THE STUFF THAT NEVER HAPPENED
by Maddie Dawson
Commercial Fiction
Crown
www.MaddieDawson.com
5 autographed copies will be given away on Friday, January 28, 2011!
About the Book:
Maddie Dawson was inspired to write THE STUFF THAT NEVER HAPPENED after a chance encounter on the train with an old flame. After that, it seemed that everywhere she looked, people were talking about their “what-if” person, old loves, and the paths not taken, and this story of a modern marriage – and one woman's temptation to revisit her tumultuous past – was born. Told in alternating voices between the past and present, Maddie Dawson’s debut novel will tug at your heart strings from the very first pages until the final paragraph.
Annabelle McKay knows she shouldn’t have any complaints. She’s been in a stable marriage that’s lasted almost three decades and has provided her with two wonderful children, thousands of family dinners around a sturdy oak table, and a husband so devoted that he schedules lovemaking into his calendar every Wednesday morning. Other wives envy the fact that Grant is not the type of man who would ever cheat on her or leave her for a younger woman. The trouble is Annabelle isn’t sure she wants to be married to Grant anymore. The trouble is she’s still in love with someone else.
In the early tumultuous years of her marriage, Annabelle kept a secret from Grant – a clandestine affair with the one person whose betrayal would hurt her husband the most. When it ended, she and Grant found their way back together and made a pact that they would never speak of that time again. But now years later, with her children grown and gone, and an ominous distance opening between them, she can’t quiet the murmur in her mind that wonders if the life she fought to have with Grant is the one that truly makes her the happiest, or if she was meant to be with Jeremiah all along.
When she’s suddenly called to New York City to help care for her pregnant daughter Sophie, Annabelle finds her world beginning to unravel. Sophie’s marriage is on the rocks, and Annabelle bumps into her old lover and is forced to take a good, hard look back at her past. Offered a second chance at an unforgettable love, she must decide between the man who possesses her heart and the husband who has stood squarely by her side for more than 25 years.
Maddie Dawson has captured the heart, the heartache, and often the hilarity of being a woman with a deep and complicated internal life. Exposing the inner workings of relationships and love, and brutally honest about both, THE STUFF THAT NEVER HAPPENED is an intricate, heartfelt examination of modern marriage that takes readers on a journey into the realm of life's haunting what-ifs and the road not taken.
Exclusive Interview with the Author!
1) When you start a new book, do you like to outline the entire story or fly by the seat of your pants? What about your characters? Do you figure them out entirely before you start writing or do they reveal themselves to you along the way?
When I’m starting a novel, the first thing I know is who the main character is. She (it’s usually a female) starts up one day out of the blue simply as a voice inside my head, beginning to tell me a story, and to describe herself. I listen and pay close attention over the first few days, and then I start jotting down little notes on index cards, and then slowly, ever so slowly, the story starts to take shape in my head. It’s very exciting for me, and feels a little fragile, as though I have to be very quiet and attentive to what is taking shape. I guess I’m flying by the seat of my pants in the beginning, since I don’t know everything there is to know—it’s a little like meeting a new friend for the first time. But soon I see what the plot will be, and that’s when I start writing, letting the character fill me in on details as we go. Much of the early stuff doesn’t end up in the book at all; it’s just information I need to know. But then once I know the beginning and have the voice of the main character, the work really starts to take off. I write without knowing where I’m going until about page 50 or so, and then I stop and rewrite and make an outline because by then I have learned so much more about the book I’m writing. Usually I can finish the first draft then, and then starts the lengthy re-writing and revision process, which is actually my favorite part. I would rather rewrite than write any day!
2) If Oprah invited you onto her show to talk about your book, what would the theme of the show be?
It would be a show about long-term marriages and the secrets they hold. Annabelle and Grant McKay have been married for 28 years, and 26 of those years have been very happy. They raised two wonderful children, had careers that they cared about, and lived in Grant’s family’s old homestead, the house that became the place where all the neighborhood kids gathered every day. No one except Annabelle and Grant know that in the first two years of their marriage, something devastating happened that threatened to pull them apart—something so hurtful that even though their marriage survived it, they agreed never to speak of it again. Secrets can’t stay buried forever—and now that the kids have left home, they have to face the things that happened
long ago, and decide if they can bear to stay together. I think all long marriages hold good times and bad times, and that couples don’t know going in what sorts of issues lie up ahead even in “happily ever after.” We’ve seen so many famous couples falling apart after decades together. I wrote this book wanting to explore what can go wrong, even with a marriage that’s mostly been right.
3) When did you first know that you wanted to be a writer? Have you had other jobs along the way?
