Idgie Says:
Patti has a special talent. She takes a story, invests her heart and soul into it - and in turn - it wiggles right into your heart and soul.
Her stories are so true to life that at times one can become uncomfortable reading them. You recognize things in them about your own life. In this way you become terribly invested in what happens to her characters.
Patti's newest novel does not stray from this path. Take a nice, normal, long surviving marriage and have it experience a tweak. Sometimes tweaks straighten out...............sometimes they twist.
You'll enjoy this story, but prepare to feel a bit uncomfortable at times.
A nice hearty-sized Q & A below!
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The Stories We Tell
Patti Callahan Henry
St. Martin's Press
June 24th, 2014
Bestselling author Patti Callahan Henry is back with a powerful novel about the stories we tell and the people we trust.Eve
and Cooper Morrison are Savannah’s power couple. They’re on every
artistic board and deeply involved in the community. She owns and
operates a letterpress studio specializing in the handmade; he runs a
digital magazine featuring all things southern gentlemen. The perfect
juxtaposition of the old and the new, Eve and Cooper are the beautiful
people. The lucky ones. And they have the wealth and name that comes
from being part of an old Georgia family. But things may not be as good as they seem.
Eve’s
sister, Willa, is staying with the family until she gets "back on her
feet." Their daughter, Gwen, is all adolescent rebellion. And Cooper
thinks Eve works too much. Still, the Morrison marriage is strong. After
twenty-one years together, Eve and Cooper know each other. They count
on each other. They know what to expect. But when Cooper and Willa are
involved in a car accident, the questions surrounding the event bring
the family close to breaking point.
Sifting between the stories—what Cooper says, what Willa remembers, what the evidence
indicates—Eve has to find out what really happened. And what she’s going
to do about it. A riveting story about the power of truth,
The Stories we Tell will open your eyes and rearrange your heart.
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A Conversation with Patti
Callahan Henry
Author of The Stories We Tell
What is the story behind your
most recent novel, The Stories We Tell?
What was your inspiration for the story?
A: I was
inspired by the beauty and handmade world of letterpress and typography. In our
fast-paced world where image is everything in social media and branding, where
does the handcrafted, honest life fit in? I imagined a woman who valued not
only the image of her life and family but also the creative life that nourished
her. I saw these two worlds colliding as she struggled to keep both worlds
alive in a tension of opposites. Eventually something had to unwind, which of
course it did. As an ex-nurse who specialized in closed head injuries, I was
also inspired by the constantly wavering life of memory and imagination. What
is real? What is imagined or remembered? How accurate is our memory, especially
after a head injury? These fascinating questions pulled the story along as I
uncovered the answers. I’m always inspired by storytelling and the ultimate
ability of creativity to heal a heart, a life and an injured brain.
Were any of the characters (Eve,
Cooper, Willa, etc.) based on someone in your life? How did they influence the
character’s development?
A: Not one
of the characters is based on people in my life. As usual, there might be a
curious amalgam in each character but I did not fashion a single character
after a loved or known person in my life. I did use some teenage actions I have
witnessed or been a part of in raising three high-spirited teenagers (was that
a nice way to say it?). I have not owned a letterpress and I definitely can’t
write a song (or even sing one). So these characters are born of imagination
and the murky world of storytelling.
All of the characters in The Stories We Tell are relatable in
some way. What character do you relate to the most and why?
A: Because I
wrote this novel in the first person immediate, I relate the most to Eve. I
lived in her head and in her life for almost two years. I wrote many scenes in
her voice that didn’t end up in the book, and I knew her the best. I also
relate to her as I have my own teenagers and a creative life that doesn’t
always bend to family life at the most convenient times. She has a vibrant need
to be safe within a family structure while pursuing her creative life, and I
understood that part of her best.
What do you think is the most
important lesson that Eve learns on her search for the truth?
A: That just
because it looks good doesn’t mean it is good.
The Ten Good Ideas play an
interesting role in the story, originating from Eve and Willa’s childhood
reimagining of the Ten Commandments. Is your own list of Ten Good Ideas the same
as Eve’s? If not, what would you add? What idea do you think is the most
important on the list?
A: My list
was and is the same as Eve’s, although I will admit to frequently thinking of
other ideas that could just as easily make the list. “Say Sorry” was one that
made the list and then dropped off because “Forgive” seemed to cover that
territory. The most important thing for Eve and Willa (as children) was that
the ideas would be made of something TO DO instead of something NOT TO DO.
“Laugh a Lot” was another idea that wanted to make the list and maybe should
have because it is one of my very favorite things to do. And also “Be Brave.”
The idea
that is the most important? That would depend what one needs most in life at
that point. But “Number One: Be Kind” can cover a multitude of transgressions
in life. If kindness comes before anything else we do, maybe our rules and
lists won’t have to be so long.
Eve owns and operates a
letterpress studio—are you similarly interested in typography and fonts? What
was your experience in researching letterpress studios?
