How do Harry’s relationships with both his parents change during the novel?
How did you react to Ella’s attempts to distance herself from Harry while she was in the hospital? What would you have done in her situation?
Harry and Max have a unique bond. What did you like most about their relationship? Do you think they will be BFFs forever, despite taking such different life paths?
What do you think is the emotional core of Ella and Felix’s marriage? Are they well matched or an unlikely couple? Do you agree with Felix that the two months following the heart attack are a gift—a second chance for them?
In chapter one, Ella refers to the stranger sitting next to her as the good father, and throughout the novel, both she and Felix question what it means to be a good parent. What do you think it means? Do you agree with them that the hardest lesson of parenthood is learning to let go?
Do you have a favorite secondary character? If so, who and why?
One of the novel’s themes is that a person can find clarity and empathy in a moment of unbearable darkness. Does the Fitzwilliam family crisis bring out the best in all the characters, including the secondary ones?
Ella’s journey is a solitary one, whereas Felix is drawn increasingly into a community of support, something he’s never experienced before. What do you think about that?
Why doesn’t Ella die on the plane? Do you think she ever believed she would get better?
We see various settings in historic Durham, North Carolina, from Felix’s perspective. What did you learn about Felix through the different settings—especially the scenes at Duke Gardens and the Nasher Museum of Art? Why do you think Felix, a Londoner who loves the afternoon sun, was drawn to a house hidden in shade at the edge of Duke Forest? Do you think Felix will stay in the house?
How did you react to the ending?
A CONVERSATION WITH THE AUTHOR
What was the inspiration for this book?
This story grew out of several unrelated moments in my life and, as with everything I write, comes back to my passion for poking holes in stereotypes of mental or neurological disabilities.
I’ve always wanted to create a character with Tourette syndrome, and I’ve long been fascinated by the 80 percent divorce rate among families raising special-needs kids. My son has battled obsessive-compulsive disorder for most of his life, and I’m active in a support group for parents of OCD kids. I’ve watched many marriages in that community crumble. After someone asked why my marriage had survived, I started researching a story about a broken marriage and a high-maintenance teen in crisis. Then three separate events occurred.
The first event was a routine medical procedure that went horribly wrong. I ended up in the ICU, and the strain on my guys, who are both empathetic, was unbearable. We got through that crisis, but a few months later, on a family trip to visit my mother in England, I was struck down by a virus that manifested as asthma. I couldn’t breathe, and the steroids I was prescribed made my heart race. Since I have genetic heart issues, it was hard not to freak out. One night, my husband sat up with me for hours, holding my hand while I chanted silently, “I am not sick, I am not sick, I am not sick.” The next day, I wrote two pages of gibberish about a wife who has a heart attack. (I think that was therapy for dealing with my own fear.) The final incident happened on the flight home from a literary festival in Ireland when some poor guy collapsed three rows in front of me. (Yes, I was the bad person taking notes.)
I ditched the manuscript I was working on—which felt way too serious—and started fleshing out the Fitzwilliams. I’m drawn to dark humor, and the characters kept making me smile. Once I’d found Max, the punk / math genius who uses perfect grammar in his texts, there was no going back. From that moment on, my life was all about Harry. (That was my working title, It’s All about Harry. But of course it isn’t really . . .)
Your characters have severe medical, neurological, and mental problems to overcome. How did you research this novel?
I’m a research-heavy novelist who conducts many one-on-one interviews. I also read memoirs, do Internet research, lurk in online groups, and watch endless YouTube videos (okay, so some of the music videos might be distractions . . .). With this novel, however, I found my research difficult and overwhelming. Ella’s medical journey provided the framework for the story, but it took seven months to track down a cardiologist willing to talk with me. Until that point, I was constantly second-guessing her storyline.
The research into the neurological and mental disorders came with its own challenges, since many of the firsthand sources focused on more extreme cases. I nearly abandoned OCPD because most of the accounts came from disillusioned ex-spouses who said, “If you’re married to anyone with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, run.” I reminded myself that my characters are not their disorders, and that we all have individual brain chemistry and unique life experiences that mold us into a mess of complexities and contradictions. As one mother told me, if you lined up a hundred kids with Tourette syndrome, the Tourette’s would manifest differently in every child.
I’m not trying to create cardboard cutouts that say, “I am OCPD” or “I am Tourette’s.” The fun part for me is always thinking outside the box of clinical definitions to find the person behind the label. Hey, people with messed-up brain chemistry and wiring still need backstories and well-rounded personalities!
During the writing of this novel, did anything surprise you?
Everything surprised me. Even though I forced myself to create a detailed outline, nothing went as planned. I started a story set in Chapel Hill, but it skipped over to Durham; I thought I was writing about a marriage in crisis, then it became a father-son story . . . and finally, I realized it was about a family finding acceptance. Harry decided to fall in love, Max announced he didn’t want to go to college, Katherine became a good guy, and the ending reversed in the second draft.
The characters’ emotional arcs surprised the heck out of me. I loved that Harry, who had never learned to establish boundaries with his mother, took charge of his life by learning to confront his father. And Ella evolved in ways that I hadn’t anticipated. Her revelations about the pregnancy and her doubts about being a mother? I never saw those coming.
I’m not sure that discovering the real Felix was a surprise, but it was the most rewarding part of writing this novel. I heard Felix’s voice from the beginning, but he presented huge problems. He’s not an obvious hero, and until you understand his layers, he presents as a judgmental control freak. When an early reader said, “I didn’t want to like Felix, but I did,” I finally began to believe readers would stick with him.
