The Law of Bound Hearts

by Anne Leclaire

  Anne LeClaire: I do. I have several sisters of choice and two birth sisters, one of whom passed away many years ago. So I have thought a lot about sisterhood. It is obvious, and yet I didn’t really “get it” completely until I wrote this book—how key our siblings are. They are our oldest peers and witnesses.

  MK: I’m sorry to learn about your sister. You’re right, of course. Our sisters offer sanity. And mishegas. (That’s Yiddish for craziness.) After a recent phone call with my sister, I ate half a turkey!

  AL: With me, it’s chocolate!

  MK: In writing the book, did you draw on the bonds you felt with your own siblings?

  AL: Not in specifics, but in understanding that weaves its way from my life into my books. I never consciously draw on my own experience in any of my books, in that the characters are not me or people in my life.

  MK: As to your characters—how did you decide to make Libby a poet and Samantha a pastry chef?

  AL: Ah, the two sides, passions of body and mind! And I’m happy that Sam’s boyfriend, Lee, is also passionate about tangible things, the earth and the sea. A person’s creativity is such a key part of who he or she is. When I look back, I see that most of my characters have consistently expressed creativity in some way.

  MK: That’s right. You mentioned the boyfriend, Lee. I think that one test of a good novel is how well the secondary characters come alive. For instance, in this book, Stacy and Lee are lively and engaging. Stacy is funny, salty, and expressive, and Lee is a studly angel!

  AL: I love Lee! I sometimes feel that these characters deserve a book of their own. Maybe it’s my theatre background, but it seems to me that they’re all part of a “cast” that creates a whole. We don’t get a true picture of the protagonist unless we observe how the others play off her. And we can grasp a well-rounded character by the way she interacts with those around her. Setting is also a character.

  MK: You mentioned your theatre background. Please expand on that.

  AL: For a short time in college I majored in theatre, but decided that course of study wasn’t practical. For a long period in my adult life, I acted, doing summer theatre and dinner theatre. That experience has proved very valuable to me in writing, as an aid to understanding character, dialogue, and structure.

  MK: I have been wondering what your childhood was like, whether you created plays as a child?

  AL: I had a rich, imaginative childhood for many reasons. I was a loner as a child. My dog Lady, a collie, was my best companion. I lived on a farm in Monson, Massachusetts, and I spent a lot of time in nature, creating whole worlds. There were woods near us, and there was a swamp nearby. Nature was my playhouse. I would go out into the swamp where there were white birches. There I could peel the bark and create little messages on the pieces. I made little birchbark canoes and imagined that Indians lived there. I created a whole settlement. In the woods there were five varieties of moss, and from these I created miniature gardens for fairies. I would take pie pans and create moss gardens and make tiny pebble walks. There was one moss called Indian pipe that was red and grew up out of the green. From this, I made a garden for the fairies to live in.

  MK: You are living proof of the theory that imaginative childhood play has a positive impact on adults.

  AL: My imagination was not just active in nature. I was constantly making up stories. I mean lies, telling huge and involved lies. Never out of malice. Sometimes to avoid punishment or responsibility, but mostly because my lies seemed more lively than reality.

  MK: Can you remember one of the lies?

  AL: I told my sixth-grade class that I was going to be on the Ed Sullivan Show!

  MK: (laughing) I also bragged about starring on television shows! How did you get yourself out of that fib?

  AL: I never really thought about the consequences—I just got involved in the stories, in what seemed interesting. I told my firstgrade class I was making my first communion, even though I wasn’t Catholic. I have always been attracted to ritual, so I liked the dress and the ritual as I understood it, in my young, third-hand, non-Catholic way.

  MK: Earlier you mentioned place. Setting plays a major role in this novel. The prairie sets the scene for three of the most important revelations. Can you talk about the prairie and how it has inspired you?

  AL: I first encountered the prairie in 1991, when I was in residence at the Ragdale Foundation, in Lake Forest, Illinois. I have had nine residencies there and have seen the prairie in every season except summer. From the first time I set foot, I was drawn to it, in the way that the ocean draws me. The midwestern American prairie and the ocean have so much in common—the expanse, the wavelike motion. There was so much about the prairie in and of itself that fascinated me: the depth of the roots of the plants, the natural history, the need to set fire. A decade before I conceived of this book, I experienced a prairie fire, a controlled burn that ensures the life of a prairie by returning necessary nutrients to it and keeping trees from encroaching.

  But the first time I experienced a prairie fire I thought it was an accident—and I was devastated. Three days later I was walking through and could already see green shoots. This event offered such a visual manifestation of the role of devastation in our lives. The image sank deep into me.

  MK: So, did witnessing that prairie fire lay the groundwork for the novel?

