David McGlynn

David McGlynn's books include the memoirs One Day You'll Thank Me and A Door in the Ocean, and the story collection The End of the Straight and Narrow. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The American Scholar. He teaches at Lawrence University and lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

McGlynn's debut novel is Everything We Could Do.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The novel's title, Everything We Could Do, is meant to call to mind the phrase often used by physicians & healthcare providers after a patient dies -- "we did everything we could." The phrase is often of little comfort to families, but it's also absolutely necessary. People need to know the doctors and nurses did everything imaginable to save a life. Everything We Could Do is set not only in a hospital, but in a neonatal intensive care unit, where the smallest, most fragile humans cling to life. In the novel's second plot line, one of the NICU nurses struggles to care for her disabled, nearly adult son, even though she has fought and advocated for him throughout his life. In both cases, characters try "everything" to hold onto the ones they love. But everything, quite often, isn't enough.

What's in a name?

Everything We Could Do was inspired by my own experience as a NICU parent, and to an even greater degree by my wife's years as a NICU social worker. She cared for the very families and infants who appear in the novel. I wanted my main character to be strong and smart, but also tender and vulnerable -- not a professional healthcare employee, but a woman who can navigate a complex world, full of arcane, rapid-fire language. She's a bit of an amalgam of my wife, so I named her Brooke, which is my wife's middle name.

The nurse who cares for the babies -- and whose own son is struggling as he nears adulthood -- is named Dash Coenen. Her name is stolen from one of the nurses in the NICU where I served as a volunteer. I loved the nurses I interacted with in the NICU, especially during my research. They were funny and sharp and, in most cases, no-nonsense women. Most were local to Northeast Wisconsin, where the novel is set, and loved things like the Green Bay Packers, fishing, camping. But when acute situations arose, which happened quite often, they were among the toughest, most focused professionals I'd ever encountered.

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

I've wanted to write a novel since I was a teenager. Everything We Could Do is my first novel, but my fourth book. I've written a collection of stories, plus two works on nonfiction. I think my teenage self would say, "Hey, man, nice novel, but what took you so long?" I don't have a good answer other than, "I was trying for a really long time."

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

Over the course of my work, I've noticed a curious phenomenon. I believe I have the beginning of a book nailed down for a long time -- years, in many cases. And yet, as I near the end of the final draft, I begin to find the book's beginning problematic in some way. It's too long, or too slow, or too cumbersome. Such a realization causes no small amount of consternation and angst until I work up the courage to cut it -- typically the first 50 pages. I have cut the first 50 pages of the last three books I have written, including Everything We Could Do. The novel's opening line -- "The word didn't fit. Children. Babies. Hers." -- was originally in the middle of the third or fourth chapter. When I finally realized that, yet again, my opening needed to go, I started cutting a paragraph at a time until I got to that line. It felt fresh and raw, so I stopped.

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

I am hugely connected and invested in my characters. Each of them embodies some aspect of me: my fears, my hopes, my dreams, my worst qualities or my best. I also took a lot of care to reflect the characteristics of the very real people I met and worked with and spoke to during my long years of research for the novel. I wanted Everything We Could Do to provide the most accurate depiction of a world -- the NICU -- that's both common and unknown to most people who haven't experienced it personally. As I told friends when I was working on the book, the birthing center (or labor and delivery ward) is the one wing of the hospital where people arrive fully expecting everything to go well, for both a mother and her newborn infant to emerge healthy and perfect. When something doesn't go as planned, or when something truly harrowing occurs, the whiplash between expectations and reality is fierce. I wanted to bear witness to that experience, for the people who go through it. I went through it when my younger son was born, and was caught up in all the emotions the story contains.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I grew up in Texas and California, and went to graduate school in Utah. I am a creature of the American West you might say. When I moved to Wisconsin in 2006, it seemed a different world. I often felt (and can still feel) like an outsider. But rather than try to leave, I tried my best to make a life. I went to fish frys and potlucks, watched football and hiked in the snow during the winter. I wanted to show how a relatively ignored corner of the country -- Northeast Wisconsin -- could be full of intelligent, sarcastic, talented, and fragile people. I am always looking around at my environment, at my townspeople and friends, in community centers and YMCAs and churches, for insights into the culture taking place all around me.

It's also true that I love medical dramas, whether in books, in the movies, or on TV. The HBO show, The Pitt, was a huge success this year, largely because it so thoroughly depicts the frenzied humanity of the emergency room. The doctors and nurses work incredibly hard, for 12+ hours, and never manage to get caught up. I'm a sucker for shows like that precisely because they feel so real, and they give a broader, public voice to the experiences I hear my wife relate to me about her job. Aren't we all drawn to art -- including TV and cinema -- in which we can see ourselves? I know I am.

Visit David McGlynn's website.

Writers Read: David McGlynn.

--Marshal Zeringue