Tell us about the setting. Your first two novels have lush rural settings, but this time you switched to the city of Durham, North Carolina. Why?
Once again, I wanted to set the story in rural Orange County, but Felix isn’t a country person. So I moved the setting to an established Chapel Hill neighborhood. That didn’t work, either. (Felix is quite picky!) And then I was driving around the older, tree-lined streets of Durham by Duke Gardens, and I had a lightbulb moment: I had found Felix’s home. While parts of Duke speak to Felix of his time at Oxford, he’s also drawn to the sense of rejuvenation at the heart of historic Durham. There’s a creative, cosmopolitan, slightly funky energy to the downtown that reminds me a little of London, and Felix is a Londoner. By putting the house at the edge of Duke Forest, I could also sneak in references to light through the trees, which is my favorite writing image.
Felix is your darkest hero yet. What drew you to his character?
James Nealy, my beloved OCD hero in The Unfinished Garden, came from my darkest fear as a mother: What if, when my young son grew up, no one could see beyond his quirky behavior to love him for the amazing person he is? Since James, I’ve wanted to go deeper and darker, and that desire led to Felix. Felix is ruled by a rigid personality that makes him hard to like sometimes, but Eudora’s right—he’s a good man. I love that contradictio
n.
Tell us about Harry and Max’s relationship, which seems unusual for two teenage boys.
My son and his BFF—“Thing One and Thing Two”—have been best buddies since they were toddlers. Nothing and no one comes between them, and I’ve always been extremely grateful for their bond. All is well in my world when those two are together, and man, are they a creative force! They used to build huge worlds out of Legos, make movies, and go on epic adventures in the forest. Now they write and perform music that inspires me. I firmly believe they will change the world. (I think Max and Harry will, too—Max through his music, Harry as a psychologist.)
Where did Eudora come from?
She popped up in my head one day, wearing that hat from the final scene. I put her aside for a future novel, but when I was spewing out my stream-of-consciousness first draft, she appeared in Ella’s garden with a pair of pruning shears. Given my love of gardening and eccentric characters, I knew she had to stay.
Do you have a favorite scene?
Not really, but I’m quite fond of the moonshine scene, which came out fully formed. As a reader, I love secondary characters who steal the show, and that scene belongs to Eudora and Max.
Why do you include a listening guide with your novels?
I started writing seriously as a mother on the go, which meant I had to learn how to tune out the world instantly. Music allows me to do that, but only if the song speaks to me of my point-of-view character’s emotional state. With my iPod and earbuds, I can write anywhere. Huge chunks of The In-Between Hour, for example, were written in the child psychologist’s waiting room and in a parking lot during my son’s Tuesday night guitar lessons. Because of that training, I managed to write a very difficult chapter of The Perfect Son on a transatlantic flight. (The wine may have helped.)
If I had to pick one song to listen to over and over while reading this novel, it would be “The Kids from Yesterday” by My Chemical Romance. The reference to lights makes me think of Ella, and the line about how your heart has to break before you can hear the music always says Felix to me. The hardest part of writing this novel was figuring out Felix’s relationship to music. I knew he would ask Harry for a playlist, but it took a while to figure out when and how. That’s the best part of writing—finding the pieces and watching them fit together.
LISTENING GUIDE
My Chemical Romance, “I Don’t Love You”
New Order, “Bizarre Love Triangle”
Coheed and Cambria, “The Afterman”
U2, “Ordinary Love”
Coheed and Cambria, “Pearl of the Stars”
Tears for Fears, “Woman in Chains” (with Oleta Adams)
U2, “Every Breaking Wave”
The Arcadian Project, “Hey There, Pretty Girl”
Joy Division, “Love Will Tear Us Apart”
Everything But The Girl, “I Don’t Understand Anything”
The Airborne Toxic Event, “The Fifth Day”
Gnarls Barkley, “Smiley Faces”
The Airborne Toxic Event, “This Is London”
My Chemical Romance, “Planetary (GO!)”
U2, “Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own”
The Airborne Toxic Event, “The Way Home”
Coldplay, “Fix You”
The Strokes, “Reptilia”
Simple Minds, “When Two Worlds Collide”
The Smashing Pumpkins, “1979”
The Arcadian Project, “The Windmill”
Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”
My Chemical Romance, “The Only Hope for Me Is You”
Heaven 17, “Let Me Go” (extended version)
Our Last Night, “Skyfall”
My Chemical Romance, “The Kids from Yesterday”
The Airborne Toxic Event, “The Graveyard near the House”
Green Day, “Troublemaker”
James Taylor, “Carolina in My Mind”
Simple Minds, “Waterfront”
Muse, “Exogenesis: Symphony Part 3 (Redemption)”
U2, “Kite”
The Arcadian Project, “The Disappearance Symphony: One Last Question”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2013 KM Photography
English born and educated, Barbara Claypole White lives in the North Carolina forest with her family. Inspired by her poet/musician son’s courageous battles against obsessive-compulsive disorder, Barbara writes hopeful family drama with a healthy dose of mental illness. Her debut novel, The Unfinished Garden, won the 2013 Golden Quill Contest for Best First Book, and The In-Between Hour was chosen by SIBA (the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance) as a Winter 2014 Okra Pick.
For more information, or to connect with Barbara, please visit barbaraclaypolewhite.com.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
DEDICATION
CONTENTS
START READING
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
THIRTY-SEVEN
THIRTY-EIGHT
THIRTY-NINE
FORTY
FORTY-ONE
FORTY-TWO
FIVE YEARS LATER
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
BOOK CLUB DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
A CONVERSATION WITH THE AUTHOR
LISTENING GUIDE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Perfect Son Page 34