FAQs
Q: How long did it take you to write The Second Coming of Lucy Hatch?
A: The Second Coming of Lucy Hatch and The Last of the Honky-tonk Angels were originally part of one 300,000-word manuscript, which took me about nine months to write, from fall 1999 to July 2000. When I finished the first draft and began to think about publication, I encountered so much resistance to the idea of a huge manuscript by an unknown writer that I made the decision to split the manuscript into two separate books, which my agent sold in a two-book deal to Morrow in May 2001.
Q: Is TSCOLH autobiographical?
A: Every work of fiction probably contains at least minimal elements of the writer?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s own experience, but Lucy?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s life is not mine. I did spend a brief period living in the part of northeast Texas in which the book is set. But I?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢ve never been widowed, or even married; my mother?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s not a Bible-spouting wing-nut; and unlike Lucy?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s mama and daddy Raymond Hatch, my parents had been married 50 years when my father died in September 2003. And sadly, I do not, and have never had, an Aunt Dove, although I am blessed to have a brother very much like Bailey. The only thing Lucy and I have in common, aside from a tendency to what Aunt Dove would call ?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ??¨mule-headedness,?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ? is a weakness for musicians, especially ones with the ability to fix our plumbing.
Q: What inspired you to write TSCOLH?
A: The aforementioned period spent in northeast Texas was the main influence, as was having the opportunity to observe a man on whom the character of Ash was loosely based, a musician and handyman in a small country town, so good-looking it made your eyeballs hurt. I couldn?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢t get out of my mind the thought of this guy running loose among the female populace and the kind of havoc that might wreak?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?Ñ??especially if he decided to finally stop spreading his charm around and fell in love. There were so many possible overtones, comic and otherwise, I couldn?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢t resist.
Q: What inspired you to write The Last of the Honky-tonk Angels?
A: I knew before I?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢d written a word that Ash had a teenage daughter, and from the very start, she had a distinct personality and a voice of her own. I always envisioned the story as being a kind of family drama, entailing the interactions of the three main characters with one another. To that end, the first book, the romance between Ash and Lucy, was really just intended to be the back story. I was surprised when it ended up having so much juice of its own. My real intention with the second book was to show the way these two female characters, Lucy and Denny, are thrown together by chance and yet form a bond by choice. There?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s so much talk nowadays about the dissolution of the nuclear family, but it seems to me that in many cases that isn?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢t a bad thing, that it might sometimes actually give us opportunities to create better families for ourselves than the ones we?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢ve landed in by birth. I also wanted to address the issue of racial tension in East Texas: not in the dramatic way it was conveyed to the rest of the world via the horrific 1998 murder of James Byrd in Jasper, TX, but in the quieter, more pervasive ways in which it can infiltrate and divide a small town.
Q: Which came first, the characters or the story?
A: The characters, definitely?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?Ñas well as the place, which I always viewed as a key element of the story. Ash more or less arrived on my doorstep fully formed and asked, ?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ¨What have you got for me??¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ? And, as I said earlier, his daughter, Denny, was always a presence. I had to dream up Lucy as the third point of the triangle, and from there, the story evolved.
Q: What in your background helped you to write TSCOLH?
A: The real beauty of writing fiction is that you don?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢t have to have any qualifications at all; anything that pops into your mind is fair game, and you can always just say you made it up. As a female reader, I was frustrated by the lack of realistic love stories on the shelf. The traditional romance novel is in many cases so far-fetched, the characters and scenarios so implausible, you might as well be reading science fiction. I wanted something a little meatier, characters who were flawed, who got confused, irritated, had lots of little joys and quirks just like real people do. In that regard, my ?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ??¨qualifications?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ? consist of being human and keeping my eyes and ears open. I have very little formal training, other than a lifetime of writing practice and, of course, reading, reading, reading.
Q: What kind of research do you do for your books?
