Elliot Ackerman is the author of Waiting for Eden.From his Q&A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: How did you come up with the idea for Waiting for Eden?Visit Elliot Ackerman's website.
A: The book started with the first line, “I want you to understand Mary and what she did …” The only thing was that I didn’t know at that point what Mary had done, only that her husband, Eden, was in this debilitated state in the hospital. I also didn’t know who the narrator was, there was just this voice.
The novel then became a series of questions: Who is Mary? What did she do and why? And who is this narrator who is pleading with us to understand her? Often that’s how my books get started, with a question.
Q: At what point did you decide who would narrate the story?
A: Early on, I knew that I wanted this book to feel very intimate. I understood the book’s mood immediately and such intimacy usually lends itself to a first person narrator.
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--Marshal Zeringue