An Interview with Author Mary McGarry Morris

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Mary McGarry Morris

A while back, I posted a review of the book The Lost Mother by Mary McGarry Morris. If you missed it, you can see it by clicking HERE. I contacted her after that post and asked if she would be kind enough to share her thoughts through an email interview. She was generous with her time and answered a long list of questions. I'm excited to share that interview with you today. Those of us who are readers will enjoy learning more about her wonderful books. Those of us who are writers will learn a great deal about the art and craft of writing from her answers.

The Lost Mother is set in the deepest part of the Great Depression. What influenced you to choose that setting?

The Great Depression was such a long, harrowing period in our country’s history and psyche that its effects are still felt today.  I grew up hearing my parents’ and relatives’ stories of their own hardships and the pain they saw around them.  So, even though I hadn’t actually lived through any of it, I felt an almost visceral connection to their experiences.  When I began to write “The Lost Mother,” I had a keen sense about that time and place.

The book has great relevance in today’s world, perhaps even more than when it was published a few years ago. Is there a personal connection for you? Did you write The Lost Mother as a message book or did you simply have a story to tell?

“The Lost Mother” was a story that had been gestating in me forever.  My maternal grandmother left her home and family when my mother was only four years old.  My mother felt that loss and abandonment all her life.  She always wondered how a mother could walk away forever from her children.  It was such a deeply painful question that seemed to have no logical answers but the kind of haunting question a writer can’t let go of.  Writing “The Lost Mother” was my fictional attempt to quarry through the obdurate unknown to the truth, or at least the common enough truths of human frailty, determination, and enduring love.     

The book is very real to me. I certainly relate to it from stories my parents shared of that time, and some things were very hard for me to read because they were much like the hard times my parents suffered. Can you talk a little about the research process for The Lost Mother?

I read many great books about this period, but my most important research came from talking to people who had lived through it.  First hand accounts collected during that time by the WPA Writers Project were another vital resource for understanding both the widespread deprivation as well as the often guilty success of those few who still had jobs and could feed, house, and clothe their families.

How do you discover your fictional characters? Are they based on real people?

If some of my characters seem to resemble real people, it probably comes from always asking why. Digging deeply enough into a story reveals the characters’ motivations and from there comes a better understanding of the whole person.  And much of what I discover about a character may never end up in the story.

Your writing has such a great, natural flow to it. Do you spend a lot of time planning your writing – outlining and such – or is it a much more organic process for you?

When I begin a story I need to have some idea, some sense where I’m headed.  I may think I know the ending, but it’s usually not what I expected.  I have a great reverence for the ancient art of story-telling.  In many ways a story is an almost living thing, an organic process of discovery that constantly surprises with all its twists and turns, false starts, and wonderful moments of revelation.  And that’s what I mean about needing to know and always asking why.  The layers get peeled away to the steady heartbeat of why, why, why. 

Writing can be a lonely business. Do you work with critique groups or critique partners? Maybe you could talk a little about your writing process.

I’m not part of a writing group.  When I write I need quiet, though with much of my family nearby I’m used to interruptions.  I try to be at my desk by 9 a.m. and then write for as long as I can.  I’m lucky to have a large room as my “writing space.”  When I first saw this house 35 years ago it was the study that sold me on it.  Finally, a room of my own, which seemed to validate what was then an often insecure pursuit.

As writers, we all hear so much about the editing process. You had a long relationship with Penguin publishing, but your last two books are with Random House. Do you find a difference in working with the editors from two different houses? Are there philosophical differences between publishing houses that are apparent to you as an author? How does that affect your work?

I’ve been fortunate to have worked with two of the best editors in publishing, Kathryn Court at Penguin and John Glusman at Crown (now at Norton.)  I’m sure there are philosophical differences between publishing houses, but I’m unaware of them.  It’s not a world I move in beyond my own work.  Publishing is a strange business, especially in these times, and no one seems to know where it’s all heading.  Just a few years ago death knolls were tolling for independent bookstores, but now it’s the chains that are foundering.  If sales of electronic books ever overtake sales of bound books it will be interesting to see if the obvious savings to publishers (paper, printing, shipping, warehousing) will be in any way passed on to writers.  Or to readers.

Something many of us aspiring writers dream of is having our books turned into blockbuster films. Two of your books, A Dangerous Woman and Songs in Ordinary Time, were made into films. How was that for you? Did you have much input on the screenplays or casting?

I had no real input turning “A Dangerous Woman” and “Songs In Ordinary Time” into films.  Wish I had, but it’s a very different process and I understand that. 

You have had books in print for over twenty years. Do you think it’s much more difficult for writers to be published today than when you started? How do you think things have changed for emerging writers over those years? What advice would you pass along to those of us who haven’t gotten that first book published? 

It may be more difficult for new writers to get published today just because there are so many more people writing books now.  But today’s new writers also have the advantage of self-publishing, which is a great way to get one’s work to probably more readers than some publishing houses can reach.  My best advice for emerging writers is born of my own experience: confidence in your work and persistence, persistence, persistence. 

Your latest book, Light From a Distant Star, will be out in September. It looks wonderful and I can’t wait to read it. I’ll be setting aside some time next month for that. From the synopsis on your website, it looks like it has a very young protagonist, as did The Lost Mother.  And yet, your books all have very adult themes and are marketed to adults. Does the young adult market hold any interest to you? 