I think I must have been born knowing I wanted to write! When I was 6 years old, my mother wouldn’t give me money for the ice cream man, and so I marched to my room, wrote a story, glued the pages together, and peddled it door to door until a neighbor paid me 25 cents for it—enough for a banana popsicle. (My mother was so mortified, she bought it back and told me not to do that again—but I’m sure I realized right then that writing was going to lead to some serious frozen desserts for me in life!) In school, I was always the kid off writing novels and short stories and trying to organize my friends into complex games of playing house, complete with plots and story arcs and tragedies. Even so, it took me a long time to reach publication, and I took a long detour through journalism to pay the bills while I toiled along on my novel. I’ve been a news reporter, a medical assistant, a secretary, a nanny, a Tupperware seller, a substitute teacher, an adjunct journalism teacher, a sales clerk, and a freelance writer, and—my favorite job as a prospective novelist—typing up notes for a psychiatrist who saw criminals.
4) Who’s your favorite character in the book and why? Who was the most fun to write?
I have to say that Annabelle is my favorite character, and for what is probably a very strange reason. She is a difficult woman—in some ways spoiled and angry, in other ways generous and forgiving. She is about to turn 50, and she’s looking back at her life, at her marriage, at the mistakes she’s made, at the men she’s loved, at the compromises she’s made—in short, at all the factors that shaped her. She was exasperating sometimes, pushing herself into my head, explaining herself, justifying, but always I found her funny and honest and refreshing. She is like so many women at midlife—looking at the next 30 years and wondering what she owes to the husband and children she’s loved and cherished, and what she needs to claim for herself. I loved that about her, and loved her refusal to simply accept the status quo.
5) What’s next for you?
I’m working on a new novel about a woman who finds herself suddenly and unexpectedly pregnant, just as she and her lover are breaking up. It’s another story about family and finding the people in our lives we are meant to be with, and discovering that sometimes the changes in our lives that we didn’t predict (and perhaps wouldn’t have chosen) take us on the most interesting, compelling journeys.
About the Author:
Maddie Dawson lives in Connecticut with her husband. They have three children. Visit the author online at: www.MaddieDawson.com.
**Please enter to win using the form on the left side bar of our website. Comments left on the post are not used as entry.
Commercial Fiction
Crown
www.MaddieDawson.com
5 autographed copies will be given away on Friday, January 28, 2011!
About the Book:
Maddie Dawson was inspired to write THE STUFF THAT NEVER HAPPENED after a chance encounter on the train with an old flame. After that, it seemed that everywhere she looked, people were talking about their “what-if” person, old loves, and the paths not taken, and this story of a modern marriage – and one woman's temptation to revisit her tumultuous past – was born. Told in alternating voices between the past and present, Maddie Dawson’s debut novel will tug at your heart strings from the very first pages until the final paragraph.
Annabelle McKay knows she shouldn’t have any complaints. She’s been in a stable marriage that’s lasted almost three decades and has provided her with two wonderful children, thousands of family dinners around a sturdy oak table, and a husband so devoted that he schedules lovemaking into his calendar every Wednesday morning. Other wives envy the fact that Grant is not the type of man who would ever cheat on her or leave her for a younger woman. The trouble is Annabelle isn’t sure she wants to be married to Grant anymore. The trouble is she’s still in love with someone else.
In the early tumultuous years of her marriage, Annabelle kept a secret from Grant – a clandestine affair with the one person whose betrayal would hurt her husband the most. When it ended, she and Grant found their way back together and made a pact that they would never speak of that time again. But now years later, with her children grown and gone, and an ominous distance opening between them, she can’t quiet the murmur in her mind that wonders if the life she fought to have with Grant is the one that truly makes her the happiest, or if she was meant to be with Jeremiah all along.
When she’s suddenly called to New York City to help care for her pregnant daughter Sophie, Annabelle finds her world beginning to unravel. Sophie’s marriage is on the rocks, and Annabelle bumps into her old lover and is forced to take a good, hard look back at her past. Offered a second chance at an unforgettable love, she must decide between the man who possesses her heart and the husband who has stood squarely by her side for more than 25 years.
Maddie Dawson has captured the heart, the heartache, and often the hilarity of being a woman with a deep and complicated internal life. Exposing the inner workings of relationships and love, and brutally honest about both, THE STUFF THAT NEVER HAPPENED is an intricate, heartfelt examination of modern marriage that takes readers on a journey into the realm of life's haunting what-ifs and the road not taken.
Exclusive Interview with the Author!
1) When you start a new book, do you like to outline the entire story or fly by the seat of your pants? What about your characters? Do you figure them out entirely before you start writing or do they reveal themselves to you along the way?