A: As little as I can get away with. I?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢m lazy, and research reminds me too much of school. Two exceptions are looking things up on maps and in the Texas almanac, in which I can get lost in for many happy, distracting hours reading about things like defunct town names and county agriculture statistics. I also enjoy scanning small-town newspapers for news items, lists of community events, even obituaries, which can be a great source of character names. And the Internet is a fantastic tool; information that once required hours in the library is now available in a couple of keystrokes from my home computer. But, generally speaking, unless I can describe something fully from either my own experience, imagination, or the experience and imagination of someone I know, I don?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢t use it. And I believe that allowing yourself to imagine something vividly can be even better than describing something that actually exists. A friend reading an early draft of Lucy Hatch called me up to ask where the barbecue shack in chapter 8 was located so he could eat there! But of course I?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢d totally fabricated it?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?Ñ??or, rather, it was a composite of places I remembered, the primary stimulus being a memory of driving in rural northeast Texas on Sunday mornings when the air was filled with the smells of wood smoke and searing meat. Fiction is basically a license to lie, or at least to improve upon the truth, and I believe in inventing as much stuff as you possibly can. It?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s more fun, plus nobody can sue you for libel.
Q: Are those your legs on the book jacket?
A: Get out of here; those legs are longer than my entire body. I don?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢t own a skirt or boots like that, either, nor does anyone I know (including Lucy who, like me, is a denim and Ropers girl). Happy as I am with the way the book?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s jacket turned out, it?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s definitely a Yankee concept of what a Texas book should look like.
Q: How did you (do I/my husband/cousin/next-door neighbor) find a literary agent?
A: The answer to this question is a little complicated, so I?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢ve devoted a whole section to it in the ?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ??¨Writing?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ? section.
Q: I have a terrific idea for a book. Will you (a) listen to my idea and (b) if you believe it?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s viable, write the book for me?
A: No, and no.
Most writers I know have more book ideas percolating in their heads than they can possibly hope to get to in a lifetime. The notion that we?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢re sitting empty-headed in front of our computers, scanning our email in-boxes in the hope that today?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s the day some munificent soul will send us a plot, is like assuming a talent scout will knock on your front door and whisk you away to Hollywood?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?Ñ??i.e., not gonna happen.
A novel is an organic thing as well as a labor of love, comprised not just of plot but of character, setting, narrative style, and many intangibles. I can?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢t imagine trying to meld my vision with someone else?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s, or taking someone else?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s vision and trying to bend my prose to fit; it isn?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢t a job that lends itself to being subcontracted out or done by committee. And, like most commercial writers I know, I have a policy against reviewing outlines or synopses, on the remote chance that a similar idea could crop up in my own work someday and present the risk of copyright infringement.
Your story concept appeals to you for reasons that are unique to you. With that in mind, I recommend that you write a first draft of your book yourself. You can then hire a professional editor to help you whip it into shape, if necessary, and begin sending the synopsis to agents. They?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢re the gatekeepers, the ones whose opinions count as to what has potential; because they have their thumbs on the pulse of the market, they know what?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s likely to sell. Of course they?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢re looking not at just the idea, but at the execution: the prose, the structure, the author?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s voice. The right balance is difficult to achieve; that?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s why publishers seldom acquire novels from unknown, non-celebrity authors on the basis of an outline or synopsis alone. An agent may take on a client who shows promise, however, and work with him or her to get the manuscript ready to be seen by publishers. But there is really no substitute for just sitting down and doing the grunt work yourself.
And please don?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢t tell me that you don?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢t have the time, energy, discipline, talent, or connections. Those are just other words for ?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ??¨commitment.?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ? If you haven?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢t got what it takes to see your own idea to fruition, why in the world should I?
Q:Who are your favorite writers/what are your favorite books?
