Isabel Booth

Isabel Booth is the pen name of Karen Jewell, a former trial attorney and now a writer. She holds an undergraduate degree in English, a Master’s in Business Administration, and a Juris Doctorate degree. When she’s not writing she loves to read, travel, and cook dinner for friends. She lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband.

Booth's new novel is Then He Was Gone.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Then He Was Gone gets right to the heart of the story: someone’s missing. Combined with the cover art, the reader knows that it’s a story about a missing child. I came up with the title after I finished writing the book. The folks at Crooked Lane Books and I played around with some other titles, but ultimately it was the publisher’s decision, and they stuck with the original.

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

My teenage reader self would be thrilled but not surprised. I was a voracious reader then, as now, and I started writing poems and stories at an early age. My teenage self might say, “Ah. Go ahead and be a lawyer if you want. But you know there’s a writer in there somewhere.”

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

I don’t find one harder than the other. I find myself mulling over ideas for a story, and then it just starts telling itself to me. I do, however, spend a lot of time coming up with the first sentence or two of the novel – something that hopefully grabs the reader’s attention right away. I was well into writing Then He Was Gone when I came up with the first two lines: “I have a picture of my little brother, Henry, that my dad took that day. He was six years old.”

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

I could probably find bits of myself and my life experiences in every character I write. Henry’s mother, Elizabeth English, is an attorney, so that’s obvious. But here are a couple of examples that are less so.

Monroe, the park ranger who leads the search for Henry, is a former Montana sheriff who’s seen it all. But here’s how he describes Moraine Park in Rocky Mountain National Park as he’s driving to the scene of Henry’s disappearance in response to a 911 call: “The first time I looked across that valley and the high peaks west of it along the Continental Divide, long shafts of light piercing through the clouds at sunset like the fingers of God, it nearly took my breath away.” I experienced that moment years ago and I’ve never forgotten it.

There is another scene in the novel where ten-year-old Nick is drawing a picture of his house in a counseling session. He draws burglar bars on all the windows and tells his counselor that he wants them put on his house when Henry comes home to keep his family safe. Some years ago, I did volunteer work in an elementary school that served low-income children. One little boy showed me a picture he had drawn of a house with burglar bars on all the windows, explaining that he would have a house someday that would keep the bad guys out. His teacher told me later that he was living in a homeless shelter. It broke my heart. Two weeks later, he was gone, never to return to that school. I can still see his face.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

So many. For this novel, the hikes that my husband and I and our two sons took in Rocky Mountain National Park over the years as the boys were growing up. And, especially, the boys themselves. They are hilarious, and you’ll find some funny vignettes in the novel about what boys can get up to.

Visit Isabel Booth's website.

My Book, The Movie: Then He Was Gone.

--Marshal Zeringue