Scott Lasser

Scott Lasser's new novel The Year That Follows begins with Cat Miller traveling to New York on September 10th of 2001. She goes out to dinner with her brother Kyle, who tells her he thinks he’s fathered a child, as his ex-girlfriend just got back from 3 months maternity leave, and they broke up a year ago. The next day he goes off to work and is never heard from again. Cat goes in search of the lost child, knowing only the mother’s first name and having a picture of the woman.

From a Q & A with Lasser at the Knopf website:

Where did the idea for THE YEAR THAT FOLLOWS come from?

It grew out of my last novel, All I Could Get. [My editor] Jordan called me during the summer of 2001, about seven months before publication, and suggested that it might be a good idea to make a pass through the Knopf offices, where I’d never been. The idea was to meet the marketing people, make myself known. I said sure, when? She suggested that anytime after Labor Day was fine. My daughter's birthday is September 9, a Sunday that year, so I said, “How about if I fly out on Monday, the 10th, and come in the morning of the 11th.” Which is how I happened to be in Manhattan on September 11. Now, if you were in Manhattan that day it might well have occurred to you to write about it, even if you had never written more than a grocery list. Writing about it certainly occurred to me, but I had to throw away reams of material before I got to this rather compact book.

You worked in finance in Manhattan for a while—Kyle, whose death sets THE YEAR THAT FOLLOWS in motion, does the same. Did you draw much on your previous life when writing Kyle and putting some of the elements of the book together?

A little. I...[read on]

Read an excerpt from The Year That Follows, and learn more about the author and his work at Scott Lasser's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: The Year That Follows.

--Marshal Zeringue