The so-called Queen of the Topical Novel (as crowned by the Miami Herald) is back. In her 15th book, Change of Heart, Jodi Picoult examines the nature of faith and the path to salvation. Shay Bourne, a wanderer who picks up spare jobs as a carpenter, is convicted of killing a young girl and her stepfather and sentenced to death. While on death row, he performs what appear to be miracles: bringing a dead bird back to life, turning the water in the prison pipes to wine. Who gets to decide whether he's a Messiah or a crackpot? And what should the victim's mother do when Bourne offers the one thing that can save her other daughter's life?

Change of Heart is vintage Picoult—a challenging, intelligent and powerful read. Picoult recently answered questions for BookPage about her new book and life as a best-selling author.

You're an incredibly prolific writer and you manage to write such consistently enjoyable books. What do you do to recharge and come up with the idea for your next novel?
I don't actively try—I guess that's part of the magic. Instead, I let the topics choose me. I figure out what it is that I'm particularly concerned with, or questioning, and let myself explore it in the field of fiction. Usually I know two years ahead of time what I'll be working on in the future!

Change of Heart explores the idea that religion is to some extent about having faith in things we can't prove. How did your own beliefs influence this book? It's my belief that this country is breaking apart on the fault line of religion and that something meant originally to unite people has instead become divisive. To that end, I really wanted to put the history back into religion, and to challenge those who feel that just because they think they're right, everyone else must be wrong. I would never presume to tell anyone how to believe; I get upset when people presume to tell me. It's no coincidence that I wanted to publish this book during an election year, when the boundary between church and state has become increasingly blurred.

Much of the book is set in a state prison. Your depiction of life behind bars is fascinating, from the ways prisoners pass the time to the unique language they speak. What kind of research did you do to paint such a vivid picture of prison life?
I've been to death row in Arizona, twice now. It's a very strange place—in all the years I've been doing research, I don't think I've ever seen such a cloud of secrecy like the one I found there. I was literally on a plane when my visit was being nearly cancelled—I had to arrive at the facility and talk my way into it, because they decided if I was a writer, I must be "media". I was able to charm the authorities into giving me a tour of their death row—which is more serene than you'd think, because the inmates are locked into their individual cells 23 hours a day. Then I begged to be taken to the execution chamber—the Death House, as it used to be called in Arizona. It was while I was examining their gas chamber (Arizona uses both gas and lethal injection) that the warden approached me to ask me again who I was, and why I was writing a book about this. She definitely had her guard up—and wasn't budging an inch. We started talking about the last execution in Arizona, and at some point she mentioned she was a practicing Catholic. "If you're Catholic," I said, "do you think the death penalty is a good thing?" She stared at me for a long moment, and then said, "I used to." From that moment on, the wall between us came down, and she was willing to tell me everything I wanted and needed to know—including scenes you'll see in this book, a backstage look at how an execution happens.

Your publisher is printing one million copies of Change of Heart. Have you calculated how far around the globe that would stretch?
I'm not nearly as gifted at math as you're giving me credit for!! Actually, I'd probably be more likely to count how many trees sacrificed themselves for my fiction. Seriously, though, it's a crazy number I can't really wrap my head around—million-copy print runs are for people like Stephen King and JK Rowling, not little ol' me. There's still a part of me that believes the people buying my books are all friends of my mom's, but I guess I'll have to finally admit that maybe there are a few folks who read my stuff that she hasn't bullied into it!

You have a month-long book tour coming up. What question comes up most often during appearances? And which question would you be happy if you never had to answer again?
The question I get asked over and over is "Where do the ideas come from?" I once heard another writer say, "They arrive in brown paper packages every Tuesday." I've always been tempted to steal that response! The best question I've ever been asked was by a teenager in the U.K. last year—she wanted to know what I felt were the three biggest issues facing America right now, and if I was writing about them. I said, "Intolerance/bullying, religious narrow-mindedness and gay rights." I'm happy to report that I had already written books on two of the three, and was planning to write about the third one!

What's the one thing you're most proud of?
That my three children are good-hearted, kind and thoughtful.

If you had to choose one book to reread once a year, what book would it be?
Gone with the Wind. And it's so long, it would probably take that long, too!