When I’m starting a novel, the first thing I know is who the main character is. She (it’s usually a female) starts up one day out of the blue simply as a voice inside my head, beginning to tell me a story, and to describe herself. I listen and pay close attention over the first few days, and then I start jotting down little notes on index cards, and then slowly, ever so slowly, the story starts to take shape in my head. It’s very exciting for me, and feels a little fragile, as though I have to be very quiet and attentive to what is taking shape. I guess I’m flying by the seat of my pants in the beginning, since I don’t know everything there is to know—it’s a little like meeting a new friend for the first time. But soon I see what the plot will be, and that’s when I start writing, letting the character fill me in on details as we go. Much of the early stuff doesn’t end up in the book at all; it’s just information I need to know. But then once I know the beginning and have the voice of the main character, the work really starts to take off. I write without knowing where I’m going until about page 50 or so, and then I stop and rewrite and make an outline because by then I have learned so much more about the book I’m writing. Usually I can finish the first draft then, and then starts the lengthy re-writing and revision process, which is actually my favorite part. I would rather rewrite than write any day!
2) If Oprah invited you onto her show to talk about your book, what would the theme of the show be?
It would be a show about long-term marriages and the secrets they hold. Annabelle and Grant McKay have been married for 28 years, and 26 of those years have been very happy. They raised two wonderful children, had careers that they cared about, and lived in Grant’s family’s old homestead, the house that became the place where all the neighborhood kids gathered every day. No one except Annabelle and Grant know that in the first two years of their marriage, something devastating happened that threatened to pull them apart—something so hurtful that even though their marriage survived it, they agreed never to speak of it again. Secrets can’t stay buried forever—and now that the kids have left home, they have to face the things that happened
long ago, and decide if they can bear to stay together. I think all long marriages hold good times and bad times, and that couples don’t know going in what sorts of issues lie up ahead even in “happily ever after.” We’ve seen so many famous couples falling apart after decades together. I wrote this book wanting to explore what can go wrong, even with a marriage that’s mostly been right.
3) When did you first know that you wanted to be a writer? Have you had other jobs along the way?
I think I must have been born knowing I wanted to write! When I was 6 years old, my mother wouldn’t give me money for the ice cream man, and so I marched to my room, wrote a story, glued the pages together, and peddled it door to door until a neighbor paid me 25 cents for it—enough for a banana popsicle. (My mother was so mortified, she bought it back and told me not to do that again—but I’m sure I realized right then that writing was going to lead to some serious frozen desserts for me in life!) In school, I was always the kid off writing novels and short stories and trying to organize my friends into complex games of playing house, complete with plots and story arcs and tragedies. Even so, it took me a long time to reach publication, and I took a long detour through journalism to pay the bills while I toiled along on my novel. I’ve been a news reporter, a medical assistant, a secretary, a nanny, a Tupperware seller, a substitute teacher, an adjunct journalism teacher, a sales clerk, and a freelance writer, and—my favorite job as a prospective novelist—typing up notes for a psychiatrist who saw criminals.
4) Who’s your favorite character in the book and why? Who was the most fun to write?
I have to say that Annabelle is my favorite character, and for what is probably a very strange reason. She is a difficult woman—in some ways spoiled and angry, in other ways generous and forgiving. She is about to turn 50, and she’s looking back at her life, at her marriage, at the mistakes she’s made, at the men she’s loved, at the compromises she’s made—in short, at all the factors that shaped her. She was exasperating sometimes, pushing herself into my head, explaining herself, justifying, but always I found her funny and honest and refreshing. She is like so many women at midlife—looking at the next 30 years and wondering what she owes to the husband and children she’s loved and cherished, and what she needs to claim for herself. I loved that about her, and loved her refusal to simply accept the status quo.
5) What’s next for you?
I’m working on a new novel about a woman who finds herself suddenly and unexpectedly pregnant, just as she and her lover are breaking up. It’s another story about family and finding the people in our lives we are meant to be with, and discovering that sometimes the changes in our lives that we didn’t predict (and perhaps wouldn’t have chosen) take us on the most interesting, compelling journeys.
About the Author:
Maddie Dawson lives in Connecticut with her husband. They have three children. Visit the author online at: www.MaddieDawson.com.
**Please enter to win using the form on the left side bar of our website. Comments left on the post are not used as entry.
3 comments:
I have read your book already and love it. The characters are so real that I sometimes found myself thinking about them even when I didn't have the book in front of me. Several times I found myself explaining to one or another character what they needed to so--sometimes they did it and sometimes they didn't--much like the real people in our lives. But even when I held my breath to see what they would do next, I loved every page, every person.
Can't wait for the next book!
Yikes--that would be "what they needed to DO."
This book has been on my to read list for a few months now. I keep seeing it go in & out @ my library so it must be good! Hope to win!
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