Louise Marburg: Exploring the Many Facets of Human Nature

The Writer’s Life

Louise Marburg is the author of You Have Reached Your Destination (2022; Eastover Press; click HERE to read my review), which won the Eastover Fiction Prize, as well as two previous story collections--No Diving Allowed (2021; Regal House Publishing), which won the W.S. Porter Prize for Short Story Collections, and The Truth About Me, (2017; WTAW Press), which was the winner of the Independent Press Book Award for short story collections and was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Marburg's work has appeared in Narrative, Ploughshares, Story Magazine, The Hudson Review, The Southampton Review, Cimarron Review, The Chicago Quarterly Review, and many other publications. Louise studied design at the Kansas City Art Institute, is a graduate of New York University’s Gallatin Division, and holds an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She has been supported by the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Kenyon Writing Workshops, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. A native of Baltimore, she lives in New York City. You can visit her online at louisemarburg.com.

How do you start a story? With a character? A plot idea? What is the seed? 

I do often start with a character in mind, or really a sketch of a character—the fleshing out comes later on. But almost as often it can be a visual, an object, a phrase overheard that gets my mind going toward that special something that snags my imagination and makes me want to explore.

This collection features stories about women at every age from 12 to 91. Did you set out at any point to purposely include such representation? 

I did not set out to write about women of all ages. In fact, I didn’t set out to write specifically about women at all. But as is often the case when I write with a view to a collection, the theme emerges, and I find myself writing toward it almost as if guided by the writing gods! I think what’s on my mind either consciously or unconsciously (usually the latter) finds itself onto the page and often surprises me, which is the magic of it and what all writers live for, the surprise. 

Your stories have been described by Erin McGraw as places in which “characters’ destinations are unexpected, remarkable, and beautifully memorable.” When you begin writing a character’s conflict, do you already know it will be resolved? Also, you never end on a punch line or "wrap it up." How do you determine when the story has ended?

When I begin writing I have no idea what’s going to happen even a few paragraphs later, and I tend to take my time at the beginning of a story to let the plot emerge. The resolution of a story is never planned though sometimes I think maybe it might be resolved in one way only to find it resolves in another way. As to my endings, it’s true that I don’t wrap them up in a bow, I prefer to let my stories end quietly and leave a little something for the reader’s imagination. It never fails that my stories end sooner than I anticipate. I think I have much farther to go, and then boom, I see it, and know I’ve come to the end. So to answer the question, I determine how a story ends by not determining how it ends.

Why do you write short stories as opposed to novels?

The great story writer and novelist Lorrie Moore is quoted as saying, “A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage.” I think that describes the difference between the two perfectly. I love reading stories and always wanted to write them. Writing a novel is a long project. To me, a story is a fascinating puzzle: each piece must fit perfectly into the whole, there is no waste, and I like that. And though I’ve been happily married for more decades than I’d like to admit, in my writing I prefer the affair, it’s more exciting.

Your stories often explore what a character presents as a façade versus what lies beneath. Why is does this interest you?

Growing up I was interested in the many faces adults could present, being sweet to one random person and nasty to the next. Now, as an adult, when someone says to me, “oh isn’t so and so terrific” about someone who I don’t think is so great, I think, or even say, terrific to you. And probably that person has been terrific for whatever reason, but they are not terrific all the time to everyone; nobody is. I’m intrigued by the many facets of human nature, the dark and the light.

Some authors have rituals that help them get into writing, others listen to music, or even clean the house before they can begin to write. What is your process? Do you write every day?

I don’t write every day; when I am in a story, I take my time and might let days pass while I digest what I’ve written. And then there is the excruciating gap between stories when I don’t know what to do with myself!  My process is simple.  I sit down and write.  I have, luckily, the ability to immediately focus.  So, I may write for four hours, or I might sit down for fifteen minutes before I go out to dinner and bang out some sentences. I’m ready to write whenever the mood strikes!   