Not many widows of a certain age living in a gossip-loving small town would have the gumption to befriend their husband's mistress and illegitimate nine-year-old son. But that feisty attitude is exactly the reason that Miss Julia, the heroine of Ann B. Ross' series set in imaginary Abbotsville, North Carolina, has won the hearts of so many fans. Since meeting Hazel Marie and Little Lloyd in Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind (1999), Julia has seen her life take some interesting twists and turns, including a happy second marriage to good-natured lawyer Sam Murdoch. In her eighth adventure, Miss Julia Paints the Town Julia tries to keep New Jersey developers away from the old Abbotsville courthouse while helping her friends cope with marital problems. We caught up with Ann Ross to ask some questions about Miss Julia and her world.

What makes the South such a rich setting for fiction?
I think the South grows storytellers like it does peanuts, sweet potatoes and kudzu. Up until fairly recently, this area consisted of small towns and rural communities where entertainment was mostly homegrown. Now that so many of our towns have turned into cities and even mega-cities, not many families sit on the front porch after supper and talk about the time that Granny Watson fell in the creek or old man Taylor ran a mile trying to catch his mule.

Are you a small-town girl yourself?
I am, indeed, a small-town girl, born in my grandmother's front bedroom, brought up in a small town and moved to another to bring up my own children.

You've described the Miss Julia series as a coming-of-age story. Do readers identify with this idea of finding yourself later in life?
I think of the first book, Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind, as a coming-of-age story, because that is when Julia grew up and found her voice. And, yes, I do think a lot of readers identify with that. Many women of my generation were taught to always be nice and sweet, agree with everything and never reveal too much intelligence. It took me almost as long as it took Julia to begin thinking for myself and losing the fear of saying what I think.

You returned to college to finish your education after raising your children. What was the biggest surprise you faced when going back to school?
Realizing that I not only could do the work, but do it well. I also learned that I could be valued for myself alone, and not for being someone's daughter, niece, wife or mother.

What authors inspire you?
It's hard to say what authors inspire me. I read a lot, but rarely anything in the same genre in which I write. I prefer the hard-boiled, gritty cop and detective books—things that I cannot write. But if I had to name a few, I would list Harper Lee and Mark Twain for their coming-of-age stories and Geoffrey Chaucer for proving that comedy can be as important as tragedy.

How would you like your books (and Miss Julia) to be remembered?
Oh, my, I'd be surprised if either Miss Julia or my books are remembered for long. Actually, I'm still surprised that the first one got published, much less all the others. But there is apparently something about her and the books that appeal and give pleasure to a large number of people. I wish I knew what it was so I can keep doing it.

What is it about Miss Julia that speaks to so many readers?
It's a mystery to me, unless it's the fact that she is an unusual literary heroine because she's not young, beautiful, multitalented and courted by handsome men. In other words, she's very similar to a lot of women who like to read. By the way, Miss Julia apparently appeals to a lot of men, as well. I see more and more men coming to signings and sending e-mails. Maybe strong, capable women are more attractive than many of us ever thought.

Your books tackle serious issues (infidelity, gender identity and religion, to name a few) but manage to remain lighthearted. How do you maintain this balance?
The only way I can answer the question of maintaining a balance between serious issues and lightheartedness is to say that I see them through Miss Julia's eyes. And I, myself, try to see the humor in the human condition. Of course, if any of these issues touched me personally I'm sure I would be devastated. So I try to treat them with compassion, even when Julia may not be so sympathetic.

If Miss Julia met Scarlett O'Hara, what advice would she give her?
Hold your head up high and keep on going. Which is exactly what Scarlett did.
 

Southern writer Patti Callahan Henry has been compared to Anne Rivers Siddons, Mary Alice Monroe and Dorothea Benton Frank. With a touch as graceful as a twilight breeze, she explores the lives of women;old and young and in-between;in novels like Losing the Moon and Between the Tides. Her fifth book, The Art of Keeping Secrets, is a delicately wrought exploration of the unlikely relationship that forms between two women, Annabelle and Sofie, after the untimely death of Annabelle's husband, Knox Murphy, in a plane crash. The Art of Keeping Secrets delves with kindness into the dilemmas of history and memory, love and duty as Annabelle and Sofie are forced to confront and examine the truth about Knox and their pasts;something each has actively avoided until now. We caught up with Henry at her home near Atlanta to ask about the new book and the appeal of the literary life.

This is your fifth novel in five years;and you came to writing after pursing a career as a nurse. What has been the biggest adjustment you've had to make to the writing life?

