Was there any especially challenging aspect of writing letters and diary entries from the perspective of a woman?
The especially challenging aspect of any novel for me is establishing the main character. Once I have that character’s “voice”, I feel the book begins to live. I had to imagine what it was like to be a woman like Clara in the 1930s. But that’s what novelists do—imagine what it’s like to be someone else. The letters and diary entries seemed a natural way to tell her story. Q: Clara Callan is set in the 1930s. What kind of research did you do to make this era so vivid? A: I read a great deal about the period, and I remember things my parents had said about the 1930s. It’s always been a special interest of mine and the period has always seemed to me to be a pivotal decade in the last century. Q: In this novel, characters seem concerned with their own sexual morality. Is this a function of the era or the nature of small towns? A: Yes, this is a function of the nature of small towns where everyone is concerned (and were more concerned 70 years ago) with personal reputation. Our toleran
