Meghan MacLean Weir's new book is The Book of Essie.From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: How did you come up with the idea for The Book of Essie?Visit Meghan MacLean Weir's website.
A: I wrote Essie at a time when my parents had moved in with my husband and me to help care for our children. We were incredibly lucky, but it was also challenging at times to be living with my parents as an adult, and it made me reexamine what it had meant to me, growing up, to be the daughter of a small-town Episcopal priest and to always feel as if I was being watched and judged and reported on.
Essie is under much more scrutiny than I ever was, given that her family is on a reality show and so is watched by the whole country rather than just the parishioners at her father's church, but I think that makes it more interesting for the reader, that the stakes for her are so high.
I also wanted to tell a story that would reflect on the ways in which...[read on]
--Marshal Zeringue