Peter Spiegelman is the author of three John March novels; the most recent is Red Cat.Here is part of a Q & A about the novel:
Q: John's family and their fractured relationships have been part of your previous novels but never as prominently as in Red Cat. What made you want to explore those relationships, especially that of John and his brother David, in so much more depth?Read the entire Q & A.
A: I subscribe to Wordsworth's assertion, that "the child is the father of the man." Children are stamped indelibly by their families, in ways that influence the relationships they forge, and the expectations they have of the world. Certainly that's the case with the March children, and I was interested, in Red Cat, in examining some of the emotional baggage John and his siblings carry around (there's quite a bit).
Exploring March's family and his dealings with them (and in particular with David), also let me explore aspects of March himself that I hadn't touched on before. Red Cat is very much a book about relationships—between siblings, between husbands and wives, between parents and children, between one's present and one's past—and March and his family are at the center of many of these.
Spiegelman put Red Cat to the Page 99 test.
I reviewed the novel for Spot-on.
--Marshal Zeringue