Before I was published, writing was my private passion, something I did for my own heart and soul. The biggest hurdle came for me when I had to somehow integrate my passion into a job a blessing and a struggle simultaneously.

Is there something about writing that's surprised you?

My two biggest surprises and joys have been the relationships I've made with other writers and then the life lessons I learn from the craft of writing. When I first began to dip my toes into the literary life, I immediately found a world I hadn't known existed, a world where other people cared as much about books, words and novels as I did. My life has been enriched with these newfound relationships.

Secrets and their consequences are the centerpiece ofseveral of your novels. What fascinates you about the nature of secrets?

I'm intrigued as a storyteller about the unlived life, the road not taken, the secret not told. I'm always thinking about what-if scenarios, that "Y" in the road where a character makes what seems a small decision at the time, yet it is something that changes a life for better or worse. These are the things that have me returning to the page again and again.

Your novels center on the myriad relationships between women. Do you draw inspiration for these supportive relationships from your own life?

I have been blessed with wonderful, kind women in my life, so I am sure I draw from those feelings and memories both intentionally and unintentionally. I also think that we as writers paint a picture of the way we would like things to be, or how we would like things to turn out for all of us.

There are some beautiful scenes connected to dolphins in The Art of Keeping Secrets. How did you do your research? Are dolphins really that smart?

Thank you for the compliment. Those scenes were a delight to write. I spend my summers on the South Carolina coast where the dolphins are an integral part of the landscape. I have watched them for years, touched their sleek backs, believed they were talking to me and inspiring me. I can take a walk along the beach and watch a dolphin follow me, flicking his tail at me as if trying to tell me something important. They can make me cry. I also did research to get the facts right. I read numerous books on dolphins, read research papers and contacted a marine scientist at Duke. And, yes, dolphins are that smart – but that's just my humble opinion.

If a book club chose to read your book, what is an appetizer or small plate you might suggest to complement the mood?

Knox's famous crab cakes [mentioned in the novel]. OK, so I have no idea how to make them, but they sound good.

What books are in your beach bag this summer?

I've heard this called the summer of women's fiction, so after my book tour, I'll grab a handful and hide with my family. I can't wait for Anne Rivers Siddons' new book, Off Season, and Mary Alice Monroe's Time Is a River. I'm also a big fan of Elizabeth Berg and I know she has a new one. So many books, so little time.

Novelist Barbara Samuel writes from Colorado Springs, Colorado.

There's a sweet new voice in the world of Southern fiction, and it would be wise to listen. Known primarily for her books about spirituality (The Dance of the Dissident Daughter), Sue Monk Kidd now offers us her first novel, The Secret Life of Bees. But in her first work of fiction, Kidd does not stray far from her interest in the interior life. More than the coming-of-age story of Kidd's endearing heroine, Lily Owens, The Secret Life of Bees is the story of a soul's journey, its evolution and its slow awakening to life's great mystery. 

"I think of it as something deeper and more profound happening to [Lily] at the level of soul, and I wanted her to have a real transformation and a real awakening . . . to this other realm," Kidd says during a recent call to her home in Charleston, South Carolina.

But the path toward enlightenment is not always an easy one. As a young child, Lily's life was changed forever by one tragic event — the death of her mother. When we meet her as an adolescent, she is trying to come to terms with this loss, and with her relationship with her cruel father, T. Ray. Life on their South Carolina peach farm might be too bleak to bear if not for the feisty Rosaleen, Lily's "stand-in mother" who works for the family. Kidd writes beautifully of their relationship, its subtle workings and its fierce love.

"The yearning for home and mother, which is what drives Lily, is deeply embedded in all of us," says Kidd. "The symbolic layer of the novel for me was this longing that is in every human soul for the mother. The mother within, the archetypal mother, the divine mother, whatever you want to call that, it is in us, and we recognize it when we see it in another story, and it resonates in us. And home — the deepest calling we have is to come home to ourselves. And so those things were operating in my mind when I was trying to write Lily's story. Mostly, I have to say, I wasn't thinking about all that; it was sort of in the background. I wasn't trying to write symbolically, and I wasn't trying to write about these archetypes and symbols, I was just trying to tell a really good story." And at that she succeeds. The Secret Life is Southern storytelling at its finest, but the layers of this story run deep.

