In her previous novels, Paula McLain described real women who lived life to the fullest. Her wildly successful “The Paris Wife,” a book club favorite, focused on Ernest Hemingway’s first spouse, Hadley Richardson, and the bohemian existence the pair embraced.
“Circling the Sun” was based on the exploits of aviatrix Beryl Markham. “Love and Ruin” centered on the tempestuous relationship Hemingway had with his third wife, war correspondent Martha Gellhorn.
McLain’s latest book, “When the Stars Go Dark,” represents a new chapter for the Cleveland author. It’s a thriller based on experiences from her childhood. Protagonist Anna Hart is a detective on the run from a tragedy that’s turned her world upside down. Anna returns to Mendocino, California, where she spent her teen years, and it doesn’t take long for her to be drawn into the search for Cameron Curtis, a girl who’s been reported missing.
Like Cameron and Anna, McLain was once in foster care. The author vividly recalls the abuse and upheaval she and her two sisters experienced after being abandoned by their parents.
“The uncertainty [was unbearable] as we waited to learn what our fate would be — going from a grandmother to an aunt to another aunt to a foster home, then with family and then back to the foster home and then to another foster home,” McLain recalls.
“I can’t explain what it feels like to be passed around that way. And although none of it is in your control, you feel you are to blame. I know now, as an adult, that my sisters felt exactly the same way. But of course, it was just that the grownups in charge weren’t capable. The abuse, though, very much felt like a war. It was fight or die.”
We caught up with the busy author and talked about the inspiration for her books.
In your 2003 memoir, “Like Family: Growing Up in Other People’s Houses,” you poignantly describe how your clothes would be tossed into garbage bags to be handed to your next set of temporary parents. What led you to return to the subject of foster care?
When I aged out of the [foster care] system, I tried to put as much distance between myself and those years as possible, imagining that, if I didn’t think about them, they wouldn’t touch me. But now, of course, I know as an adult that the only way to let anything go is to let it in — to actually accept it and tolerate those things about yourself you can’t change. And then, try as much as possible to forgive.
Did the foster care experience shape you as a writer?
It’s given me more sensitivity to the stories of others — the contours of being human and how life shapes us.
The idea for your last book, “Love and Ruin,” was the result of a dream you had about fishing with Hemingway and Gellhorn. What sparked the plot for “When the Stars Go Dark?”
I was walking my goldendoodle, Piper, at Shaker Lakes. Suddenly, I had an idea for a character: I pictured this troubled missing-persons detective running from a damaging past, and that it was only by getting involved with saving someone else that she could save herself. I’ve long been drawn to stories about wounded healers. I’m sure you’ve heard the adage, ‘Hurt people hurt people. Healed people heal people.’ That’s what this book is about.
Your last three books — all historical fiction — were all bestsellers. Why was the time right for you to choose a new genre?
I didn’t choose it, exactly — it came along, hijacked me and scared me. I wasn’t sure I was ready for what required a whole new set of tools. But once I started writing, I realized I had an opportunity to create an entirely imaginary character. It gave me the creative freedom that’s important to me. I believe that, if we’re going to continue to grow, there has to be a level of risk. Creativity has no limit — but we often limit ourselves.
What do you hope readers take away from the story?
The positive message that anyone can heal, and that we are more than the sum of our experiences, more than what happens to us. There is something original in us — a soul that can’t be ruined. If we work through the things that have happened — and decide how we’re going to live — we have the chance to change the footprint we have in the world and find our purpose. If just one person reads this book, recognizes her own story and feels less alone, then it will have been worth the writing.
For more information, visit paulamclain.com.
Linda Feagler is a Northeast Ohio freelance writer.
