THE ARRIVALS – Guest Post by Author Meg Mitchell Moore
From The Publisher:
It’s early summer when Ginny and William’s peaceful life in Vermont comes to an abrupt halt.
First, their daughter Lillian arrives, with her two children in tow, to escape her crumbling marriage. Next, their son Stephen and his pregnant wife Jane show up for a weekend visit, which extends indefinitely when Jane ends up on bed rest. When their youngest daughter Rachel appears, fleeing her difficult life in New York, Ginny and William find themselves consumed again by the chaos of parenthood – only this time around, their children are facing adult problems.
By summer’s end, the family gains new ideas of loyalty and responsibility, exposing the challenges of surviving the modern family – and the old adage, once a parent, always a parent, has never rung so true.
About the Author:
Meg Mitchell Moore worked for several years as a journalist. Her articles have been published in a wide variety of business and consumer magazines. She received a master’s degree in English literature from New York University. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and their three children. The Arrivals is her first novel.
GUEST POST
by Meg Mitchell Moore
Audio and Video
The Question of Research
First please allow me to say thank you to Libbby’s Library for hosting me here during the blog tour for my debut novel, The Arrivals.
In The Arrivals, three adult siblings return to their parents’ home in Burlington, Vt., over the course of a summer, bringing their grownup problems with them. Lillian, the eldest Owen sibling, arrives on her parents’ doorstep, a three-year-old and an infant in tow, to escape a marriage that’s in jeopardy. Stephen, the middle sibling, brings his pregnant wife for a short visit that is extended by weeks due to pregnancy complications. Rachel, the youngest sibling, is fleeing heartbreak and personal financial disaster in New York City. I have young children myself. My parents do live in Vermont, but—disclaimer—I didn’t grow up there, as the Owen children did. I have a lot more in common with the middle generation—the thirtysomethings grappling with parenthood and careers—than with the generation Ginny and William Owen, the sixtysomething retired parents, come from.
For these reasons, when I writing The Arrivals it was more a matter of imagining than research. What if one of those visits to my parents’ house, of which I have undertaken many, was extended indefinitely? What if I were one of the parents, alternately delighted and piqued by the presence of grown children back in the house? What might it be like when my own children grow up and start families of their own?
The Arrivals did require one bit of legitimate research. One character, Jane, the wife of Stephen Owen, is dealing with some pregnancy complications; I spoke to an OB/GYN to make sure I had chosen a realistic scenario and gotten the details of her situation right.
By contrast, my next book, due out next year, has turned out to be a whole different animal. The novel doesn’t yet have a title; if it did, I would share it with you here. This book features characters who aren’t anything like me and whose situations are foreign to me: one is a thirteen-year-old girl, one is a fifty-seven-year-old woman, and one is an Irish immigrant working in domestic service in the 1920s. This book has required more actual research. I read a fabulous book about Irish immigrants working in domestic service. I visited the Massachusetts Archives a few different times to learn about genealogical research. I have studied old photographs taken in the 1920s in Newburyport, Mass., where the story is set, and another book of photographs of Ireland taken in the early twentieth century. I sat down with my daughters’ Irish dance teacher to talk about the history or Irish dance and how the jigs and reels were taught in rura
l Irish villages. I have an obligation to get certain details here right. At the same time, I have to be careful not to get so caught up in incorporating my research that I lose the momentum of the story. Writing the second book has been a whole different experience for me than writing The Arrivals was—in some ways more liberating, and in other ways more constricting.
l Irish villages. I have an obligation to get certain details here right. At the same time, I have to be careful not to get so caught up in incorporating my research that I lose the momentum of the story. Writing the second book has been a whole different experience for me than writing The Arrivals was—in some ways more liberating, and in other ways more constricting.
Meg Mitchell Moore
THE ARRIVALS in stores 5/25/11
Reagan Arthur Books/Little, Brown
Thank you so much for hosting me on the blog tour for The Arrivals. Hello to your readers!