Liam Callanan

Liam Callanan is a writer and teacher. His novel, Paris by the Book, a national bestseller, was translated into multiple languages and won the 2019 Edna Ferber Prize. He’s also the 2017 winner of the Hunt Prize, and his first novel, The Cloud Atlas, was a finalist for an Edgar Award. Callanan’s work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Slate, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The San Francisco Chronicle, and he's recorded numerous essays for public radio. He's also taught for the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and lives in Wisconsin with his wife and daughters.

Callanan's new novel is When in Rome.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

In When in Rome, 52-year-old Claire Murphy heads to Rome to help some American nuns there sell their crumbling convent—built for 300, it only houses 3 (and at least one ghost). Once there, though, she falls in love with the city, the convent, and most unexpectedly, the nuns' life—so much so that she considers joining their ranks. Just then, her old college flame shows up. What to do? Well, when in Rome...

What's in a name?

The names in this book come from a variety of sources—friends, family, and some, out of the blue. The name of the protagonist's daughter, Dorothy, comes from Dorothy Day. The order of nuns who runs the convent is called the Order of Saint Gertrude, in honor of my Great Aunt Gertrude, who was not a nun but the life of every party she ever entered.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

Very surprised and not, I think. I went to an all-boys school and had little exposure to nuns. Then again, it was a Catholic school, and that experience has fed more than a few of my novels. The narrator of my first book is a Catholic priest; the setting of my second is a Catholic school. I suppose it was only a matter of time before I made it to Rome.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Beginnings. It's only when I finish a book that I see where I need(ed) to start; in all my books, I've always written the opening last. This book is somewhat of an exception— I wrote the prologue years back on a high-speed train to Shanghai, of all places—-but the first chapter I was wrestling with down to the 11th hour.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

For the record, I never do, but my readers—especially my family always do. The protagonist of my first novel is named Louis; my mother thought he was quite like me, as our names both began with L. I noted that there were differences; the protagonist, for starters, was an 80-something year-old priest in Alaska...

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Travel. My book start with places: Alaska, California, Paris, now Rome. If I was a painter, I'd sketch in the hills and fields first before I got to the people in the middle of the painting. Maybe that's not how painters are supposed to do it, but it seems to be how I work. I set the stage and then wait and watch to see what characters walk on from the wings.

Visit Liam Callanan's website.

--Marshal Zeringue