Libby Fischer Hellmann
From a Q & A with Libby Fischer Hellmann about her new novel, Easy Innocence:
How did you happen to write a story and plot like Easy Innocence?Read the full interview.Some books come from a vision. Others from personal experience. Easy Innocence came to me out of fear. My daughter was starting high school, I was recently separated, and I doubted my ability to be the single mother of a teenage girl. A hazing incident at a nearby high school had just occurred—it made the national media—and several teenagers ended up in the ER. I started to wonder what would have happened if a girl had been killed instead.
As a single parent how did the research and findings on teen prostitution affect you?
It was sobering. Not so much the fact that teen prostitution exists—I knew that. But the fact that girls from seemingly stable middle-class families were hooking for money to buy designer clothes, toys, and gadgets—that was a shock. I started to wonder what that said about the lengths girls go to in order to be accepted by their peers, as well the values we're teaching our daughters.
--Marshal Zeringue
