Lisa Unger

Lisa Unger's new novel is In the Blood.

From her Q & A with Anthony J. Franze at The Big Thrill:

Where did you grow up?

I was born in New Haven, Connecticut, but moved around quite a bit. I lived in the Netherlands and the UK during my early childhood (even learned to speak Dutch) before my family settled back in the U.S. My teen years were spent in a small town in New Jersey called Long Valley. When I turned eighteen, I left for college in Manhattan and spent the next thirteen years in New York City. My brother swears that Long Valley was my inspiration for The Hollows [the setting of In the Blood]. But it isn’t. Not really. Well, maybe a little.

Was all that moving around difficult or did you enjoy it? Was there anything about being “the new kid” that helped in any way with your writing?

It was challenging at times; I remember a semi-permanent sense of disconnection. But I had a sense even at a fairly young age that it was cool and unusual to see so much of the world. It made me quiet self-reliant and led to my discovery of books, and eventually my identity as a writer. If I was perpetually the new kid, then at least I was at home on the page.

Moreover, this feeling of being on the sideline of things led me to become a keen observer. And that’s the first thing a writer needs to be. Maybe we can’t observe as carefully unless we’re standing a little bit outside the fray. So the traveling I did as a child was...[read on]

Visit Lisa Unger's website.

--Marshal Zeringue