Writing is often described by authors as painful and difficult. Is that your experience?

I’ve never understood why some authors feel that way. I feel grateful that I’m able to write and have the time to do it. What else would I rather do? What else might I be doing?  I can think of about a million things I would really rather not do. I’m doing what I’m best at and what I love the most. How perfect is that?

Link to INDIEBOUND to learn more about books by Louise Marburg:

You Have Reached Your Final Destination

No Diving Allowed

The Truth About Me

Donna Gordon: On Persistence and Passion

 The Writer’s Life

Donna Gordon is an accomplished, prize-winning writer and visual artist from Cambridge, Massachusetts. She graduated from Brown, was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford and a PEN and Ploughshares Discovery recipient. Her novel, What Ben Franklin Would Have Told Me received the 2018 New Letters Publication Award and was a finalist for the 2019 Black Lawrence Press Big Moose Award. The book was also a semi-finalist for the 2019 Dzanc Books publication award, the 2019 Eludia Award and Hidden River Arts. Gordon's work with former political prisoners culminated in "Putting Faces on the Unimaginable: Portraits and Interviews with Former Prisoners of Conscience," an exhibit launched at Harvard's Fogg Museum.

What Ben Franklin Would Have Told Me is Gordon’s debut novel—a story set during the era of Ronald Regan. Lee, a precocious, 13-year-old boy with a premature aging disease holds a special affinity for Benjamin Franklin, the American icon who was an active writer, scientist, inventor, diplomat, printer, publisher and political philosopher. When a mix-up prevents Lee’s financially struggling single mother, Cass--a Broadway Theater make-up artist--to accompany her son on a trip to Philadelphia, Penn. and Washington D.C., Lee’s caretaker, Tomas--a survivor of the Argentina Dirty War, still searching for his wife who was pregnant when they both “disappeared”--agrees to take Lee on the pilgrimage. Their journey becomes a path to self-discovery, resilience and hope.

When you were writing the novel, how did you navigate that balance between each character’s heartbreak and sense of hope?

In order to tell my story, I needed to become each of my characters at different times.  I had to get inside their heads to know what mattered to them—what they were willing to risk and what they feared. Truth and humor guided me, along with what I believed to be each character’s need to survive, their need to belong and to love.  To live with heartbreak and vulnerability, and to be able to go on, is a powerful theme in the book.  It’s a quality each of the characters possesses and recognizes in one another.

 

As a mother, I knew Cass’s deepest fears, and how she had made a lifetime of sacrifices for Lee.  That she had also become estranged in the world.  That she still thought and saw things the way an artist did. Her humility enabled her to go on. She would have done anything to protect her son.

 

Tomás is his own worst enemy.  A survivor of Argentina’s Dirty War, he is the character who shows most of the three how he feels, as he struggles to protect himself from imagining the worst about his missing wife and child. After having been blindfold and tortured, the victim of excruciating physical and mental pain--he perhaps shows his emotional skeleton most clearly.  Still, he guards his hopes that his family is still alive. My experience interviewing survivors of similar atrocities taught me the importance of listening and bearing witness. Writing Tomás’s character was painful to experience in my own mind and emotions, to put him through such horror.  And yet it’s part of his story and couldn’t be overlooked.

 

Lee is perhaps the character I drew most strongly from myself, particularly the part of me who is resilient in the face of all odds.  Even though his best friend Kira has just died, and even though he knows he’ll be next, when Tomás asks for his help, Lee puts worries about himself aside and joins the quest. 

 

His intelligence, curiosity, and fascination with the ingenuity of Ben Franklin propel him through life.  He probably would have lived this way with or without Progeria.  He’s the center of Cass and Tomás’s lives; his courage activates their courage.  His will to live, despite the odds, inspires them to go beyond themselves in ways they didn’t think possible.

