Bleeding Heart
Page 30
Q. Where do you write?
A. My husband and I divide our time between Manhattan and a small cottage in the Berkshires. In the city, I usually write in a beautiful old Eames chair that I commandeered from my husband. Our place in the country includes an old horse stable that has become my “writing studio.” It still has the old iron stall feeders and leather harnesses on the walls. It remains permeated by a wonderful smell of animal and hay.
When we’re in the country, I wake up early and reread and rewrite on my laptop in the house, but in the afternoon I go out to the studio, bolt the door, and start the hard work of writing the next new word, sentence, paragraph, chapter. In the winter I have a fire going in the Jotul stove. In the summer I open the windows and listen to the birdsong and brook nearby. I can watch our family of wild turkeys parading up and down in the old paddock. Other sightings: woodchuck, coyote, fox, and, early last spring, when the trees were just greening out, a big black bear. It was a breathtaking moment when this wall of darkness lumbered right past me—so close that, if the window had been open, I could have reached out and run my hand through the bear’s ink black fur.
Q. Do you have a set writing routine?
A. I usually wake up early and reread whatever I’ve been working on. I revise constantly. Then I let the demands of daily life intervene for several hours and pick up again in the afternoon. Most days, I don’t hit my stride until three o’clock or so, and then if I’m lucky I get two or three good, productive hours in. I think a lot about what I’m working on when I’m not actually writing: when I’m gardening, for instance, or driving in the car back and forth between the city and our place in the Berkshires. I try to work out problems—a scene I can’t get off the ground, a character who refuses to behave—during that two-and-a-half-hour stretch.
A. What authors do you like? Did any of them influence you in writing this book?
Q. I read a lot of fiction and poetry, and my list of favorite writers is constantly changing and expanding. In no particular order, I love the fiction of Elizabeth Strout, Hilary Mantel, Allegra Goodman, F. Scott and Penelope Fitzgerald, Susan Isaacs, and Alan Furst, and the poetry of Richard Wilbur, Mary Oliver, Elizabeth Bishop, and Theodore Roethke, to name just a very quick and beloved few. Like so many other readers around the world, I was enthralled by Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch. I went back and reread her first bestseller, The Secret History, which is set not far from us in the country; it’s equally wild and wonderful. When I decided to try to make Bleeding Heart something of
a mystery, I reread many of my favorite P. D. James novels. I think she’s an absolute master of the mystery genre—and just an all-around brilliant writer.
Q. What will your next book be about?
A. Bleeding Heart has two separate mysteries at its heart. One is resolved, but the other is left open. I did that on purpose because I want to write at least one more novel about Alice. I really loved writing about gardening and the Berkshires, so having Alice be a landscape gardener in the fictional Berkshire town of Woodhaven is the perfect setup for me. And, as I mentioned earlier, I’m drawn to her acerbic, no-nonsense nature. I’m not sure yet whether the next book will resolve the question of Alice’s missing husband, but I think it will again revolve around a mystery. As is often the case when I’m thinking about a new novel, I have just a few vague ideas and characters in my head.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. What does the title mean? Who in the book has a “bleeding heart”?
2. Do you think Alice was justified in putting aside her principles to work for Mackenzie?
3. Whom did you suspect—and when—of being behind Mackenzie’s death?
4. Alice still spends a lot of time thinking about her husband. How do you think her unresolved feelings for him affect the action of the novel?
5. How would you compare Alice’s and Gwen’s attitudes toward money?
6. Do you think Mackenzie is a crook or just someone whose business takes a bad turn?
7. Alice has a way of misjudging important people in her life, especially men. Why do you think she does that?
8. What is it about Mara that makes so many female characters, including Alice, want to help and protect her?
9. What do you think of Alice’s decision not to mortgage the house in Woodhaven even though she desperately needed the money?
10. Alice says that she’s happiest and most at peace with herself when she’s gardening. Is there someplace—or thing—that gives you a similar sense of well-being?
11. Of all the things that Alice wants to live for in the end, what do you think is most important to her?
Photo by William Bennett
Liza Gyllenhaal spent many years in advertising and publishing. She lives with her husband in New York City and western Massachusetts. She is the author of the novels Local Knowledge, So Near, and A Place for Us, all published by NAL.