  AL: I don’t know. It’s such a mystery where all the elements of a book come from. I know that the fire was concrete evidence for me, in my life, of the idea that we can’t always understand devastation. But it has a role. Out of destruction comes new growth, life. The prairie would not exist without the fires. Back in 1992, I told myself to remember this so that when disaster came into my own life, as either illness or loss, I would remember that it had its place.

  MK: This idea works itself into the novel. Libby’s betrayal of her sister had a devastating effect on Sam and the whole family. The book tells the story of emotional healing, and of the healing that we hope will take place through the kidney transplant.

  AL: The last three books in particular, and the one I am working on now, have reflected my deep interest in the role of healing. I am concerned with the source of healing, with the importance of love, forgiveness, and gratitude.

  MK: Do you think forgiveness has healing power?

  AL: I know it does. Absolutely.

  MK: I wonder if the reader forgives Libby for betraying Sam?

  AL: Ah, I don’t have a clue! I’m always suprised by what readers both bring to the books and take away. When I give readings and answer questions, I’m always amazed by how involved readers can become with characters. I’m surprised by how angry or or how much in love the readers may be with them.

  MK: In previous conversations, you have indicated that you yourself have become inhabited by your characters. In this book, they grapple in a visceral way with life and death.

  AL: If they don’t, what’s the point?

  MK: How hard was it for you to write this book, and how hard was the grief work?

  AL: Not writing “surface” is always hard. I think that dealing with grief is part of our work as writers. And certainly, understanding its role makes grief easier to bear. Yet it is always hard to write, since it involves sorrow, loss, and betrayal.

  MK: How do you manage the emotional upheaval?

  AL: I just go with it. Actors often say that they take their roles home with them during the run of a play. That’s true for me as well. There are certain characters who are going to be with me, and their emotions stay with me for the writing of the book. I do four specific things to help ground me: walking, yoga, cooking, and eating. After the day’s work I take a walk and then head for the kitchen.

  MK: In addition to being entertaining, The Law of Bound Hearts is also educational. I learned a lot about kidney disease and dialysis. The dialysis center is another setting in the book. Did your background as a journalist help you to do research and then write this novel?

  AL: Yes. As I look
back, all of my past work has added dimensions to my writing. Acting taught me about character, dialogue, structure. Reporting really helped me to learn about researching, interviewing, asking the right questions, and setting deadlines. I am truly grateful to the people who have opened their lives to me, so that I can understand situations about which I have had no personal experience. I am amazed and humbled by how much of themselves others will give. When I was writing Entering Normal, parents who had lost children offered their stories. One mother said, “I want you to get it right.” If we’re not going to get it right, why write it?

  MK: Telling someone else’s story is a serious responsibilty.

  AL: It is a huge responsibility. There were a lot of people undergoing dialysis who let me sit close to them while they were on the machines. They let me talk to them about what their experiences were like, so that I could get as close as possible to what they were going through. I am eternally grateful to the staff of the dialysis center who opened the doors for me, who checked with their patients to see if they would be willing to talk with me.

  MK: I was impressed by how invisible you made yourself throughout the book. I was not aware of the author’s presence while I was reading the novel. The characters tell their own story. Do you think of yourself as a medium for the story?

  AL: I try to get out of my own way, both in writing and in life. I try to keep my ego out of the story. Someone once asked me if I was trying to get a message across. Will Rogers said, “If you have a message, send a telegram!” I never really know what the theme of my book is going to be until I’m finished writing. If I had known this was going to be a story about grief and forgiveness, the novel would might have been heavy-handed. I just try to let the characters tell the story and be as faithful to the story as I can be.

  MK: The presence of ghosts in the story tends to reinforce the feeling of the storyteller as medium. The voice of Samantha’s father, and the presence of Hannah as a healing spirit, give the reader an eerie feeling. There’s magic there.

  AL: Our ancestors are always with us. Always. And I don’t think there’s a woman alive who doesn’t hear the voice of her mother at times. Just as setting is a character, the ones who have gone before us are part of our story. Those spirits are with us, and they’re talking.

  MK: So, part of telling the story is being quiet enough to let the spirit voices speak?

  AL: And not to be afraid to let them. The practice of silence over thirteen years has taught me to listen, not only to myself but to my characters as well.

  MK: Please explain your practice.

  AL: The first and third Monday of each month I spend in silence. Those are nonspeaking days, for twenty-four hours. This has been one of the biggest learning experiences of my life, consistently over the years. Over and over I’m reminded to listen. Someone said that in our culture conversation is talking and waiting to talk. On silent days, I don’t have any responsibility to talk. I’ve learned to listen to myself.

  MK: And that has had an impact on your writing?

  AL: Yes, the whole experience of silence has had an impact.

  MK: I very much enjoyed Libby’s poetry in this book. Did you write the poems for the book?

  AL: Thank you for your encouragement! I have been a closet poet for a long time. I’m in awe of poets and filled with admiration, because poets distill experience to its essence and make everything count. One of the little signs I have on my computer says “Make everything count.”