“Light From A Distant Star” was written for an adult reader.  But I’m pretty sure there’s a young adult reader in all of us no matter how far we are from our own childhood.  Everyone remembers what it felt like to be overlooked or disrespected or, worse, not believed because you were only a child.  It can be a frightening experience, especially when you’re convinced you’re the only one who knows the truth.  And in “Light From A Distant Star” that is Nellie Peck’s dilemma, a frustration we’ve all felt as powerless children. “Light From A Distant Star” may well find a young adult audience just as “The Lost Mother” has.  “The Lost Mother” is read in many high school English classes as well as  courses that blend history and literature. 

Thank you for so generously sharing your time and thoughts.

 

Two Good Books -- Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt and The Lost Mother by Mary McGarry Morris

This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back in again.  ~ Oscar Wilde

As you may have read in my last post, I’d been having more days like this one of Oscar Wilde’s than I’d like, but just lately, I have to say, “I’m back!” I’m writing a lot and ideas are flowing. This is much more fun.

While I was in the mother of all funks, I did a lot of reading. Two of the books I read made me think a lot about my second novel on which I’m doing re-writes. Both had twelve to thirteen-year-old protagonists,  likable and engaging characters. One was written in first-person point of view, while the other was close third-person occasionally drifting into omniscient observer. Both feature dysfunctional families that are completely believable and are set in intriguing times and places. One was marketed as a middle-grade book, the other as an adult book. This is particularly interesting to me because I’ve had beta readers from eight to eighty-four. (Not kidding.) Everyone seems to think the book suits them fine. The eighty-four year old was shocked when I said it was written for middle-grade kids. She was sure it was for adults. But I had a thirteen-year-old boy who read it three times and loved every bit of it. I wonder if I’m marketing it correctly to agents and editors. But enough about me; let me tell you about these two wonderful books.

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt is simply one of the finest, most compelling books I have read in a long time. The voice of Doug Swieteck is as clear and direct as any first-person story I have ever read. I hear Doug’s voice in my head, speaking directly to me, as if we had been best friends for years. His father, who doesn’t have many good days, if you know what I mean, is fired, and the family has to move to a small town which will henceforth be referred to as “stupid Marysville.”

My father gave me a box that still smelled like the bananas it brought up from somewhere that speaks Spanish and told me to put in whatever I had and I should throw out anything I couldn’t get in it. I did — except for Joe Pepitone’s cap because it’s lying in a gutter getting rained on, which you might remember if you cared.

Gary D. Schmidt

Doug’s mother is sweet and loving and absolutely incapable of standing up to her abusive husband. His brother Christopher is terrified of who he will become and takes his fears out on everyone around him, but mostly Doug. His other brother, Lucas, is in Vietnam at the beginning of the book, but comes home badly damaged – physically and emotionally.

Doug finds a couple of allies at the public library in stupid Marysville and discovers his own artistic talent when he finds an Audubon book on display there. The beautiful prints in the book inspire him, and the librarian, Mr. Powell, engenders Doug’s artistic gifts. He struggles through being the new kid at school and the suspicions of the townspeople after a theft occurs. He struggles at home as Lucas comes home from the war and as his father becomes more abusive and Christopher becomes angrier, taking it out on you know who. When his father’s cruel abuse is revealed to everyone at school, you wonder how Doug will survive this latest horror. But he is a survivor and this up-lifting story is full of strength and beauty. I can’t recommend it highly enough. I love it and will read it again soon.

The Lost Mother by Mary McGarry Morris is one of the most heart-wrenching books I’ve ever read. I remember years ago reading She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb and feeling blanketed by sadness the whole time I was reading it, yet it was beautifully written and I couldn’t put it down. The Lost Mother had much the same effect on me. Told mostly through the eyes of twelve-year-old Thomas Talcott, this tale is set in Vermont during the Great Depression. Thomas, his eight-year-old sister Margaret, and their father, Henry, an itinerant butcher, end up living in a tent after they lose their home and Irene, wife and mother, shattered by the death of her third child, leaves. The children never give up hope their mother will return to them, but it’s clear to the reader there is little hope for that or for much of anything. Perhaps their stubborn hopefulness is the most heart-breaking thing in this book.

Mary McGarry Morris

The children are shuffled between a drunken aunt who doesn’t want them, the Farley family, the richest people in town, who want Margaret for her beauty and as a companion for their disabled, pedophilic son, and a wonderful woman named Gladys who is helpless in the face of her cruel father and the Farleys. Mr. Farley sets Henry up to end up in jail, and the Farleys take the children in. Things get so bad and so dangerous for Margaret, that she and Thomas steal money and run away to find their mother. Her circumstances seem great, but they soon learn a dark reality. She keeps them awhile, but it is clear to the reader, if not the children, she is not interested in being their mother. She finally ships them to a local orphanage. (My mother was sent to orphanages a couple of different times during her childhood, and this book gives a very true picture of such places in that time. It was very hard for me to read.)

Years later, he would realize watching his own children, then his children’s children, that it wasn’t just him, but everyone it happened to. Because that’s what growing up is. That’s what it feels like. Like being alone. And strong. Even when you don’t want to be, or think you can’t. You just suddenly are.

This is a story that will touch something deep inside everyone who reads it. It’s a story for all of us. Those who have had a good life will more deeply appreciate it. Those who have not had such a good life, will wonder again how one can be strong enough to survive. But it gives us all hope, and that’s a good thing.

Back to the question of who are these books for – middle-grade, as are the protagonists, or adults. I loved both these books. I’m not prepared to hand either of them to my nine-year-old grandson, but I can happily recommend them to just about anyone else. Enjoy! 

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