A: Where to begin? Eudora Welty; Jane Hamilton (everything she’s published), Michael Chabon (everything, but especially Wonder Boys); Louise Erdrich (especially The Beet Queen and The Master Butchers’ Singing Club); Charles Baxter (The Feast of Love), Larry McMurtry (Horseman, Pass By,The Last Picture Show [duh], All My Friends Are Going to be Strangers, and Lonesome Dove), Lee Smith (especially The Devil’s Dream, Oral History, Family Linen, and Me and My Baby View the Eclipse), Richard Ford (The Sportswriter, Independence Day), John Irving (The Cider House Rules, A Prayer for Owen Meaney), Sue Miller (especially The Good Mother and The World Below), Elinor Lipman (Then She Found Me, The Inn at Lake Devine, and The Ladies’ Man), T.R. Pearson (especially Polar), Richard Russo (especially Empire Falls and Straight Man), Jean Christopher Spaugh (Something Blue), Tom Drury (The End of Vandalism), William Gay (The Long Road, Provinces of Night), Larry Brown (Fay), Jane Smiley (A Thousand Acres, Good Faith), Michael Cunningham (especially A Home at the End of the World), James Lee Burke (his Dave Robicheaux novels), Kaye Gibbons (Charms for the Easy Life), Sarah Bird (The Yokota Officer’s Club), Christina Schwarz (Drowning Ruth, All Is Vanity), Elizabeth McCracken (The Giant’s House, Niagra Falls All Over Again), Edward Swift (especially My Grandfather’s Finger and Splendora), Mike Magnuson (The Right Man for the Job), Meg Wolitzer (The Wife), Ann-Marie MacDonald (Fall on Your Knees), Sara Lewis (especially The Answer is Everything and Second Draft of My Life), Silas House (Clay’s Quilt, The Coal Tattoo), to name just a few of the special titles in my collection. Ordinarily I’m not a fan of Cormac McCarthy’s, but I have to agree with everybody else in the free world that No Country for Old Men is brilliant; I never wanted it to end.
For a list of my Top 10 Desert Island Books, click here.
After living in Austin for 15 years, I recently acquired my first library card, and some wonderful books I’ve discovered at my little branch library that I might not have at my local bookstore are Marya Hornbacher’s The Center of Winter, David Leavitt’s The Body of Jonah Boyd (which led me to seek out some of his earlier work), and James Whorton Jr.’s Approximately Heaven (which led me to seek out his second novel, Frankland).
Q: Are there any plans to turn The Second Coming of Lucy Hatch and/or The Last of the Honky-tonk Angels into a movie?
A: Shortly after Lucy Hatch first came out, I had a Hollywood agent (in addition to my New York literary agent) who shopped the books to various studios and production companies for several weeks but, although we got a few nibbles, nobody was willing to take the big bite. The consensus, according to the agent, was that ?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ??¨not enough happens?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ? in the books, meaning, in Hollywood talk, there are no car chases, melting polar icecaps, superheroes, rogue meteors, alien abductions, gun battles, demonic possessions, or opportunities to demolish the Statue of Liberty or for Halle Berry to take her clothes off.
I don?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢t go to movies much myself (for reasons, see above) and so I can?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢t say that this really hurts my feelings. Instead, I prefer to remain relatively broke and obscure, and to immerse myself in the rich interior lives of complex characters and in the many-textured worlds which novels permit and where movies, for the most part, dare not tread. (This is not to say that if Scott Rudin phoned tomorrow, I wouldn?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢t take his call.)
Unfortunately, many more Americans see movies than read books, and lately scoring a movie deal seems to have replaced the bestseller list or literary prize as the mainstream mark of a novel?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s acceptance. According to a recent study by the NEA, there?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢s been a 14% reduction since 1982 in the number of people who?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢ve even opened a book of fiction, down from 56.9% to 46.7% in 22 years. I don?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢t know about you, but that makes me want to run right out to the bookstore and start browsing and buying?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?Ñ??to say nothing of sitting down at my computer, churning out the next installment in the saga of Lucy, Denny, and Ash.
Anything else you?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢d like to know that you don?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?묢t see answered here or anywhere else on the website? Email me!