What is your elevator pitch for the book?

When Thea’s college-age son is released from prison after serving time for killing his girlfriend, Thea must battle not only a community that hates him, but also her son’s despair. And then, she soon learns that the night of the girlfriend’s death is much more mysterious, and much more shocking, than she could ever have imagined.

What inspired the book?

Years before I ever wrote this story, I was in a coffee line at a big hotel where I was speaking at a writer’s conference. The woman in front of me dropped her book; I picked it up and asked if she was attending the conference. No, she said. She told me stayed at this hotel every weekend to visit her son, who was in prison and would be in prison for at least twenty more years. He was just nineteen years old. Oh no, I thought, oh no, don’t tell me why … but she did: Her son had murdered the only girl he ever loved, while so strung out on drugs that he didn’t even remember the death. She went on to say that one day, she was in their hometown cemetery bringing roses to the girl’s grave, when the girl’s mother appeared. The boy’s mother was terrified: What would happen? Would the woman shout at her, hit her? Instead, the two, who’d once been good friends, fell sobbing into each other’s arms. The mother of the lost girl then said the most heart-wrenching thing. “At least,” she told the boy’s mother, “You can still touch him.” When my agent heard the story, he said that it was impossible for me to make those characters sympathetic – but he now admits he was wrong.

Who is your favorite character in the book?

It’s Stefan, the boy who went to prison for murder. It was very hard to write about someone convicted of murder but he also was so filled with grief and remorse and, at 20, had no way to imagine any future at all.

Which character was the hardest to write? Easiest?

It was honestly hardest to create the main character, Thea, because to be effective at making a character come to life, you have to let yourself inhabit her emotions as fully as is possible – and I really didn’t want to imagine standing in her shoes. I once saw a speech by Sue Klebold, the mother of Dylan Klebold, one of the Columbine shooters. She said, of course, she still loved her son. And I knew there were people in that audience thinking, how could she? But I could not stop crying because I felt such pity for her and also admired her enormous courage.

Who are some of your favorite authors?

Oh my goodness! That’s like asking, what’s your favorite song? Jhumpa Lahiri, Elizabeth Strout, Ann Patchett, Charles Finch, Hilary Mantel, Stephen King, Curtis Sittenfield, Kazuo Ishiguro, John le Carre, Celeste Ng, Dennis LeHane, Hilary St. John Mandel, Julia Phillips, Charles Portis, Betty Smith, Shirley Jackson, Julia Phillips, Colson Whitehead … I could do this all day.

What is the best part of writing for you?

It’s that rare time when I find a way to let the reader really see what I see and hear what I hear – not necessarily believe what I believe but … to find a way to bring the reader onto the same emotional wavelength

What is the hardest part of writing for you?

Every single thing about it is hard for me. Coming up with the idea … fleshing out the idea … sustaining the narrative through all its peaks and valleys, writing the beginning, writing the end. Writing the ending is probably not quite so hard as the rest.

What is your writing set-up like? Do you have a designated writing space?

It’s my bed, on a lap desk. I burn through about one $25 lap desk a year, the kind with the flax seed or plastic bean bottom that fits over your legs. I once had an office but I just wandered around it, looking at the shelves.

Do you have a guilty music and/or entertainment pleasure?

Oh, I am a transfixed, unrepentant and abashed fan of true crime podcasts, true crime narratives, true crime anything, The Sopranos, Dexter, The Wire … while being truly terrified of being the victim of a crime of any kind.