Ironically, Lily's journey home begins when she leaves the peach farm. The opportunity comes when Rosaleen takes a stand against some racists in town and is beaten and jailed; Lily then knows that it's time for them to fly. Led by Lily's search for clues about her mother's past, and guided by a picture of a Black Madonna her mother left behind, they make their way to Tiburon, South Carolina. It is there that Lily and Rosaleen meet three sisters who welcome them into their world of bee-keeping and their own brand of spirituality centered around a Black Madonna. And it is there, among these bee-keeping sisters, that Lily embarks on a mystical journey into the world of bees and the sacred feminine.

The symbol of the bee and of the Black Madonna are perfectly wedded to one another, yet Kidd says that she didn't know any of the symbolism of bees before writing The Secret Life or about the amazing connections to the Virgin Mary. Somehow the two just coalesced. "I think we have to trust that choreographer inside of the writer who does offer up these gems and images at times. And we don't know how rich and layered they really are." When she began her research, she thought, "I can't believe it! Here we go." Upon discovering that Mary was often referred to as the queen bee and thought of as the bee hive, Kidd says, "I was so floored." She adds, "Bees and honeymaking lend themselves to ideas of change and transformation. And they also sting, so you've got to have that side of it."

Kidd's research included spending some time with beekeepers. Her hours in the honeyhouse and at the hives were invaluable. "Some of those scenes where Lily is experiencing that rush of feeling and emotion when the bees come swirling out of their hives, I could never have gotten that from a book. The fear and delight of all that and the sounds of it. . . . The way your feet stick to the floor in a honeyhouse . . . The senses are alive in all of that experience." Kidd's vivid prose makes The Secret Life a sensual experience for the reader, too.

Kidd was also inspired by a visit to a Trappist monastery in South Carolina where she came upon an unusual statue of Mary, unusual in that it was a ship's masthead that had made its way to the abbey from the shores of a distant island. "The day that I discovered her, I was totally captivated by . . . the powerful imagery of this masthead Mary that was surfacing from the deep, washing up from the deep, onto the shores of consciousness so to speak, and here is the feminine, returning. And I just could not get over that."

It seems the time was right for Kidd to make the jump from memoir to fiction, and indeed this novel feels inspired. Kidd says the work was a challenge, but one she'd always hoped to meet. "In fact, when I first came to the idea that I would pursue a career as a writer I wanted to write fiction. But things didn't work that way for me. . . . Maya Angelou said [to be a writer of fiction] you have to have something to say and you have to have the means or the ability to say it, and then you have to have the courage to say it at all. And I don't think I had enough of all three of those . . . when I was in my late 20s and early 30s."

The Secret Life makes clear that Kidd does possess all the elements that make the alchemy of storytelling possible. She adds to that mix humor and an understanding of human relationships, and the end result is something quite extraordinary. "Sometimes you just get a gift from your own unconscious or from somewhere," the author muses. The Secret Life of Bees is certainly a gift to Kidd's readers, one that both entertains and satisfies the soul.

Katherine H. Wyrick lives in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Ambient city sounds—horns, sirens—provide a fitting soundtrack for a recent conversation with Cathleen Schine, a New Yorker who has written so astutely about the lives of other New Yorkers. She does it yet again in her new novel, The Three Weissmanns of Westport, a reimagining of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility that tells the story of three urbanites in exile, and the cast of characters in their orbit.

During the interview, Schine, also the author of The Love Letter and The New Yorkers, makes a frank confession: “This is very unfashionable to say, but I read for comfort a lot of times. That sounds very old-fashioned, but that’s my dirty little secret.” Her readers can take comfort in the fact that she’s created another ensemble novel that, though sad at times, is also entertaining and diverting.

Other facts one might be surprised to learn about this prolific author: She’s partial to terriers (and presently owns a Cairn); before becoming a writer, she studied to be a Medievalist; and she didn’t read Jane Austen until well into adulthood. “I’m very unusual among novelists in that I didn’t read Austen until I was an adult,” she says. But when she did, “It was an incredible revelation.”

Asked about being dubbed by critics as a modern-day Jewish Jane Austen, a moniker she’s flattered by but reluctant to claim, Schine responds, “I’ve been writing for 25 years. That was written about me when I was quite a bit younger, but I’ve noticed that any woman who writes a comedy of manners is always in some way compared to Jane Austen. She’s the gold standard.”

The Three Weissmanns of Westport will, of course, invite comparisons to Sense and Sensibility, but Schine insists, “It’s somewhere between a theft and an homage, but what it’s not is an appropriation or a comparison. That, I know better. Jane Austen is an inspiration to anybody who writes a comedy of manners because she practically invented it.”

