Your characters have severe medical, neurological, and mental problems to overcome. How did you research this novel?
I’m a research-heavy novelist who conducts many one-on-one interviews. I also read memoirs, do Internet research, lurk in online groups, and watch endless YouTube videos (okay, so some of the music videos might be distractions . . .). With this novel, however, I found my research difficult and overwhelming. Ella’s medical journey provided the framework for the story, but it took seven months to track down a cardiologist willing to talk with me. Until that point, I was constantly second-guessing her storyline.
The research into the neurological and mental disorders came with its own challenges, since many of the firsthand sources focused on more extreme cases. I nearly abandoned OCPD because most of the accounts came from disillusioned ex-spouses who said, “If you’re married to anyone with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, run.” I reminded myself that my characters are not their disorders, and that we all have individual brain chemistry and unique life experiences that mold us into a mess of complexities and contradictions. As one mother told me, if you lined up a hundred kids with Tourette syndrome, the Tourette’s would manifest differently in every child.
I’m not trying to create cardboard cutouts that say, “I am OCPD” or “I am Tourette’s.” The fun part for me is always thinking outside the box of clinical definitions to find the person behind the label. Hey, people with messed-up brain chemistry and wiring still need backstories and well-rounded personalities!
During the writing of this novel, did anything surprise you?
Everything surprised me. Even though I forced myself to create a detailed outline, nothing went as planned. I started a story set in Chapel Hill, but it skipped over to Durham; I thought I was writing about a marriage in crisis, then it became a father-son story . . . and finally, I realized it was about a family finding acceptance. Harry decided to fall in love, Max announced he didn’t want to go to college, Katherine became a good guy, and the ending reversed in the second draft.
The characters’ emotional arcs surprised the heck out of me. I loved that Harry, who had never learned to establish boundaries with his mother, took charge of his life by learning to confront his father. And Ella evolved in ways that I hadn’t anticipated. Her revelations about the pregnancy and her doubts about being a mother? I never saw those coming.
I’m not sure that discovering the real Felix was a surprise, but it was the most rewarding part of writing this novel. I heard Felix’s voice from the beginning, but he presented huge problems. He’s not an obvious hero, and until you understand his layers, he presents as a judgmental control freak. When an early reader said, “I didn’t want to like Felix, but I did,” I finally began to believe readers would stick with him.
Tell us about the setting. Your first two novels have lush rural settings, but this time you switched to the city of Durham, North Carolina. Why?
Once again, I wanted to set the story in rural Orange County, but Felix isn’t a country person. So I moved the setting to an established Chapel Hill neighborhood. That didn’t work, either. (Felix is quite picky!) And then I was driving around the older, tree-lined streets of Durham by Duke Gardens, and I had a lightbulb moment: I had found Felix’s home. While parts of Duke speak to Felix of his time at Oxford, he’s also drawn to the sense of rejuvenation at the heart of historic Durham. There’s a creative, cosmopolitan, slightly funky energy to the downtown that reminds me a little of London, and Felix is a Londoner. By putting the house at the edge of Duke Forest, I could also sneak in references to light through the trees, which is my favorite writing image.