Author Interview: Q: When you started writing...

Q: When you started writing HAPPINESS, did you identify strongly with any one of the characters? If so, which one? How did this change as you tackled other points of view?

A: I can identify with personality traits and personal circumstances that each of the characters has. I identify with Elinor's struggles with infertility, because I've undergone those treatments, and I've miscarried and learned that I can't have children. A crazy kind of broken-heartedness comes with this odd type of loss, and I wanted to write about that.

I can relate to Ted's longing to be intimate and to his frustration-to that feeling of wanting to put your fist through a wall. Also, I had empathy for Ted's sense of being unable to help or console his wife. It's a helpless feeling when you can't console someone. And I could relate to his sense of despair working with elderly patients. My mother died of a brain tumor and when she was terminally ill she was placed in a long-term care facility-essentially a rest-home. They're such grim places and as soon as you emerge from visiting one you want to rush out for a swim or a workout-anything to feel alive.

I could sympathize with Gina's profound sense of unrequited love. Who hasn't experience unrequited love? (George Clooney, maybe!) The two men whom Gina loves-her son and Ted-need her, but she senses that they don't love her deeply. She's tired of being needed. She wants to be loved.

Also, I could relate to Gina's frustration with always having to be a motivator. She has to motivate people in her job on a daily basis, and she's trying to motivate her son at the same time. It can be daunting trying endlessly to keep other people's spirits up, particularly when they're struggling with alcohol or won't take care of their health. At some point you sort of want to say, "Okay, don't take care of yourself! Freebase a case of Twinkies and don't call me in the morning!"

Like, Roger, I've cleaned houses, so I know what it's like to have this view of the underbelly of people's lives-and of being a young college graduate with a not-so-useful degree and spinning your wheels and not knowing what you're doing with your life. In my twenties and thirties I had many of those forehead-slapping moments where I thought "Wait a minute, I want to be a WRITER, what am I doing…(fill in the blank): washing dishes/writing bad ad copy/proof reading press releases…"

Q: Does this book have a message? If so, what is it?

A: I can't tell a reader what to take away from a book. I wanted to write about a couple that's unhappily married, yet who have compassion for each other and could potentially be happily divorced. Mostly, I wanted to focus on the fact that compassion is perhaps the most generous thing we can have for people. Love is complicated and multifaceted-there's romantic love, and platonic love, and familial love. It's pretty easy to tell someone you love them. But being compassionate takes real thoughtfulness and bravado. Yet, I don't think novels are really meant to have messages or tackle morality. Leave that to the philosophers. A novel's job is to tell a story.

As an English major, I read the classic stories in which unhappily married women had affairs and met terrible demises. Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, Helen of Troy in The Iliad. Usually in stories where there is a couple and a lover or mistress, one of the three people is a cad or an airhead. But in real life, things aren't so black and white. Everything's messy and there's lots of gray area. Essentially, I wanted to write about that gray area. What if each of the three characters in a "love triangle" is sympathetic? Wouldn't that make an interesting story? That's where I began. And that's why I chose Aristotle's premise that the best stories aren't about good guys and bad guys. The best stories are about pretty-good guys who are flawed and make mistakes (sometimes BIG mistakes), and yet manage to find redemption in the end.

Q: In an era when 50% of marriages end in divorce, is it ever possible to have a good divorce?

A: Well, I'm not Dr. Phil, but we know that it is possible, because there are people who are divorced and treat each other with civility. Often, it's out of compassion for their children. My parents were divorced when I was twelve, and they had compassion for each other. As a teenager, I was unforgiving of and impatient with my mother, who divorced my father. My father would keep reminding me that my mother had had a difficult childhood and many other struggles, and that I needed to be patient with her and kind. He was a classy guy that way.

Q: Does this novel have autobiographical elements? If so, how did they inform your creative process?

A: Really, the only autobiographical elements are infertility, and having divorced parents and seeing how difficult marriage can be from that perspective. The hardest part about writing Elinor's character was understanding what it's like to be really successful in the corporate world. I was sort of a corporate klutz, and fared much better working at home as a freelance writer.

Q: GOOD GRIEF was your first book and HAPPINESS SOLD SEPARATELY is your second. How different was the writing process with HAPPINESS? How did the experience of GOOD GRIEF affect your writing of HAPPINESS?

A: I tried to work on perfecting the narrative arc of a novel-the classic conflict/climax/resolution, without making it too over the top. I think all you can do as a novelist-as a writer-is focus on the work and how to make it better next time.

Good Grief is told in the first person, while Happiness Sold Separately is told in multiple points of view. I really enjoyed that break-moving into other character's heads. That was the biggest difference in the experience of writing the two books.