 

Together, these three characters form a triangle in which hope goes beyond fear.  It’s how they come together that makes this possible.  Fear of death and disappointment are everywhere in the air, but in this story, what they don’t know is just as powerful as what they do know.  They believe in one another and that anything is possible, despite sensing that a happy ending—for any of them-- is unlikely.

 

 

The story is set during the Ronald Reagan presidency. What advantages did that give you while writing it, and what challenges did that present?

 

Looking back on the era of the Ronald Reagan presidency, I was able to embrace Time in a linear way.  The structure of the story is that of a journey.  The Ronald Reagan era was close in time to when events among Argentina’s Disappeared took place. I was able to use that reality to create Tomás’s urgency towards locating his missing family.

 

I had to do a good amount of research to make sure I got the historical facts right.  I made two trips to Washington, D.C. in order to familiarize myself with the setting and with several landmarks. I educated myself about Ben Franklin’s life, writings, and inventions.  I had to slow myself down in order to absorb it all, and in order to find the link in myself that would become Lee’s link to Franklin.  It was a process of both slowing down and speeding up.  Coming to understand Progeria, I became more and more aware of the acceleration of our lives.

What made you decide to include a quest in the story?

In some ways, each of us is on a quest, or multiple quests, over the course of our lives.  It’s how we learn, live, and love.  How we learn to fight for people we care about.  It’s an essential action.  The fact that Lee and Tomás were searching for something as vital as missing family increased the drama in the story and propelled the narrative.  The structure of a journey enabled me to create sequential steps that brought them closer and closer to discovery and resolution.  I think there is a kind of quest in every story, whether it be structured into action or more emotionally subtle.

 

The novel has been hailed by many as a story that brims with wisdom and light. What life lessons do you hope readers will discover as they engage in the story?

 

What Ben Franklin Would Have Told Me is a story of persistence and passion.  Of never underestimating what people are capable of.  Of overriding the odds and the terrible luck that life can throw at someone.  The nearly father-son relationship that develops between Tomás and Lee is proof that anything is possible.  A certain tenderness and understanding grows between them, making them larger than themselves.  Making them reach into a universe that had previously appeared too distant to grasp.  There’s wisdom in the way Cass is able to reconcile with Tomás despite her having been deceived. There’s power in the ferocity she conjures in order to protect her son. Each of these characters is as fragile as dust, yet as indestructible as the language that’s created them.

What were some real-life experiences that inspired you to write this novel?

Two seemingly disparate experiences came together to fuel the writing of this novel: While volunteering at Camp Sunshine in Maine (a camp for children with life-threatening illnesses and their families), I met a boy who had Progeria, a rare, premature aging disease. Most of the kids there had cancer and other serious diseases.  Their bodies were weak, their heads nearly bald from chemotherapy.  The boy, whose name I never learned, stood out with his aged face and small, frail, body.  I had never heard of Progeria before. He stood among the circle of children whose hands were placed on one another’s shoulders, practicing silent meditation.  It was a moment of stillness I’ll never forget.   

 

I had done a documentary photography project with Amnesty International, “Putting Faces on the Unimaginable: Portraits and Interviews with Former Prisoners of Conscience,” for which I photographed and interviewed 15 people on Amnesty's speakers’ list.  The people I met were from all over the world, but living in the U.Ss., people who had been tortured and imprisoned for so-called crimes against the government.  I met students and journalists, mothers and fathers.   I met a man from Argentina who had been among the Disappeared during the late 1970s under the dictatorship of Jorge Videla. I modeled Tomás after him.  The photos with captions I created were exhibited at Harvard’s Fogg Museum, Tufts’ Wessell Library, and Boston’s French Library.  It’s a project I’d like to expand into a book.

