Alison McGhee

Alison McGhee's new novel is Never Coming Back.

From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: Why did you decide to return to your characters Clara and Tamar in your new novel, Never Coming Back?

A: I wanted to return to Clara and her mother Tamar long ago, but every time I tried, they were a closed book (didn’t intend that pun but I’ll let it stand).

I kept wondering what they were up to. Had Tamar found any ease in her life? Had Clara become a writer? Had she gone to college? Had she left Sterns? When I last saw Clara, at the end of my previous novel Shadow Baby, she was 12 years old and just beginning to figure out her path in life.

When I began feeling my way into Never Coming Back–and that’s what writing a book is like for me, because I don’t know what they’re going to be about when I begin—all I knew was that it was about the relationship between a parent (I didn’t know if it was a father or mother) and their adult child.

Then, a few months in, the startling image of a young woman appeared in my mind. She was dangling a carton of orange juice from her fingertips and confronting a thin, frowning middle-aged woman. The image was clear and precise, and when it came to me I knew two things: that ...[read on]

Visit Alison McGhee's website.

--Marshal Zeringue