For me, the first glimmer of my new
novel So Near started with a “This I
Believe” piece I heard on NPR. It was
about something called “pathways of desire,” a landscape architectural term
used to describe how we really get from place to place —from car to house, say,
or across a vacant lot — rather than following prescribed routes. The NPR essay
went on to extrapolate on that idea, pointing out the necessity of
boundaries and how certain “pathways”
can lead to real danger — in this case the author’s horse who leapt across a
cattle guard to get at some apples and broke a hip.
The concept stayed with me and, in a
subconscious way, it began to take on a strange significance. I kept turning it over in my mind — not sure
what it was that intrigued me. It took
me over a year to realize that it was the beginning of a novel I wanted to
write. In fact, when my publisher bought the book it was entitled “Pathways of
Desire,” and it was only when I turned in the finished manuscript that the
title was changed to So Near, because
the sales department worried “Pathways of Desire” sounded a little too much
like a romance novel. Though there is a love story at the heart of the
novel — and, I hasten to add, a fair amount of very hot sex — I think
ultimately So Near is truer to the
sense of the book.
What began as someone else’s story
on “This I Believe” metamorphosed over a couple years, several drafts, and
plenty of ups and downs and “pathways” of its own into another, wholly
different story that is So Near.
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Thanks to the wonderful people at Penguin. I have a copy of So Near to giveaway to one lucky person. This giveaway is for US/CA addresses only. You must be over 13 years old to enter. You must fill out the form below. If you can't view the form, click here. One entry per person. Giveaway ends Sept. 28, 2011. Good luck.
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