 

What Ben Franklin Would Have Told Me by Donna Gordon

Regal House Publishing, $19.95 paperback, 9781646032303, 330 pages

Publication Date: June 8, 2022

To order this book on Amazon, link HERE

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

Note: Author Photo by David Kurtis Photography

 

USA Today: "Authors and Pets at Work"

My Yorkshire terrier and I were profiled in USA Today for the "Authors and Pets at Work" Lifestyle column.  To read the article and learn more about my "literary co-pilot"--and my forthcoming novel, The Thing Is--click on the article title, in bold, below:

Kathleen Gerard's Sissy serves as inspiration 

for fictional therapy dog

USA Today 

Lifestyle: "Happy Ever After"

By Joyce Lamb

October 22, 2015

The Writer's Garden

Jackie Bennett (former editor of The Garden Design Journal) offers an intimate glimpse into the country homes and gardens of notable, accomplished British poets, essayists and novelists in The Writer's Garden: How gardens inspired our best-loved authors. This coffee table book examines the lives of nineteen, diversely accomplished British writers and how their  private residences facilitated their work: Virginia Woolf wandered the room-like gardens at Monk's House while she labored over Mrs. Dalloway. Charles Dickens tended daily to the gardens at Gad's Hill Place before tackling masterpieces like Great Expectations. The woodland paths and boathouse at Greenway inspired Agatha Christie's Dead Man's Folly. And would there have ever been a James and the Giant Peach had Roald Dahl not studied his own fruit orchard and crawly creatures in the gardens at Gipsy House?

Archival images and vivid landscape photographs by Richard Hanson accompany the profiles and enhance each intimate glimpse into the countryside sanctuaries that fed the imaginations of great writers. "Written in Residence" sidebars offer lists of works created at each locale, and epilogues explain what became of the homes and gardens after the death of each revered wordsmith.

The Writer's Garden: How Gardens Inspired our Best-loved Authors by Jackie Bennett 

(Photographs by Richard Hanson)

Frances Lincoln Publishers, $40.00 Hardcover, 9780711234949, 176 pp

Publication Date: November 1, 2014

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (11/29/14), click HERE

Sonya Cobb: The Value of Craftsmanship and Art

The Writer's Life

 Sonya Cobb has worked as an advertising copywriter for 26 years. After having her children, she turned to writing fiction as a way to reclaim a part of herself "that had been neglected for way too long." In her debut novel, The Objects of Her Affection (read the book review below), a wife and mother becomes a thief who steals Renaissance works from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Cobb lives in Westchester County, N.Y., with her two children and her husband, a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

You say that the heroine of the novel "bears more than a passing resemblance" to you. Was this a conscious choice?

Job Number One for me was making my story feel as real and true as possible, and like many first-time novelists, I found it easiest to tap into my own reality for material. Becoming a mother was a powerful experience, with a lot of very complicated, mixed emotions that I thought could, in certain situations, drive someone to desperate acts. I decided to start with the very real feelings I had as a working mother with two small children. Then I imposed some dire circumstances on my character and imagined what the result would be. So it was a little bit like exploring my own life in a parallel universe, if things had gone very badly for me.

Tell us about the research needed to write this novel.

I love research because it provides a fun little escape from the tough business of writing--but you don't feel guilty about it because it's absolutely necessary. My husband has a vast library of art books, which I turned to for information about Nuremberg goldsmiths and Saint-Porchaire ceramics. I also spent time wandering the galleries of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and exploring the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's web site. Finally, I turned to auction websites when I was looking for smaller, not-quite-museum-quality objects that could plausibly be found languishing in a storage room.

How and why did you select the specific art and artifacts the heroine steals in the novel?

I chose decorative objects because they're easier to slip into a bag than, say, a painting. I picked silver because there's so much of it out there--some of it very old and valuable, most of it not. So it's plausible that a museum could have received a large batch of family silver that went straight into storage, and that one or two super-valuable pieces could have escaped the curators' notice.

Some of the objects I describe are real, and some are loosely based on real objects. All of the artists mentioned are real. The Jamnitzer mirror is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The van Vianen tazza, a footed dish, is loosely based on a piece in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Saint-Porchaire candlestick is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.

