opposed to something like a machine, it really shifts your perspective. I think Henry being removed from that community and that environment gave his mind space to become free a little bit. So when he did return, it seemed almost petty to him. He was almost able to rise above some of the preconceptions and start to see things from a different vantage point. He had dealt with life-or-death situations, and this just wasn’t one of them. He was able to bring a bit of an outsider’s perspective (he’s not an outsider, but almost) to the situation.

As far as Kate goes, I think that the fact that her brother had already defected—I guess is the word we would use!—she really didn’t want to break that relationship. In order to keep that relationship alive, she had to open her mind up to what he was saying. If you really listened to his argument, it is valid. It was a good business decision, it was the way the industry was moving, and there was no way to get around that. I think that being of that younger mindset, she wasn’t as ingrained in it as her father was. She was able to be swayed.

You’ve set them up in such a way that it is possible for Henry’s and Kate’s minds to change, but it’s still a difficult process.

You’re choosing basically family over family. Your father over your brother. It seems to us, in our day and age, almost silly, because it’s over wool. But you’ve got to keep in mind, that for the master weaver—her father was a master weaver, very well respected—that was their life. Everything in their community circled around the way that they produced cloth. Anything that threatened that, anything that wanted to take away from their quality of life was seen as very, very bad.

Part of revisiting those long-held preconceptions is forgiveness. That seems to be a really big part of that process.

When I first set about to write this book, I wanted it to be a book about loyalty. Why are we loyal to the people we’re loyal to? What happens when loyalties change? What happens when people on either side change? Or what happens when we find ourselves being loyal to something that maybe isn’t right? As I dove deeper into that, it comes back to just what you said, it comes back to forgiveness. We’re all human, and everyone has their own free will, and everyone is going to hurt somebody at some point—not necessarily meaning to, but that’s just the way, when you love somebody, that’s the risk you take. We always assume that the people we love are going to be loyal and behave the way we think they’re going to. But at the end of the day, that loyalty will lead us to forgiveness. If we really love those people, we have to accept those people for who they are, accept that they’re flawed, accept that we’re not necessarily always right either. It goes both ways.

Progress and loyalty don’t seem, in my mind, to be mutually exclusive. But in the story of this community, it can be. Advancements like Henry revisiting working conditions, and Henry and Kate’s decision to leave behind the sides they were on and to not take quick offense without knowing the whole story—these are things that help bring the community together. But even still, the community did resort to violence and tremendous heartbreak. Which begs the question: What is the best way to bridge a divide like this?

In the weaving community, before the machines came, weaving was done in the homes. Every single person was involved, from the children to the wives. Everybody worked together. We think, you know, what would bring us to violence? What would make them resort to that level when they saw their children leaving their homes? . . . But they were not only fighting for their livelihood, they were fighting for what they believed to be morally correct. When you add that level on top of basic livelihood, people are going to react, people are willing to be violent and face consequences to preserve what they believe is right. The weavers really did believe that they were fighting the moral battle.

And the millers really believed they were fighting the right battle by improving industry, because the economy was horrible in England at this time. Anything that could be done to provide for the community was seen as a plus.

So they both have valid arguments. It’s just so central to this story that those emotions are understood, because it really provides the motivation for why everyone is doing what they’re doing.

There’s one line in the book that seems to sum it up: “They were two people fighting the same battle on different sides of the war.” I felt like that was happening throughout the book—everyone, despite the bad behavior, were all just trying to do what they believed was the right thing for their community.

Yes, and that was really something I wanted to convey, because it goes back to the research that struck me as so poignant. We see this in other times in history and different settings. I think by looking back, there’s so much that can be learned to see how this was handled. In the end, the government stepped in, and machine breaking is wrong. [laughs]

What are the great joys and great challenges of writing historical fiction? Especially when you’re writing smart women who are trapped in powerless situations. Frederica is just as trapped as Kate is, and Henry’s sister, Molly, is about to have a child out of wedlock.

I am intrigued by the idea of human emotions. Over time, basic human emotions do not change. Everyone, regardless of the time period you’re in, knows what it’s like to be jealous, what it’s like to hate, what it’s like to love. These are basic things that make up human character. We enjoy a lot of freedoms here in America, but what I find interesting is to think that women in the past have the exact same emotions that we do, the basic human emotions, but they were under a different set of rules. So that’s what I really like about historical fiction—I like exploring those emotions and seeing how applying different sets of rules affected the outcome. It’s easy to say how we would respond in our modern society, but to be told that every single thing about your life has already been pretty much been dictated and you have basically no rights, what would women do to get around those rules? I find that extremely fascinating, because it can vary so much from one personality type to the next.