Schine’s story begins when 78-year-old Joseph Weissmann decides to divorce Betty, his wife of 48 years, citing “irreconcilable differences” (read: another woman). The genuinely perplexed Betty replies, “Irreconcilable differences? . . . Of course there are irreconcilable differences. What on earth does that have to do with divorce?”

Approaching grave subjects with levity is Schine’s trademark. “For me, it’s just the way I experience the world. It’s a good survival mechanism,” she says. In the past, she’s leaned more heavily towards comedy, but feels that “this book is sadder, more serious, a bit emotionally darker than other things I’ve written.” Though that may be true, she strikes a balance between pathos and humor. Let’s just say that if The Three Weissmanns of Westport were a movie, Nora Ephron would direct it. Or if it were a food, it would be some kind of chocolate-covered pretzel concoction—a little salty, a little sweet.

Schine has said elsewhere, “Families are funny and adultery is funny; families are tragic and adultery is tragic. Love just complicates everything that much more.” In The Three Weissmanns of Westport, she explores love in its many forms—maternal, romantic and filial.

As the world she knows unravels, Betty’s daughters—the passionate Miranda, a famous literary agent, and the more subdued Annie, a sensible library director—rally around her in support. Forced out of her elegant New York apartment by her husband’s mistress, Betty, joined by her girls, takes refuge in her cousin Lou’s cramped, run-down beach cottage in Westport, Connecticut. As they mingle with suburban socialites, they discover love in unexpected places—and truths about themselves and each other.

Schine describes the process of writing this novel as a dynamic experience, a kind of call and response between her book and Austen’s. “It’s partly my being caught up by the narrative of Sense and Sensibility and partly my own story and characters, sometimes pushing toward that and sometimes pulling away from that. . . . It was kind of like a dialogue. For me, reading and writing have a lot in common. So there was a lot of communication with the characters,” she says, adding, “All apologies to Jane Austen, of course.”

What appeals most to Schine about Austen’s work is that, though written two centuries ago, it still resonates with readers today. “So much of it feels so alive,” she says. She found herself asking, what in modern-day society approximates that? What is the equivalent?

She also wanted to write about “women who’ve lived a certain way whose whole lives have been pulled out from under them.”

“I know women to whom that has happened,” she says. Schine, like Austen, is particularly interested in the ways in which, even today, women depend on marriage to ensure social standing and economic security.

In writing this novel, Schine found herself returning time and again to the relationship between Betty and her daughters. Schine, who’s very close to her own mother, says, “I love writing about mothers and daughters and mothers and sons. That’s one of the things I found when I was writing this, that the mother took on a much more important and central role in my story; that’s one way in which it really veered from Sense and Sensibility.” Most poignant, perhaps, is the way Schine describes the awakening of Miranda’s maternal instincts after she meets a winsome toddler named Henry (the son of her new lover). “It’s hard to write about kids without it being sentimental,” says Schine. But she does it, drawing on her own experience of raising two boys.

Asked if she would ever write a memoir, Schine says she finds she can come closer to the truth when writing fiction. “Also, it’s just more fun for me,” she adds. “Part of the fun of writing is finding out what’s going to happen next.” Her ultimate goal, she says, is to create recognizable characters and a story that rings true to life. She does both in The Three Weissmanns of Westport, her lambent wit flickering across each page like moonlight on the waters of Westport.

Katherine Wyrick writes from Little Rock.

While she was being “wildly irresponsible”—writing her first novel, Still Alice, instead of going back to work at a high-powered Boston consultancy firm—Lisa Genova, who holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard, decided, what the heck, she might as well take acting lessons too.

“That’s right!” Genova says, laughing, “I delivered a baby and a book this year. It was a little crazy.” 

“I think the landscape of everybody’s childhood really stays with them.”

Though parts of the book feel a touch treacly, Edwards writes well about familial relationships and the tenuous ties that bind us. One particular passage stands out in which Lucy, visiting an abandoned chapel, sits bathed in the ethereal light of stained-glass windows. This magical, meditative scene transports the reader, with Lucy, to a place like dreamtime, where the veil between the worlds—the seen and unseen—grows thin. It’s a place Edwards herself has come to know through the creative process. Of the act of writing, she says, “I would emerge from it feeling like I was still partially there. . . . The writing changes you. You leave as a different person. You never know what you’re going to discover.”