In the story, museum security seems surprisingly lax. Is this typical? 

For the most part, the scenarios that allow Sophie, the protagonist, to steal objects simply wouldn't happen in a modern-day museum. Storage practices are quite rigorous, and visitors--even curators' spouses--are never allowed to be anywhere near museum objects without an escort. They're never allowed to enter storage areas at all. The system of object cards that I describe in the book has been replaced by collection management software such as The Museum System (TMS), which is widely used by most major museums to keep track of works of art.

Illegal art trafficking contributes to the suspense of the novel. What knowledge or experience, if any, do you have with black markets and dealers?

Early on in the writing of the novel, I was inspired by Robert Wittman's book, Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures. The founder of the FBI's Art Crime Team, Wittman describes dozens of thefts that he investigated over the years. I was most fascinated by the petty thefts--the small, often unnoticed objects that would be pilfered from storage areas by museum employees. I learned that while famous works of art are almost impossible to sell, those smaller objects often disappear into the black market without a trace. 

An old house and a major renovation figure prominently in the story. Is this something that personally interests you?

My husband and I renovated a Civil War-era row house very similar to the one I describe in the book. I fell in love with the house and its history. The row house was an early example of mass production: every house on a block was exactly the same, with stock decorative details that were produced in great quantities. Nevertheless, everything was made from noble materials, with care and attention to aesthetic matters. In my house we found, under the wallpaper, a signature by "The Plaster Boys," dated 1863. They were proud of their work! Beauty, artistry and craftsmanship were still valued at that time, even as we emerged from the industrial revolution. Sophie and I both feel sad about the demise of those values in today's world.

Please discuss the themes of the novel--the idea of want and need and the value we place on things and aspects of our lives.

Sometimes I feel oppressed by the amount of "stuff" we're surrounded by in today's world--the piles of cheap, mass-produced goods we bring home from the store in big plastic bags. These goods are inexpensive and plentiful, so you could say they have little value in a monetary sense, and they lack value because we have no connection to the people who made them. If you buy a ceramic bowl at Target, you probably don't spend any time thinking about the person who designed it, or the person who glazed it. But if you own a tazza crafted by van Vianen--the silversmith who eventually left the trade to take over his father's brewery--you own a part of someone's story. That, in itself, has a lot of value apart from the aspects of supply and demand. It connects us to one another, even across centuries.

Sophie, the protagonist, is struggling with her own sense of value, and work is important to her sense of identity, just as it probably was for van Vianen and Jamnitzer. When Sophie learns the story behind the van Vianen tazza, she begins to understand the true value of work, and she begins to grasp the enormity of her crime.

The Objects of Her Affection blends suspense with domestic and marital issues. Did you find it difficult to balance these aspects?

It was incredibly difficult... and tricky: the story has to move, but it takes time to develop your characters' inner struggles. I've never truly enjoyed novels that are purely plot-driven or purely character-driven, so I set out knowing very clearly what my task would be. Being a first-time novelist, though, I had to toss out writing that was either too slow or too fast or not contributing toboth character and story. 

What are your future literary plans?

I'm working on a second novel that explores themes of work, class, human nature and creativity through the eyes of two very different characters. 

Note: This interview is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this 

Q&A as originally published on Shelf Awareness  (8/29/14), click HERE

Jessie Burton: When Imagination Takes Control

The Writer's Life

photo: Wolf Marloh

Oxford University graduate and actress Jessie Burton is English born and bred. Her debut novel, The Miniaturist (Ecco; review below), tells the story of a wealthy, dysfunctional family living in Amsterdam during the Dutch Golden Age. Burton claims her only connection to the Netherlands is having visited Amsterdam twice. On one of those trips, she visited the Rijksmuseum and was drawn to an eight-foot-tall cabinet house built in the late 17th century. Burton was intrigued by the "very beautiful, decorative object, full of detail, precision and imagination." When she discovered the miniature house was an exact replica of an actual house owned by a woman named Petronella Oortman--and that it cost the same as a full-blown townhouse to build and furnish--the writer in Burton began to consider the type of woman who would commission such a house and what sort of society would condone such an expenditure.