We’re drawn to these strong characters because they teach us something about ourselves, because we can identify with those basic human emotions.

One of the areas in the book where we saw willingness to listen was with Henry and his sister, Molly. I thought that was a beautiful relationship. She’s was one of my favorite characters.

What I really wanted to show with her character was the restraints put on women at the time, to put a little backdrop of what the Fredericas and the Kates were facing. She took part in an action that resulted in a child, and she was so ashamed of it that she resorted to lying. It was a very fine line for me to walk, because it is a Christian publisher. Lying’s a sin. It would’ve been really easy for Henry to be like, you are going to tell the truth, you are going to come clean or you are going to hide this. But that was a journey that Molly needed to come to on her own.

Another reason for her was I really wanted to show Henry’s family. It’s not just him and his grandfather working the mills. There is more to it. There are more lives at stake—not just the mill owners but his own family.

She was a fun character to write. She was so vivid in my mind. I did have a different ending planned for her originally, but when you’re writing the story, the story takes over and the path becomes her own. I wanted to stay true to the time period she was in. Her journey’s not going to be an easy one. It will never be an easy one, as long as she’s unmarried with a child. But that’s one of the truths and the realities of that time period.

Things are wrapped up beautifully, but there’s a future ahead that makes me wonder, will there be more stories for some of these characters?

One thing before I answer that question, that I just thought about Molly that is super important. I also wanted to show how important it was to be able to forgive yourself for making mistakes. This idea of forgiveness is not just bestowing forgiveness on someone else or accepting it from someone else. It goes beyond that—not only accepting God’s forgiveness, but letting God forgive. Do you know what I mean? Not holding on so tightly to the guilt and the shame, that there’s freedom in forgiveness. That was another role of her character, was to show another dimension of forgiveness.

Regarding if we’ll see them again, The Weaver’s Daughter is a standalone story. It’s my seventh book, but I had a different connection with these characters than I had with the other ones. It was a deeper connection. I’m not quite ready to let them go yet. There’s not a book planned, but I would love to see a novella or something that wraps up especially Molly’s story.

She got to you.

She did. She’s the one that readers are really relating to, either cheering for her or against her, but she’s really the one causing a discussion. It’s really interesting to see what resonates with people, because I always think I know what’s going to resonate, and then I’m always surprised. Initially, she had a romance of her own that happened, but it had to be cut. I would love to revisit that.

I love that you’re open to people’s reactions to her, that you’re accepting of the fact that a strong reaction to a character, whether they really like or really don’t like her, that is the sign of a great character. She hasn’t just tapped your mind, she’s tapped every reader’s mind.

Isn’t that life? It would be easy to write perfect characters who never do anything wrong, but that’s not life. Life is messy and has a lot of layers. I like that people are talking about it and have opinions about it. Her issues and that idea of forgiveness are real. Regardless of how you feel about what she did. At some point, it was her story, and that’s the story that came out. I like her!

I do, too.

Sarah E. Ladd, author of inspirational romance The Weaver’s Daughter, talks with Deputy Editor Cat Acree.

Memoir, Nonfiction

Nonfiction Memoir

Saeed Jones

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

Authors who turn themselves inside out for their stories, who are the most vulnerable and giving in their writing, often matter to us the most. In Saeed Jones’ memoir, How We Fight for Our Lives, he relates his experiences growing up black and gay in the American South, offering a level of vulnerability that, one might assume, is a signifier that his heart is meant to be shared.

How does such a vulnerable writer enter into the public space of a book event? Jones shares a look into his book tour, which includes a visit to Nashville for the Southern Festival of Books.

Your book discusses the difficulty you’ve had being vulnerable with others throughout your life. What’s the difference between being vulnerable with people in real life and being vulnerable on the page?
Something you see in the book is my tendency to self-bully. It started when I was a gay black kid growing up in the suburbs. I wasn’t bullied by individuals; kids weren’t shoving me into lockers or calling me slurs to my face. Shame—electrified by racism and homophobia—was enforced by the broader culture though, and in response, I started bullying myself. I started saying cruel things about myself to myself. While I’ve generally grown out of self-hate, an ease with being tough and candid about myself to myself is an integral aspect of my writing. People often tell me that I’m so “brave,” but I don’t know how else to be.

It’s easy for me to be incredibly vulnerable on the page, because the blank page is just an iteration of my ongoing internal discourse. In real life though, while I’m all about telling the truth, I struggle with the cost of vulnerability. If I’m upset about something, I’ll confide in my best friend, Isaac, and often say something like, “I’m going to tell you about something that’s upsetting me, but please don’t hug me because I will lose it.” It upsets me when I realize that my vulnerability has made someone I care about emotional. Anyway, I’m sure this book tour will be super chill.

