Anne Korkeakivi

Anne Korkeakivi's new novel is Shining Sea. From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: How did you come up with the idea for Shining Sea, and for the Gannon family?

A: When my father died four years ago, my mother and sisters and I discovered he was still carrying his honorable discharge card from the U.S. Army in his wallet. My father had served in Italy during World War II—i.e., 60 years earlier. That’s how much his army service meant to him.

Meanwhile, I grew up in the ‘60s and ‘70s two blocks from the main gates of Columbia University. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of watching anti-Vietnam War protests and the nightly body count on the TV news. So, my own first understanding of U.S. involvement in war was overwhelmingly negative, opposite to my father.

This got me thinking. How do war experiences—or experiences of any conflict--trickle down through generations? How might members of the same family respond differently? And what might all this mean to the cohesion of a family and to the lives of the individuals within it?

I didn’t want the story to become in any way autobiographical, so I ...[read on]

Visit Anne Korkeakivi's website.

--Marshal Zeringue