1--What is the title of your latest release?
ONLY THE BEAUTIFUL
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
For readers of historical fiction who love stories of personal triumph, ONLY THE BEAUTIFUL is a book about two women impacted by the all-but-forgotten eugenics movement. Set in pre-and post WW2 California and Nazi-occupied Vienna, the novel explores the role ruling society has had in defining individual human worth – specifically within this “race betterment” crusade, and how dangerous it is when those in power impose standards of perceived perfection upon everyone else. ONLY THE BEAUTIFUL reaffirms the inherent value of every human life – a timely tale for these days of ours.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
I chose California’s wine country for the majority of the setting because of all the states California sterilized more people without their consent and knowledge inside its institutions than any other, and a good portion of these procedures took place at a state-run residential facility in Sonoma County. I also chose Vienna after Adolf Hitler annexed Austria because of the pervasiveness of the Nazi scheme there to reshape the gene pool through not just the same kind of forced sterilization but via what those in power called mercy killing; actually, the murder of hundreds of so-called imperfect people.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Absolutely. Both of my protagonists are remarkable women living in very dangerous and ruthless times for anyone unwilling or unable to conform to the ruling powers’ idea of beauty, usefulness, and value.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Roseanne and Helen are brave, determined, and compassionate women.
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
I was unaware until I began researching for this book that Adolf Hitler and his cohorts “euthanized”—as they called it— disabled children before they built all those hellish concentration camps designed to carry out his Final Solution. I didn’t know that before the Nazis killed anyone based on religion and ethnicity, they killed children deemed inferior.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
It’s both for me. I always edit as I go. I read yesterday’s chapter before starting today’s and polish as best I can but I save the re-read of older chapters for when the book is done.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
I love a good doughnut.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
After years of writing novels, I finally have in our new home a writing space that is perfect. Three big windows look out onto firs, cedars, and ferns, and my desk faces them. All my favorite writing books are there, as well as my favorite novels by other people. I love “going to work.”
10--Who is an author you admire?
So hard to pick just one! I love Chris Bohjalian’s writing style and so many of his books. He is also one of the most genuinely kind and affirming people I have ever met. He makes everyone he meets feel valued and important.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
The Bible certainly changed my life. It’s still changing my life. I could read the thirteenth chapter of the first letter to the Corinthians every day and still feel like it has the power to change people.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
I will mark the twentieth anniversary of that call this year! I had quit my job at the newspaper and was giving the novel-writing gig a try after putting it off for years out of fear of rejection. I finally decided I’d rather live with that than regret. The book that I got the call for, Why the Sky is Blue, is no longer in print, but it was the one that opened the door for me and set me on a new path that would become my defining career. I am so glad I didn’t let fear keep me from going for it.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
I love historical fiction to be sure, but I love a good murder mystery. Long live Louise Penny!
14--What’s your favorite movie?
Yikes. So many good ones. I will just say if You’ve Got Mail is on, I stop everything and sit down to watch.
15--What is your favorite season?
Autumn. Always.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
Breakfast out (somewhere with sourdough pancakes), phone calls or flowers from the kids, a long walk on the beach with my soulmate and dog, dinner for two at a boutique restaurant, time to reflect on the goodness of life.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
I loved Jamie Ford’s newest book, The Many Daughters of Afong Moy. It’s the kind of novel you want to talk with someone about afterward. It’s a great book club book.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Going to have to go with Italian!
19--What do you do when you have free time?
Get myself to somewhere out in nature that is beautiful and serene and begs to be enjoyed. And then take a long walk there, unhurried.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
My next book is actually a children’s picture book called Pumpkin Day at the Zoo, coming out in July of this year. This was a fun side project written all in verse and wonderfully illustrated by Pablo Pino. But my next work of historical fiction I am just beginning to write. It will come out sometime in 2025 and doesn’t have a title yet, but it will be a story that asks the question, “How do you recapture a sense belonging when it feels like you’ve been exiled from all that was home to you?” Takes place in the early days of The Cold War, in the mid-1950s in Los Angeles.
A heartrending story about a young mother’s fight to keep her daughter, and the winds of fortune that tear them apart by the USA Today bestselling author of The Nature of Fragile Things and The Last Year of the War.
California, 1938—When she loses her parents in an accident, sixteen-year-old Rosanne is taken in by the owners of the vineyard where she has lived her whole life as the vinedresser’s daughter. She moves into Celine and Truman Calvert’s spacious house with a secret, however—Rosie sees colors when she hears sound. She promised her mother she’d never reveal her little-understood ability to anyone, but the weight of her isolation and grief prove too much for her. Driven by her loneliness she not only breaks the vow to her mother, but in a desperate moment lets down her guard and ends up pregnant. Banished by the Calverts, Rosanne believes she is bound for a home for unwed mothers, and having lost her family she treasures her pregnancy as the chance for a future one. But she soon finds out she is not going to a home of any kind, but to a place far worse than anything she could have imagined.
Austria, 1947—After witnessing firsthand Adolf Hitler’s brutal pursuit of hereditary purity—especially with regard to “different children”—Helen Calvert, Truman's sister, is ready to return to America for good. But when she arrives at her brother’s peaceful vineyard after decades working abroad, she is shocked to learn what really happened nine years earlier to the vinedresser’s daughter, a girl whom Helen had long ago befriended. In her determination to find Rosanne, Helen discovers that while the war had been won in Europe, there are still terrifying battles to be fought at home.
Women's Fiction Historical [Berkley, On Sale: April 18, 2023, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9780593332832 / eISBN: 9780593332856]
Susan Meissner is a USA Today bestselling author with more than half a million books in print in 15 languages and a writing workshop leader with a background in community journalism. Her novels include The Last Year of the War (a LibraryReads top pick for March 2019), As Bright As Heaven, and Secrets of a Charmed Life, a Goodreads Best Historical Fiction finalist for 2015. She is also RITA finalist and Christy Award winner. When she's not working on a novel, she volunteers for Words Alive, a San Diego non-profit dedicated to helping at-risk youth foster a love for reading and writing.
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