Dana Cann's new novel is Ghosts of Bergen County.From his Q&A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: How did you come up with the idea for Ghosts of Bergen County and for your characters Gil Ferko, Jen, and Mary Beth?--Marshal Zeringue
A: I have vivid dreams, and the initial impetus for this novel came from a dream where a friend and I take heroin, shoplift in a mall, and are chased by store security. There’s a scene about a quarter of the way through the novel where all of these things happen to two of the characters.
Separately and consciously, I’d been thinking for some time about a hit-and-run accident, and this became the novel’s main plot thread. It took a few false starts to discover Gil Ferko, my protagonist, a private-equity misfit, but once I had him the other characters fell into place.
Q: You switch perspectives from one character to another. Did you prefer one character’s viewpoint to the others as you were writing?
A: Decisions regarding point of view are...[read on]