You visited Nashville last year with Isaac Fitzgerald. Was there anything you didn’t get to see or experience then that you’re looking forward to this time?
Oh, goodness. We had such a great time. Hell, we had breakfast with Ann Patchett! How do you top that? I am excited about all of the food. As someone raised in Texas and Tennessee, Southern food is one of my great joys.

If you could sit in the audience for an event with any author, living or dead, who would you like to see read from and discuss their book?
People keep asking me different iterations of this question, and my answer is always the same: I’d want to go to an after-party with James Baldwin. We’ve got archival footage; in the end, a reading is a reading. Why listen to James Baldwin read, when you can dance with him?

Has a reader ever asked a question or made a comment at an event that made you see your work in a new light?
After doing an event for the memoir recently, a woman said that she was so deeply moved by hearing me talk about grief and losing my mother that she “just wanted to adopt me.” I arched my eyebrows in surprise, and she repeated herself. I smiled the nervous-polite smile that I summon in these kinds of moments, thanked her and walked away. That moment helped me understand that, in opening myself up to readers, they’re going to open themselves up, too, and often, that’s messy. Sometimes they’re going to try to comfort me in awkward ways, and I have to be prepared for that. I know she meant well, but also, folks: I had a mother; her name was Carol Sweet-Jones. She was wonderful. I am not looking for replacements.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of How We Fight for Our Lives.

Author photo by Jon Premosch

Authors who turn themselves inside out for their stories, who are the most vulnerable and giving in their writing, often matter to us the most. Saeed Jones discusses the nature of vulnerability while on a book tour.

History, Nonfiction

Nonfiction History

Karen Abbott

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

Jazz-Age America promises all the drama you could ever hope for: bootleggers and flappers, parties and criminals and crooked government agents. All this and more come alive in Karen Abbott’s compulsively readable The Ghosts of Eden Park.

For all the surprises packed within its pages, perhaps the greatest is that every single line of dialogue comes directly from a primary source. It’s a true researching feat—and it means we’re extra excited to see Abbott at this year’s Southern Festival of Books. We reached out to her about book-tour traditions and what it’s like to interact with her readers.

What is the mark of a really great book event?
The enthusiasm and the energy of the crowd, lots of sales, people who laugh at my jokes . . . 😉

What have you most enjoyed about interacting with the readership of The Ghosts of Eden Park?
I love hearing people’s personal connections to the history: Someone’s grandfather was a bootlegger; another’s grandmother was a flapper; and numerous others share fascinating tales of far-flung ancestors who operated speakeasies or ran errands for George Remus or sought legal help from Mabel Walker Willebrandt. Those kinds of connections make these long-dead characters come back to life.

When visiting a city for a book event, do you have any rituals, either for yourself or to get to know the city?
I like to find an off-the-beaten-path local bar—something tucked away, with an interesting and possibly wicked history—and enjoy the signature cocktail while I review my notes.

If you could sit in the audience of an event with any author, living or dead, who would you like to see read from and discuss their book?
Tough one! Male author: Edgar Allan Poe, talking about The Fall of the House of Usher and The Philosophy of Composition. Female author: Patricia Highsmith on This Sweet Sickness, The Blunderer, The Talented Mr. Ripley or any of her choosing.

What have you learned about your book through your interactions with its readers that you didn’t know before it was published?
This book was a bit of a departure for me; I structured it like a true crime thriller and whodunit. Even though The Ghosts of Eden Park is history and the events are google-able, I am pleasantly surprised that people want to approach it as it if were fiction. They want to be surprised by the twists and turns and to guess who murders whom.

Were there any elements of your research into The Ghosts of Eden Park that didn’t make it into the book?
I could have written an entire chapter on ways ordinary citizens smuggled alcohol or subverted Prohibition laws. There was a “book” titled The Four Swallows that disguised a flask; flip the top and you’d find four vials to be filled with the whiskey of your choice. There were “cow shoes” that didn’t hold liquor but were invaluable for bootleggers who made moonshine in meadows or forests. The wooden heels were carved to resemble animal hooves, and they literally covered the bootleggers’ tracks when being pursued on foot by Prohibition agents. And one more: a female Prohibition named Daisy Simpson, aka “Lady Hooch Hunter,” who deserves a book of her own.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of The Ghosts of Eden Park.

Author photo by Gilbert King

Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book

Betsy Bird

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

by Cat, Deputy Editor

Betsy Bird is one of the most beloved children’s librarians, dare we say, of all time. This holiday season, she joins with Caldecott Medalist Dan Santat for a picture book about a clever Santa scheme. In The Great Santa Stakeout, Freddy Melcher is a St. Nick uberfan, and he’s determined to get a photo with the jolly old elf.