It took Burton four years and 17 drafts to perfect the novel. During that time, she got to know the characters better, layered and sculpted the story and enriched it. The finished project ultimately went to auction in Britain and around the world. The book will be published in 30 languages. Burton admits, "I would have been happy with one!"

When you first saw the cabinet house in Amsterdam, did you perceive the potential to write a historical novel immediately?

Not immediately, no. I bought the guidebook in the museum shop and kept reading and thinking about the cabinet house. A month or two later, I abandoned another writing project I had been working on and pictured this young woman, turning up in the city of Amsterdam to start a new life. It began as a short story--I had never written a full novel. But quickly it became clear I had a novel on my hands.

Tell us about the research necessary to create such an authentic 17th-century world.

I researched as I wrote. I needed the fictional story to pose factual questions rather than just me absorbing historical facts and regurgitating them as prose. I could neither afford the time nor money to travel extensively to Amsterdam, so I read a lot about the social and art history of the region, looked at paintings, and used Google maps and moved through the city, parts of which have barely changed since the 17th century!

I had the fictional skeleton of the novel in my head, but certain facts, like what pie they might have eaten and in what season, or the debts accrued with a tailor, or draconian citizenship policies, or the type of dog an Amsterdammer might have favored, would trigger my imagination and root the story in a factual, yet still impressionistic, setting. The facts that I learned allowed me to play. The priority was the story. Sometimes I conflated real-life events, sometimes I adhered to them in their chronological order. Other times, I rebelled, because it's a novel. I let imagination take control.

Did you ever have a dollhouse?

I did. When I was a child, I had a Sylvanian Families one, with little woodland animals instead of dolls. I adored it. I had a whole world--a nursery, a school, a shop, an ice-cream cart, a house... it was perfect.

The owners of the actual cabinet house--Nella Oortman and her wealthy, merchant husband, Johannes Brandt--are characters in the novel. How much of their lives is historically accurate and how much was invented? Were any other characters based on actual people?

Very little is based on actual lives. I was more interested in the object of the dollhouse as the inspirational springboard. I invented the ages of Nella and Johannes, the fact that it was Nella's first marriage and her rural upbringing. The novel is all invention except for their names, the historical setting and the fact that Nella owned the dollhouse. All the other characters are invented, too, but their presence has been inspired by many portraits and paintings I studied from that time.

Are there any characters in the novel to whom you feel a strong affinity/dislike?

I feel very deeply for Marin, Petronella's sister-in-law. She took me by surprise. Initially, she was supposed to be a sort of obstacle to Nella, and not much more, but then I realized how complicated and strong she was, how capable she was of love. I have no dislike of any of my characters. They all have their crosses to bear.

There are strong feminist overtones in the novel. Was it always your intention to build that platform into the storyline or did those aspects evolve through the writing?

I had no agenda nor pre-orchestrated intentions. My female characters are just who they are. If a male writer puts strength, color and adventure in the hands of his male characters, he is not asked if he is pursuing an agenda. Many people assume that what he's doing is the norm, because that is the overarching dominating history of Western literature--books by male writers portraying the male experience as universal, even when they're writing women characters. I am female, and it is quite normal for me to give the universal themes to my female protagonists. I didn't think twice.

Did you carefully plot out the novel before undertaking to write it?

I didn't know before I started writing what was going to happen in every chapter, but I had images in my mind--scenes, conversations, ideas I wanted to explore. I had a vague arc with a beginning and an end, and was always jotting down instructions to myself like, 'this has to happen--but where?' Gradually, through the long process, things all started slotting into place. But the process was not obvious.

