I woke up early this morning to be interviewed by Robin Kall, whose show “Reading with Robin” comes from radio station WHJJ in Rhode Island.

My family was asleep upstairs, and I sat down in the family room with the dog next to me and the sun shining in the windows and got to talk about books and kids and blogs and…yes, my novel. I haven’t gotten to talk about A Piece of Normal lately, and it was so much fun. This novel came out in June, (a whole summer has come and gone since then), which for books means that it is practically ancient now, an antique among booksellers. I expect that next I will see it as part of people’s estates, or in a rare book sale.

The most startling thing about being interviewed about a book you wrote is that other people seem to know things about the characters that you never even thought about. Robin knew Lily and Dana and Teddy and talked about them as though they were actual people, when I was pretty sure I was their only friend. They were the folks I spent last summer with, typing up their situations, and now it turns out Robin (and maybe some other people) know all about their troubles, too. I felt a momentary twinge of guilt…here I’d spent so much time getting to know them and telling their stories, and then I’d left them and not so much as wondered what they’re going to do with their lives now.

Last week a woman emailed me out of the blue and said, “But do you think they’re truly happy with the solution you gave them?”

The solution *I* gave them?!

Here’s the truth of it: when you write a novel, the characters themselves bring their own solutions to their troubles. You don’t get to dictate as much as you think. Just like the real people in your life, you can make suggestions for them. You can even insist that they do things the way you want so that it all turns out the way you wish, bend them to your will. For a moment you have the illusion of real control. But, believe me, if you’re not letting them act the way they want to behave, they will act as though they’ve been force-marched to a dreary conclusion. They will send out secret signals to anyone who reads about them: “I did NOT approve of this. She made me say this, but it’s not really what I think at all.”

I’ve had a year away from Lily and Dana and Teddy, and so far they’ve been quiet. As Anne Lamont once said, she has to write her books for her characters because they can’t type so they need her to do it for them.
I suppose if Lily needs me to type up anything else for her, she’ll let me know.