Our holiday wish (though it’s a bit early) was that Bird would visit Nashville sometime soon. We must’ve been good this year, because she’s coming for the Southern Festival of Books. Here she chats about the joys—and confrontations—of a children’s book event.

What is the mark of a really great book event?
Sheer unmitigated enthusiasm from all sides. The best book events I’ve ever seen are the ones where the staff putting on the event are engaged and excited, the authors and illustrators being featured are active and interested, and the attendees who have come are just generally in a hazy state of joy. It’s that combination of elements that yields magic. We’ve all seen bored authors, droopy readers and disinterested staff. It makes us appreciate all the more the people who absolutely love this business and everything it entails.

What is most challenging to discuss with readers about a book or the writing process?
You’ll hear authors kvetch when they get the “where do you get your ideas?” question, but I don’t believe it’s because the question is overdone. It’s more that authors often have no idea what the true answer is. Writing is, by definition, strange. I’m going to sit down, create words that represent pictures that appear in my brain and put them onto a page in an order that not only makes sense but, ideally, will reach into YOUR brain and elicit some kind of a response. Humans are keen on tangibles, and nothing is more intangible than writing. Trying to say as much to an earnest 8-year-old, however, requires a great deal of verbal wrangling.

When visiting a city for a book event, do you have any rituals, either for yourself or to get to know the city?
I don’t, but I think I should. What a good idea. You know what I’d like to do? I’d like to visit a children’s librarian in every city. Nobody knows the ins, outs, oddities, peculiarities and specificities of a city like a librarian that works with kids. Someday, when I am rich and bored with oodles of time on my hands, I want to become a roving reporter that visits cities in the news and interviews the children’s librarians there. Until then, maybe I should start with these book events.

“Nobody knows the ins, outs, oddities, peculiarities and specificities of a city like a librarian that works with kids.”

If you could sit in the audience for an event with any author, living or dead, who would you like to see read from and discuss their book?
Oh! That’s easy. I’m going to cheat and say four authors. I would like to sit in the audience and watch a three-way conversation between Shel Silverstein, James Marshall and Trina Schart Hyman. I would like this conversation to be moderated by Maurice Sendak, who would periodically yell at the panel to stay on topic or derail everything with his own anecdotes and stories.

Has a reader ever asked a question or made a comment at an event that made you see your work in a new light?
That’s the wonderful thing about kids. You think you know your book? You don’t know ANYTHING, bub! Not until you’ve faced down a 4-year-old that has told you, in no uncertain terms, that your picture book is little more than a bald-faced lie. A cupcake has clearly been portrayed on the cover, indicating that there are more cupcakes inside the book. But are there more cupcakes inside the book. There are NOT! I ask you, madam author, how do you sleep at night?

Children’s librarianship has a lot of skills and characteristics in common with the work that Santa and his elves do—getting to know kids, connecting with them on things they want and need, etc. If Santa asked you to assist him as an elf in his workshop or on his delivery route, how would you stack up?
I would be a living nightmare. You are correct that there are some correlations between Santa’s elves and children’s librarians. However, when we produce miracles, they are often unforeseen. If a child walks into my library and asks for a book, and that book is not there, I am trained to find the child, as fast as I am able, magnificent, wonderful, compelling alternatives to the missing item. Now imagine me as an elf. A child has politely asked me for a children’s book that I think is less than stellar. Come Christmas morning, they gleefully rip open their presents to find . . . a huge pile of (in my opinion) preferable readalikes. AUGH! That poor kid. I’d be so busy trying to find the right book for the right reader that I’d probably spend 20 minutes on one child while the list of others just grew and grew. I don’t think I’m cut out to be an elf quite yet.

Our holiday wish (though it’s a bit early) was that Betsy Bird would visit Nashville sometime soon—and we must’ve been good this year, because she’s coming for the Southern Festival of Books.

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Cat, Deputy Editor

Gail Honeyman on 2017’s bittersweet breakout debut

Icebreaker: Beth Vrabel

This BookPage Icebreaker is sponsored by Running Press Kids.

Lisa Bevere

Icebreaker: Kathryn Otoshi

This BookPage Icebreaker is sponsored by Macmillan Children’s.

Linda Williams Jackson

G. Neri

Charles Frazier

Brianna Wolfson

Max Allan Collins

Icebreaker: Sarah E. Ladd

BookPage Icebreaker is a publisher-sponsored interview.

Saeed Jones

Karen Abbott

Betsy Bird

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