From the outside, Sycamore Glen, North Carolina, might look like the perfect
all-American neighborhood. But behind the white picket fences lies a web of
secrets that reach from house to house. Up and down the streets, neighbors
quietly bear the weight of their own pasts—until an accident at the community
pool upsets the delicate equilibrium. And when tragic circumstances compel a
woman to return to Sycamore Glen after years of self-imposed banishment, the
tangle of the neighbors’ intertwined lives begins to unravel. During the course
of a sweltering summer, long-buried secrets are revealed, and the neighbors
learn that it’s impossible to really know those closest to us. But is it
impossible to love and forgive them?
This is the question that Marybeth Whalen poses in her moving new novel, and she
talks to Writing a Woman’s Life columnist Yona Zeldis McDonough all
about how her moving new novel attempts to answer it.
Marybeth Mayhew Whalen is the author of five previous novels and speaks to
women's groups around the United States. She is the cofounder of the popular
women's fiction site She Reads and is active in a local writers' group. Marybeth
and her husband, Curt, have been married for twenty-four years and are the
parents of six children, ranging from young adult to elementary age. The family
lives in North Carolina. Marybeth spends most of her time in the grocery store
but occasionally escapes long enough to scribble some words. She is always at
work on her next novel.
FF: Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?
MW: I've never not written so I knew I wanted to write-- but didn't really
believe I would write things other people would actually read. I considered
writers to be magical people and never felt I was especially magical. Now of
course I know different. Writers are ordinary people who just happen to
interpret the world through story. And I'm glad I get to be one.
FF: How did you get your start as a novelist?
MW: I met a friend who called me on all my excuses (my kids, my lack of time, my
lack of knowledge, etc.) and didn't let me quit. Everyone needs someone like
that in their life! I've dedicated several of my novels to her and we now run a
site devoted to sharing the best in women's fiction called She Reads. Story
brought us together and in some ways, it keeps us together!
FF: You write so affectionately about small town life; are you a small
town girl yourself?
MW: I am. I live in the same small town I grew up in-- but of course as our area
of the south has grown, the town itself has changed. It is the same town and it
is a different town and I guess I circle that concept a lot in my writing: the
changing landscape of the American South, or whatever you want to call it.
FF: This is an ensemble novel in which most of the voices are in the
third person. Why is Cailey the only exception?
MW: I just wrote her exactly as she came to me. She was the clearest voice out
of all of them and, to me, the hero of the novel. So I liked that her voice was
distinct because she got to be the only character who spoke in first person.
FF: Several characters discover unwelcome secrets about each other or
themselves: Zell, Everett, Jencey; how do they cope?
MW: One of the things I like to do when I write is to throw a bunch of people
into some dark and unwelcome situations and then see what happens. It's great
fun for me as a writer and it's also the kinds of books I like to read. But my
intent is never to leave them in these dark and unwelcome situations. It's to
watch them find whatever they need (friends, support, wisdom, strength, love,
etc.) to begin to climb out of them. I always want to finish out my novels on a
note of hope so that, in response, perhaps the reader will find hope as well. I
think we live in a world where hope can at times be in short supply so it's nice
to find it in the stories we read.
FF: Cailey has a secret she does not reveal in the course of the novel;
why not?
MW: There are so many secrets being revealed in this novel that I just had to
let her hang onto that one!
FF: What are you working on now?
MW: My next novel is (tentatively) titled WHEN WE WERE WORTHY and is about a
tragic event that affects an entire small town, most notably four main
characters whose lives are irreversibly changed by what happens. It's another
novel about people keeping secrets (or trying to!) and coming to understand both
themselves... and each other.
In an idyllic small-town neighborhood, a near tragedy triggers a series of
dark revelations.
From the outside, Sycamore Glen, North Carolina, might look like the perfect
all-American neighborhood. But behind the white picket fences lies a web of
secrets that reach from house to house.
Up and down the streets, neighbors quietly bear the weight of their own
pasts—until an accident at the community pool upsets the delicate equilibrium.
And when tragic circumstances compel a woman to return to Sycamore Glen after
years of self-imposed banishment, the tangle of the neighbors’ intertwined lives
begins to unravel.
During the course of a sweltering summer, long-buried secrets are revealed,
and the neighbors learn that it’s impossible to really know those closest to us.
But is it impossible to love and forgive them?
Women's Fiction
[Lake Union Publishing, On Sale: September 1, 2016,
Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781503936072 / ]
A compelling novel about one woman’s search for the truth from the author
of YOU WERE MEANT FOR ME.
After suffering a sudden, traumatic loss,
historical novelist Susannah Gilmore decides to uproot her life—and the lives of
her two children—and leave their beloved Brooklyn for the little town of
Eastwood, New Hampshire.
While the trio adjusts to their new
surroundings, Susannah is captivated by an unexpected find in her late parents’
home: an unsigned love note addressed to her mother, in handwriting that is most
definitely not her father’s.
Reeling from the thought that she never
really knew her mother, Susannah finds mysteries everywhere she looks: in her
daughter’s friendship with an older neighbor, in a charismatic local man to whom
she’s powerfully drawn, and in an eighteenth century crime she’s researching for
her next book. Compelled to dig into her mother’s past, Susannah discovers even
more secrets, ones that surpass any fiction she could ever put to paper...
About Yona Zeldis McDonough
Yona Zeldis McDonough is the author of six novels; her
seventh, THE HOUSE ON
PRIMROSE POND, will be out from New American Library in February, 2016. In
addition, she is the editor of the essay collections The Barbie
Chronicles: A Living Doll Turns Forty and All the Available Light: A
Marilyn Monroe Reader. Her short fiction, articles and essays have been
published in anthologies as well as in numerous national magazines and
newspapers. She is also the award-winning author of twenty-six books for
children, including the highly acclaimed chapter books, The Doll Shop
Downstairs and The Cats in the Doll Shop. Yona lives in Brooklyn, New
York with her husband, two children and two noisy Pomeranians.
Hey dear you will learn here how to hack slither as
you will play slither with much ease and you will enjoy
very much.
(Jack Will 1:39am September 15, 2016)
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