Why did you choose to write the narrative in the present tense?

I chose the present tense to ratchet up the tension. The book takes place over three months, and I wanted readers to really feel they were seeing all this through Nella's eyes.

The story is visually rich and would certainly lend itself well to a TV or film adaption. Any prospects?

Thank you! On that subject, my lips are sealed!

You've been an actress in Britain for many years. Have you found any similarities between acting and writing?

I have always written--short stories, sketches, poetry. And writing has always gone hand in hand with my acting....The pursuit of a creative career is fraught with high expectations and disappointment... but I think acting and writing are actually very different. Acting works when the actors on stage are all in harmony with each other--it's communal, a mutual concerto, it's about listening and sharing. But writing is so solitary--you are ALL the actors, the director, the producer making sure you turn up for work... it's impossible for me to compare them as they use different parts of who I am.

Are you writing a second book? If so, will it be another historical novel?

Yes. My next book is set in Spain in 1937 and London, 1967. It is about identity and belonging, the chaos of war, missing bodies, an art theft, an unusual friendship and a woman who isn't who she says she is. That's all I can say for now! 

Note: This interview is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this Q&A on Shelf Awareness (Maximum Shelf, 5/21/14), click HERE 

Author Event: Elizabeth Strout

The Gene Barnett Literary Society of Fairleigh Dickinson University (NJ) featured Pulitzer Prize-winner Elizabeth Strout on April 25, where she spoke about The Burgess Boys.

Strout's morally complex novel focuses on an American community in turmoil, in particular one Maine family, three adult siblings, embroiled in tensions that escalate cultural and familial divides.

During the lively, engaging talk entitled, "Concept to Completion," Strout discussed in depth the seven-year process of crafting her latest novel and the importance of fiction.

Strout had been thinking about The Burgess Boys since writing Abide with Me (published in 2006). The childhood incident surrounding the Burgess children was actually mentioned in an early draft of that novel, but never made it into the finished product.

Strout deems herself a "slow writer," often riddled with "panic and anxiety" about her work.  She does not write her books linearly from beginning to end. Rather her curiosity is "innocent and earnest . . . I do not want to present anything straightforward.  Life is a mess," she said.  "If you want to become an accurate writer (of old fashioned realism) you need to acknowledge that mess."

Character or "an abiding image" is what propels Strout into her work. Themes and storylines gradually evolve through writing, and she "follows her characters" often allowing them to "behave badly." 

"I am not there to judge," said Strout.

She discussed how the prologue of The Burgess Boys emerged five years into the writing of the novel and how she took great pains and had to make "huge decisions" over individual sentences to make those few short pages "truthful in tone and content."  They offer the reader an intimate introduction to the world of the book and provide a map outlining the journey taken over the course of the story.

"I am constantly battling between what I feel the reader needs and what I feel is truthful," she said. "Fiction is truer than most of the nonfiction we read because in fiction one can stay closer to the facts."

Cultural differences play a big part in the fabric of The Burgess Boys - whether a diversity of cultural lifestyles of those in the same family and/or cultural differences between Americans and Somali (Muslim) refugees.  Strout did extensive research into the Somali way of life and also did field work in prison systems in Maine and New York City in order to bring authenticity to the narrative. At times, learning about these cultural disparities became a rude awakening.

Strout believes that, "Novels are there as a social tool to bring the news and make readers understand that people are more alike than they are different. And while those differences can be significant, the only way we can really touch each other's shoulders is through fiction. We only have each other."

When asked during the Q&A about specific books on craft that have influenced her writing, Strout cited War and Peace and The Journals of John Cheever.  "These books are not specifically about craft, but they've greatly instructed me in my work."

Note:  A condensed version of this same article was featured in Shelf Awareness (4/30/13) "Image of the Day: Fiction is Truer than Most Nonfiction." Link HERE to read.

Photographs by Kathleen Gerard.  Please reprint with permission.