Free Book Friday Fiction

by Brunonia Barry

Commercial Fiction

Harper Paperbacks
www.BrunoniaBarry.com

5 autographed copies will be given away on Friday, April 1, 2011!

New York Times Bestselling Author!

About the Book:

Brunonia Barry, the New York Times bestselling author of The Lace Reader, offers an emotionally compelling novel about finding your true place in the world.

Zee Finch has come a long way from a motherless childhood spent stealing boats—a talent that earned her the nickname Trouble. She's now a respected psychotherapist working with the world-famous Dr. Liz Mattei. She's also about to marry one of Boston's most eligible bachelors. But the suicide of Zee's patient Lilly Braedon throws Zee into emotional chaos and takes her back to places she though she'd left behind.

What starts as a brief visit home to Salem after Lilly's funeral becomes the beginning of a larger journey for Zee. Her father, Finch, long ago diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, has been hiding how sick he really is. His longtime companion, Melville, has moved out, and it now falls to Zee to help her father through this difficult time. Their relationship, marked by half-truths and the untimely death of her mother, is strained and awkward.

Overwhelmed by her new role, and uncertain about her future, Zee destroys the existing map of her life and begins a new journey, one that will take her not only into her future but into her past as well. Like the sailors of old Salem who navigated by looking at the stars, Zee has to learn to find her way through uncharted waters to the place she will ultimately call home.

Check out our Interview with the author here:

1) When you got that first phone call announcing you had sold a novel, how did you react? How did you celebrate?

I was in shock. We'd been staying in the house for days, because there was a bidding process going on, and I had to choose my publisher. I was constantly on the phone talking with editors and marketing departments. It all happened so fast and was so unexpected that we were caught completely off guard. I remember that my husband just kept ordering pizzas because pizza places were the only restaurants in our neighborhood that delivered. The empty boxes were piling up in the front hall. When I finally went with Morrow, they had a little celebration for us in New York. We stayed in Manhattan for a few days after that, celebrating with friends. I still feel as if the whole thing was a dream.

2) Who’s your favorite character in the book and why? Who was the most fun to write?

In The Map of True Places, my favorite character is Zee Finch, my protagonist. She's a wounded healer, a psychologist who lost her mother to suicide when she was young and loses a patient the same way in the beginning of the book. She was very interesting to write, because she is a character who has trouble making decisions. The ones she has made so far have led to disaster, or so she believes. This has shaken her to the core, to the point where she doesn't know who she is or what she wants. She has to go back to go forward. It's great to write a character who is at the crossroads. I think we've all been there at some point, at a place where our life maps no longer work, and we are forced to learn to navigate our futures in new and unfamiliar ways.

3) The Map of True Places is a great title! Who came up with it? Was it the original title or did it change along the way?

The title was taken from a Herman Melville quote from Moby Dick: "It is not down in any map, true places never are." It's the perfect title because the book is about finding your true place in the world. It's also good because literature plays such a huge part in the story. The father is a Hawthorne scholar who teaches literature. He specializes in the dark romantic writers. Hawthorne and Melville are his favorites. I knew I wanted to use a quote written by one of them, but I just couldn't find it. We had a list of about fifty quotes that we were considering. We just kept looking at the list, but I wasn't finding anything. One morning my husband woke up, wrote down the title, and handed it to me. He has a way to doing that, cutting through the maze to find what's essential. I'm lucky to have him for many reasons, but that is one of my favorites.

4) What was your favorite book growing up and why?

My favorite book when I was growing up was To Kill a Mockingbird. I remember reading most of it under the sheets by flashlight, because it was way past my bedtime, and my mother kept telling me to go to sleep. I just couldn't put the book down. The first pages defined a sense of place that was so strong I was immediately transported from New England to Alabama. I think Scout was one of the best protagonists ever written. She defined a generation of spirited young girls who were being told to behave as young ladies and couldn't quite manage it. She was strong. She was outspoken. She was funny. The relationships in the story were so well drawn that they have become iconic. Because of the child's point of view, it was easier to absorb some of the darker elements of the story. Seen through Scout's eyes, we experienced injustice and disillusionment for the first time, and it was a powerful lesson. And of course the character of Atticus remains one of the best father figures in literature. In The Map of True Places, I named the father after him, though they are opposites in many ways. I couldn't call him Atticus, of course, so I named him Finch.

5) How do you come up with your characters' personalities?

I write rather extensive biographies of all my characters before I sit down to write my novels. I want to know their backstories. What got them to where they are today? The bios can be as long as thirty pages, and if I do it right, I really get to know the characters before I start writing. Some of this appears on the pages of my book. Most does not. When I get stuck, if I can't make something work, I always go back to these pages, and that's where I usually find my answer. Whenever possible, I walk around as the character I'm working on for a day or two. I learned this exercise from some friends who are actors, but it works for writers as well. Since I was living in the town I was writing about (Salem, MA), it wasn't hard to do. I would walk around town as a character, I would go into a restaurant for breakfast and order what I thought she would eat. With my first book, this was fun because no one knew me. In Salem, you can act a little strange, and people hardly notice. By the second book, I was known around town, and it was difficult not to break character if someone came up to talk with me. The two questions I ask of every character in my books are: What do you want? What's keeping you from getting it? When I can consistently answer those questions for each character, I know I'm ready to start writing.

6) What do you do in your spare time when you're not writing?

What spare time? Seriously, I haven't had much of it in the last few years. Since The Lace Reader came out, life has been a whirlwind of tours and deadlines. I'm not complaining, though, not at all. This life is the fulfillment of a long held dream. When I have time to breathe, I just try to slow down and enjoy the moment. If I really get any time off, I swim. Swimming is my favorite activity. Of course, the long New England winters make that more difficult, since I like to swim outside. We recently took a trip to Florida, where I swam every day. It was heaven! Spring is here, so swimming in Salem can't be far behind. Fingers crossed.

About The Author:

Born and raised in Massachusetts, Brunonia Barry made her literary debut with the critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling novel The Lace Reader (William Morrow). The book landed on international bestseller lists and received rave reviews from publications such as Time magazine, People, Elle, The Washington Post, and The Dallas Morning News, and from writers, including Joshilyn Jackson and Marisa de los Santos. Published in 30 languages, The Lace Reader was named a People magazine People Pick, a two-time Borders Book Club selection, a Barnes & Noble New Reads pick, an Amazon.com Best of the Month, a 2008 Indie Next Highlights List, an iTunes and Library Journal Best of 2008 (audiobook), and a Book Bloggers Best Book of 2008. Visit the author at: www.BrunoniaBarry.com

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