  MK: I love the poets whom Libby is reading, Sharon Olds and Adrienne Rich among them.

  AL: They are among my favorites, too. And Emily Dickinson, of course.

  MK: To whom you are related.

  AL: That’s right. Back to Libby—I was trying to imagine Libby’s life, to sum up who she was as a girl. I knew that she was a poet as a girl. She told me that. Yes, the poems were written for the book.

  MK: I hope that Libby writes some more poetry! I wanted another installment of this story, and of the poems.

  AL: Well, remember, Sam did give Libby a blank book for poetry! One of the most curious things for me, thinking about Libby as a girl—I asked myself how do we lose the passion, creativity, and feistiness as women? In the play Shirley Valentine, the question is dramatized: How do girls turn from being bad and lively and alive to being carefully controlled women? It was important to me to probe the question of how Libby changed from being the girl who superglued a cheating man’s fly shut to being a woman who cared so much about the regime of housework. But when she’s in crisis, she remembers everything her college poetry professor told her—there’s another ghost voice.

  MK: When Libby learns that she’s dying, when she becomes stripped down in herself, what she finds is the poetry.

  AL: But what covers over the essence? What armor do we put on over creativity? Is it a cloak we are told to wear, the burden of adult or domestic responsibility? I love it when we can reawaken that original, creative self. I was deeply glad when Libby returned to poetry. How interesting that Libby’s poetry had been kept hidden in a drawer! Why out of sight? Some part of her went to that particular drawer to put away her dialysis material. Nothing happens by accident, in life or in fiction.

  MK: She found her soul-speech when she needed it. The spirit under pressure makes poetry.

  AL: I like that!

  MK: Thank you!

  READING GROUP QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

  Early in the book we learn of the sisters’ estrangement, a separation we later discover is caused by Libby’s betrayal of Sam. Lee encourages Sam to forgive her sister, as he has forgiven his own father. What do you think? Is there any betrayal that can’t be forgiven?

  The author asks: Must forgiveness be earned, or can it simply be granted. What do you think? And do you believe that even if people forgive each other they can ever really let go of the hurt as Libby and Sam seem to do?

  Six years pass before Sam reconnects with Libby. Do you think it is necessary for time to elapse before healing can take place?

  Several times throughout the book, Libby is drawn to the prairie, though she says it had always been more Richard’s place. Why do you think she is drawn there, and how do the prairie scenes amplify or serve as metaphors for the book’s major themes?

  Sam lives by the sea, which like the tall grass prairie is a place of great beauty. By choosing these settings and underscoring their draw for the characters, do you think the author is saying that we can find healing in the natural world? Has there been a time in your life when a connection to nature helped you heal?

  All of the main characters are in some way engaged in creative activity. Libby remembers her college poetry professor saying that what we create can save us. Do you agree?

  By making creativity such an intrinsic part of her characters’ lives, is the author saying that the desire to create is an inherent part of human nature? Do you think it is possible to find fulfillment in life without being creative?

  Sam can’t understand Josh’s refusal to be tested to see if he is a match for Libby. Why do the two siblings have such different perspectives? What, if any, obligations do family members have to one another?

  Which character did you most identify with, and why?

  Lee sees strengths in Sam that she doesn’t see in herself. Do you think others often have a clearer view of our qualities?

  When Libby is trying to cope with the fact that she might die, she makes a list of the things she wants to do if she lives. Why does it so often take a crisis to make us alert to how we spent our lives? What would be on your list, and what stops you from doing those things now?

  In the scene at the restaurant, Libby talks about the things she has denied herself in life, particularly in terms of food, and how she regrets that now. Do you feel this pressure in your life to abstain from things that you like? What are they, and how would you feel if the option of having those things taken away from you was through something like Libby’s kidney disease?


  As a child and teenager, Libby is feisty and free-spirited with grand dreams. What do you think happened to transform her into the careful and conservative woman she has become? How could she have retained her individuality in her marriage and as a mother? To what extent does one need to compromise in life, and how can that happen without losing part of who one is?

  If you could ask the author one question about this book, what would it be?

  About the Author

  ANNE LECLAIRE is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Leaving Eden and Entering Normal. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Redbook, and Yankee magazine, among other publications. Her novels have been published in twenty countries and translated into eighteen languages. She lives on Cape Cod with her husband, a black cat, and fifteen chickens. Visit the author’s website at www.anneleclaire.com.

  ALSO BY ANNE LECLAIRE

  Leaving Eden

  Entering Normal

  Sideshow

  Grace Point

  Every Mother’s Son

  Land’s End

  The Law of Bound Hearts is a work of fiction. Names,

  characters, places, and incidents are the products of

  the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any

  resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons,

  living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  2005 Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Edition

  Copyright © 2004 by Anne D. LeClaire

  Reading group guide copyright © 2005 by

  Random House, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books,

  an imprint of The Random House Publishing

  Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.