Barbara Claypole White's latest novel is Echoes of Family. From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:Q: How did you come up with your character Marianne and with the idea to focus your new novel around someone with bipolar disorder?Visit Barbara Claypole White's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.
A: That’s a great question because my other novels have come from dark what if moments related to my life. Not this one. I’d already abandoned a novel about a single dad with a teenage daughter who has undiagnosed bipolar disorder, when I was visiting my mother in rural England.
A random scene, which had nothing to do with anything I was working on, started playing in my head. It was set in my childhood church, a place that celebrated its 1,000th birthday—yes, three zeroes—when I was a teenager.
An elegant American woman was sitting in the back pew wearing sunglasses while the church ladies did the flowers. They became increasingly concerned about this stranger, until one of them ran off to find the vicar. (He was whacking weeds in the rectory garden wearing ripped jeans and a U2 T-shirt.)
When he crouched down to talk with the woman, he recognized her as...[read on]
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