Catherine Banner is the author of The House at the Edge of Night. From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:Q: How did you come up with the idea for your new novel, and for the island of Castellamare?Visit Catherine Banner's website.
A: It was actually very unexpected, and it started with the 2008 financial crisis. I was 18 at the time, so in the years that followed that historical event made a big impression on me, but I didn’t see any European writers yet telling stories about it, particularly about being young and coming from a small town in its aftermath.
I wanted to read those stories, and so the idea for The House at the Edge of Night began to emerge out of that wish.
At first, the island was supposed to be mythic: a small, enclosed community which would feel real but also encompass the qualities of many places I knew – the small town in the north of England where I lived, and the small towns in Italy where I spent a lot of time, in a pure way because of its geographic isolation.
But as I researched the history of Mediterranean islands, I discovered that it was full of incredible untold stories, and so these became part of the fabric of the book and Castellamare grew more and more real as a place.
One of the most interesting things for me as a writer is when...[read on]
The Page 69 Test: The House at the Edge of Night.
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--Marshal Zeringue