Sara Taylor's new novel is The Lauras.From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: How did you come up with the idea for The Lauras, and for your characters Alex and Ma?Visit Sara Taylor's website.
A: The Lauras was originally going to be a short story that begins with a small child being kidnapped from their parents’ house. I had planned for it to be slowly revealed that the kidnapper was a relative who had taken the child for very good reasons, but before I could get there it became clear that the narrator I was writing was much older than the four or five-year-old I had envisioned.
I liked that voice too much to throw it away, and I recognised the situation that Alex was in, of not wanting to question the parent in charge not because you think they know what they’re doing but because you’re worried they don’t, as one that I’ve been wanting to explore in fiction, so I went with it. Both of their characters then...[read on]
--Marshal Zeringue