Alena Dillon

Alena Dillon's new novel is Mercy House.

From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: Why did you decide to focus your novel around nuns, and how did you come up with the idea for Sister Evelyn?

A: When I worked at St. Joseph’s College, I was surrounded by sisters who challenged my perception of what it meant to be a holy person. They weren’t dry or dull. They were enterprising, wry, competitive, and so very dedicated to their mission, which made the Apostolic Visitation, an investigation of nuns conducted by the Vatican in 2010, sound all the more unjust.

The character of Sister Evelyn is, like so many characters, a composite of several people and my own imagination, but she is in large part inspired by a religious sister from the college who worked a night shift at a woman’s shelter and groaned every time the doorbell rang because it meant she had to get out of bed. That anecdote became my opening scene.

Q: The novel is set in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. How important is setting to you in your work?

A: The story is set in Brooklyn partly because...[read on]

Visit Alena Dillon's website.

--Marshal Zeringue