1--What is the title of your latest release?
THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
In 1959, a rising Oscar-nominated actress vanishes without a trace. Sixty years later, a young woman is stunned to discover the grandmother who raised her was, in fact, this actress—and sets out to solve the mystery of what happened the summer that changed her grandmother’s life.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
Other writers start their ideas with their characters or plots—I always start my books with where they take place. Because when I look for a novel to read, if I am not interested in the location, I tend to pass it by. My first book took place in Manhattan in the 1950s; the second in Atlantic City, Manhattan, and Newport in the late 1940s. I clearly have a thing for glamorous midcentury locales.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Well, I have two dual stories going, one in 1959 and one in 2018, so I have two different heroines. But yes—though I think I would prefer Mercy, the slightly more prominent of the two characters, over Kit. She’s got dishier secrets.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Surprising, clever, determined.
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
That Martha’s Vineyard was one of the only places in the U.S. where early and midcentury professional African Americans could vacation freely. They built an entire community in Oak Bluffs that offered gorgeous architecture and some of the most intriguing intellectual salons of the 20th Century. It was, and remains, truly an oasis for the Black elite.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I do put a comb through occasionally as I go, but I make it a point not to linger. A friend of mine once gave me great writing advice: “You can’t fix what doesn’t exist.” If you are constantly correcting, you end up in a cul-de-sac you never escape. And you don’t finish. It’s important to keep my story moving forward.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Every Friday night I have a big, juicy, melty cheeseburger from my favorite L.A. burger joint and I stay in and binge-watch something on streaming. It’s heaven.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
I live in a one-bedroom apartment, but it was built in the 1920s and has cool wainscoting and period details and weird windows. As much as I would love Diane Keaton’s Hamptons home office in “Something’s Gotta Give,” for example, mine is actually my dining room table. But it’s cozy and it works, and I have a secretary in the corner that I can stuff everything into so it doesn’t feel I am working all the time.
10--Who is an author you admire?
Elin Hildebrand. She has created an entire soapy universe out of Nantucket. And sure, she’s made herself wealthy doing it. But more than that, she has engendered an entire legion of readers who wait breathlessly for her next book. People always laud the National Book Award winners, and that’s understandable. But, man—to have that kind of frenzied loyalty from that many readers is incredible, and a testament to her ability to spin really compelling stories. Being able to write a great beach read is an underrated skill.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
Eagle-eyed readers will note that my two heroines in “The Lost Letters from Martha’s Vineyard” are named Kit and Mercy, who are also two of the main characters from “The Witch of Blackbird Pond,” the 1959 book that won the Newberry Award for children’s literature. I read it when I was 11 and it changed my life, because it was the first book that told me it was OK to be different, to not buy into what other people thought of you, to stick to your principles. It was an incredibly powerful message at a time in adolescence when I really, really needed it.
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.
This is a funny story. My agent, Jane, had sent the first novel out and of course the first thing that happens is you get the rejections first. One after the other after the other. Quickly. I was unnerved by all the “no’s.” So I finally said to her, “Please do not call or email me unless you have good news.” So she didn’t. Two weeks passed. I thought, “Well, I wrote a book for nothing.” I was in Philadelphia, walking back to my office after lunch one day, and the phone buzzed in my pocket and I looked at the screen. It was Jane. I knew she would not be calling unless it was good news. I almost passed out, right there on Rittenhouse Square.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
I like to read what I write, I suppose: sudsy fiction. I also read a lot of mystery and suspense. And occasionally biography, if it’s someone I am really curious about. I love flipping through coffee-table books, of which I own far too many.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
“Laura,” 1944, Otto Preminger’s masterpiece of noir about a hard-boiled detective who falls in love with the woman whose murder he is investigating. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I lusted for Gene Tierney’s apartment. And Clifton Webb as the acerbic columnist is just fantastic. It’s the pinnacle of crime and style.
15--What is your favorite season?
Fall. I love living in L.A., but I do miss the crispness of the leaves, the chill in the air as the season turns.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
Honestly at my age birthdays are just not a big deal anymore. I’m just thankful to have them.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
I just saw the French film “The Taste of Things,” with Juliette Binoche, and it was one of the best films I’ve seen in years. Quiet, lovely, and with enough French food porn to make anyone ravenous. It was just gorgeous.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Mmm. Tough one. Probably Italian. Because even mediocre Italian is better than most everything else.
19--What do you do when you have free time?
I still freelance write, and luckily, I am at a point in my career where I can choose stories I want to do, rather than having to do them to pay the rent. I also love the beach. My ideal day is to drive out to Santa Monica with my beach chair and a great book and my iPod (yes, I am still using my iPod!) and while away the day by the sea. Glorious.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
I’m currently researching a book set in Beverly Hills in 1957. Another sort of romantic mystery. At some point I will emerge out of midcentury America. But probably not soon.
A tantalizing novel of two women bound by blood but divided by a long-buried secret, and the island that holds the key to the fateful summer that changed everything forever.
In 1959, Hollywood ingenue Mercy Welles seems to have the world at her feet. Far removed from her Nebraska roots, she has crafted herself into a glamorous Oscar-nominated actress engaged to an up-and-coming director…
Until she shockingly vanishes without a trace, just as her career is taking off.
Almost sixty years later, Kit O’Neill, a junior television producer in Manhattan, is packing up her recently deceased grandmother’s attic, only to discover a long-lost box of souvenirs that reveal that the grandmother who raised her and her sister was, in fact, the mysterious Mercy Welles.
Putting her investigative skills to use, Kit is determined to solve the riddle of her grandmother’s missing life, and the trail eventually leads to Martha’s Vineyard.
Mercy retreats to the island nursing a broken heart, only to be drawn to the roguish Ren Sewards, who is not just the simple oysterman he appears to be but a scion of one of the island’s wealthy founding families. With her attraction to Ren quickly growing, Mercy soon finds herself entangled in the intrigues of the tightly knit community and the secrets of the Sewards.
Alternating between Mercy and Kit’s timelines, including excerpts from letters Mercy wrote the summer she disappeared, The Lost Letters from Martha’s Vineyard unfurls into a heart-stopping story of love, betrayal, and even murder.
Women's Fiction Historical [Mariner Books, On Sale: May 21, 2024, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9780063282605 / eISBN: 9780063282629]
Michael Callahan (1963- ) is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and the author of the critically acclaimed novels SEARCHING FOR GRACE KELLY (2015) and THE NIGHT SHE WON MISS AMERICA (2017). His articles have appeared in more than two dozen national magazines, including Departures, Men's Journal, The Hollywood Reporter, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Town & Country. He lives in Philadelphia.
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