A: One of my
dearest friends owned a store in Atlanta that did custom letterpress and I was
fascinated with the machines, the fonts and letterpress blocks. I was stunned
that they could design a card on a computer and then have it made into a
photopolymer plate, which was then pressed into paper. It was beautiful. I have
always been particular about the paper I use, even the notebooks that I write
in. I’ve spent more time picking out the right font for an invitation than I
spent on planning the party itself. So I was already well-versed in the
aesthetics but not the craft. I interviewed a professor who teaches letterpress
and typography; I visited Hatch Show Print in Nashville, Tennessee, which is one
of the oldest letterpress companies still working.
I also
wanted to go through the entire process that a customer at Eve’s studio might
go through, so I hired a branding company to make a logo and letterpress blocks
for me. It was great fun and now I have stationery, tags and logos to use for
almost anything. I incorporated this experience into the novel.
Willa undergoes a TBI (Traumatic
Brain Injury) during the car accident with Cooper. What knowledge did you have
of brain injuries prior to writing this book? How did your nursing career help
you better adapt the TBI to the plot?
A: I was a
pediatric nurse when I decided to go back to graduate school to be a Clinical
Nurse Specialist. It was there that I focused on head injuries and worked on
the Neurology floor. My thesis was on Closed Head Injuries, which now we
commonly call TBI. When someone says they’d like to read my first published
work, I dissuade them of that idea when I tell them that it was in The Journal
of Neuroscience Nursing. I haven’t, until this novel, written about my job or
used my nursing experience. This story seemed to be the right one in which to
delve into some of my fascination with memory, imagination and brain activity.
Why was it important for you to
address the topic of financial infidelity? What makes financial infidelity part
of a wider spectrum of infidelity?
A: I didn’t
set out to write a story about financial infidelity at all. I set out to write
a novel about how we betray each other with our stories, how we can fool
ourselves and those we love about what we are doing and our intentions in doing
it. Cooper has fooled himself almost more than he is fooling Eve. Financial
infidelity is a gray area, something we all can’t quite agree is an infidelity,
and it was interesting to write about. I
did a lot of research and read about the red flags and the rationalizations of
those who were hiding monetary issues from their spouse. I read interviews
where the partner felt that although their significant other wasn’t sneaking
around with another woman, they were sneaking around with the bank account and
it felt like a cheating spouse. It is the lying and the secret keeping that
place this into the larger spectrum of infidelity.
Love is a central theme in The Stories We Tell. Why does Eve try so
hard to ignore her feelings for Max?
A: Eve wants
to be good and right and true. She wants to keep her family together and love
her family completely. She wants to be a good wife and a good mother. Her
feelings for Max oppose all of these desires, therefore she fights and
rationalizes her feelings for him. She tells herself that she cares about him
only because they work so well together; it is a kind of denial that allows her
to keep her life together and neat until it all begins to unravel.
There are many different stories
of love in The Stories We Tell, from
the love of a mother to the love between sisters and friends and even lost
love. Which kind of love do you think is the most important in the book?
A: Ah! There
is no love that is the most important. Love itself is the most important. That
was part of Eve’s dilemma: Which love wins out? When does love blind us or open
our eyes? Eve loved her family and her work; she loved her daughter and her
sister and her husband; she loved Max.
Did you travel to Savannah to
research the setting for the story? If so, what places were the most inspiring?
A: I am
often in Savannah as we have a home nearby and my daughter attends SCAD in
Savannah. There is so much about Savannah that is inspiring and I talk about
much of it in the novel. The ancient history is fascinating. Almost all
buildings were something else before they became what they are today. An
orphanage becomes a school building; a bank becomes an apartment building. The
ghost stories are fascinating. The beauty of the city is stunning with the
squares that connect the streets like small islands that then lead to the
raucous Savannah River and its blue-gray glory. The restaurants are interesting
and quaint. There is just so much to love about the city.
Did you ever consider a different
ending to the story? If so, what was it?
A: I don’t
know much about my stories when I begin to write them but I usually know the
ending and where I’m headed like a vague destination without a map. I didn’t
consider a different ending this time though because I knew what Cooper was
doing; I knew what he was up to from the very beginning.
What do you think the most
important themes of the novel are? Which is the most important to you?
A: I like
the reader to choose the most important theme. I am continually stunned by the
ability of readers to show me something about my work that even I don’t see. It
is often in the writing that I begin to see the themes; I don’t set out to push
a theme forward. Now that the novel is finished and entering the world, I can
see the themes more clearly. There is our ability to see the truth when we
don’t want to see it; trusting our intuition. I wrote about the struggle
between family and work and the need to please others at the expense of our
creative life. I wrote about love and being a mother and the powerlessness that
comes with motherhood when you can’t fix something for your child. I wrote
about the elusive nature of memory and imagination. The more obvious theme
rests in the question, “What is infidelity?” and how do we deal with it? I
think that if I had to choose the most important theme for me it would be the
message about the ability of creativity to both open our eyes and also to heal
our hearts.
Idgie says:
ISBN-13: 978-0988208605
