What is the title of your latest release?
MARRIAGE AND OTHER MONUMENTS
What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
Set in Richmond Virginia in the summer of 2020, MARRIAGE AND OTHER MONUMENTS, tells the story of two estranged sisters whose marriages implode against the backdrop of social justice protests and removal of the Confederate monuments. It’s a must-read multigenerational drama set against a tumultuous time of racial tension in the South.
How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
The city of Richmond, Virginia is a central character in the novel. The story couldn’t take place anywhere else. The history of the city and also what took place there in the summer of 2020 shape the characters, challenging them to become who they really want to be.
Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?
MARRIAGE AND OTHER MONUMENTS has four main point of view characters: the two sisters, Cynthia and Melissa, and their husbands, Bobby and Marshall. I’d want to hang out with all of them! I would especially want to be with them in Richmond, where they live and where my story takes place. Their perspective on the city at that dramatic moment in the summer of 2020 makes them super interesting to me.
What are three words that describe your hero?
Each of my four heroes/heroines is courageous in his or her own way. Over the course of the summer, each must step outside their comfort zone to assert who they really are. For Bobby, that means breaking away from his father; for Cynthia, it means becoming more honest with herself; for Melissa, it means facing the reality of her failed marriage; and for Marshall, it means unburying hurts from the past and staking his claim in Richmond.
What’s something you learned while writing this book?
I wove a good amount of historical information about Richmond into this novel. My research into some of the prominent Black leaders in the city was inspiring. I modeled one of Marshall’s ancestors on the much-respected newspaper editor, John Mitchell, Jr. He was an important, post-Civil War figure who combatted Jim Crow and racism in the pages of his Black newspaper.
Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I try to power through a first draft and then see what I’ve written, but sometimes I can’t help fixing things as I go along. Like so much with writing, I follow my intuition and see where it takes me!
What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Croissants from the European bakery next to where I take my mini-poodle, Honey, to doggie day care a few days a week. Such a temptation that the bakery is right next door and smells so good!
Describe your writing space/office!
I have a lovely room on the second floor of our house with a big window that looks out onto a quiet, dead-end street. On the walls, I have artwork made by my uncle and by three of my good friends. And, of course, I have very full bookshelves! I’m surrounded by the love of art and writing.
Who is an author you admire?
There are so many! One who comes to mind at the moment is a former grad school teacher of mine, Joan Silber. She has been publishing beautiful novels and short stories for decades, each one more gemlike and masterful than the last. I just read her recent short story in The New Yorker and was blown away again. I love that she continues to write such smart and meaningful work.
Is there a book that changed your life?
In high school I fell in love with several women poets—Anne Sexton, Adrienne Rich, and Denise Levertov. I carried their paperbacks with me everywhere. I just loved that they wrote poems that I barely understood but could sense meant freedom—freedom to say and think what you want as a woman.
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 my fifth published book and yet I was still very excited when I heard from Koehler Books that they “wanted to talk.” From the start, they seemed respectful and enthusiastic about me and my novel. Publishing with them has worked out beautifully. I’m so grateful to their entire team of highly professional and super friendly editors and staff.
What’s your favorite genre to read?
I read a lot of literary fiction. There’s always a book or two open by my bed or sofa. But I also like listening to audiobooks of what might be called more “commercial” historical fiction. Stories with thick plots, love stories, and lots of drama.
What’s your favorite movie?
Two that stick with me are The English Patient and The Painted Veil. Both are based on gorgeous novels. Both are set in foreign, exotic lands. And both are about tragic love affairs and are dark and sensual and filled with passion. No wonder I remember them well years after seeing them!
What is your favorite season?
Early summer. Here in New England that can mean late May and into June, which happens to be around my birthday. I love light green leaves and buds on the trees. In Richmond, where I lived for many years, early spring came much earlier. By April it can be well into that vibrant season.
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
The best birthdays I can remember are with my family. My husband and I are empty nesters, with our kids living in Brooklyn and Richmond. They both made the effort last year to join us in Cambridge, and I don’t even remember what we did, but I was so happy we were together. That’s the best.
What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
I’ve just been listening to a podcast recommended by a friend called The Telepathy Tapes. It’s all about how non-verbal kids who have been diagnosed with severe autism can, in fact, communicate via telepathy. Pretty astounding!
What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
My husband and I eat many different types of cuisine and, luckily, we live in a city, Cambridge/Boston, where that’s possible. We also love to travel. My favorite food to eat, especially in the country where it’s made, is Italian! I love simple Italian cooking. Fresh ingredients, not too heavy sauces, grilled fish, veggies cooked with olive oil and garlic. Nothing better than that!
What do you do when you have free time?
I read! Every morning with my cup of coffee, I read on the sofa with Honey on my lap. I also love to garden when the weather is good. My husband and I take long walks in the nearby woods in all seasons. It’s so important to get out in nature whenever possible.
What can readers expect from you next?
I’m working on a next novel set in New York City in the 1980s. I’ll share more about it soon, but for now, I’m just finding my way into the story. Can’t wait to know where the writing will take me and someday my readers, too!
In the summer of 2020, social justice protests and the removal of Confederate monuments rock the city of Richmond, Virginia, as the marriages of two estranged sisters implode.
When Cynthia's husband, Bobby, can no longer hide his dire financial situation, their union finally ruptures. Melissa, her sister, has dedicated herself so fully to racial justice activism that she becomes alienated from her own Black husband. As the summer heats up and their marriages veer in opposite directions, the sisters have no choice but to turn to one another. Meanwhile, their husbands conspire in a racial reckoning that their ancestors-one old Virginia White, the other old Virginia Black-would never have dreamed of.
Marriage and Other Monuments shows how secrets within a marriage erode trust, and that for couples to evolve they must be true to who they are as individuals and as members of an imperfect society.
Fiction Literary | Women's Fiction Southern [ Koehler Books, On Sale: February 10, 2026, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780593816660 / eISBN: 9798888248928 ]
Virginia Pye is the author of four award-winning books of fiction, including two post-colonial historical novels set in China, River of Dust and Dreams of the Red Phoenix, the short story collection, Shelf Life of Happiness, and her previous novel, The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann, a love story to writers and readers set in Gilded Age Boston. Virginia's essays have appeared in The New York Times, Literary Hub, Publishers Weekly, Writer's Digest, and elsewhere. She has taught writing at New York University and the University of Pennsylvania, and, most recently, at Grub Street in Boston. Virginia is the fiction editor of the literary journal Pangyrus, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
No comments posted.
© 2003-2026