Ask the Author: Jean Hoefling
Answered Questions (9)
Jean Hoefling
Toni Morrison is quoted as saying, "If there's a book you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." I wanted to read a larger account about Adam and Eve than we get from the Bible. I wanted to explore history mystery.
The older the story, the better. When I lived in Europe, I regularly hugged Medieval church pillars and other grab-able stone monuments dating from the Dark Age period. Old stuff gives me energy. So the early chapters of the book of Genesis, about which we know very little, are more interesting to me than any other portion of the Bible except the stories of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection.
Mystery is everything! I wrote Gold in Havilah to explore what life might have been like for the family of the world's first two human beings. I used the framework of the Bible narrative, and ideas from The Forgotten Books of Eden. I hope the result will be enjoyable for readers and satisfy the tastes of others like myself who love history mystery.
The older the story, the better. When I lived in Europe, I regularly hugged Medieval church pillars and other grab-able stone monuments dating from the Dark Age period. Old stuff gives me energy. So the early chapters of the book of Genesis, about which we know very little, are more interesting to me than any other portion of the Bible except the stories of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection.
Mystery is everything! I wrote Gold in Havilah to explore what life might have been like for the family of the world's first two human beings. I used the framework of the Bible narrative, and ideas from The Forgotten Books of Eden. I hope the result will be enjoyable for readers and satisfy the tastes of others like myself who love history mystery.
Jean Hoefling
Sybel, I apologize for not answering your great question until now! I'm afraid I simply did not see it for whatever reason. I so appreciate your interest! I named Cain's wife Akliah, because it proceeds naturally from stories from an ancient text called The Forgotten Books of Eden, which is a fascinating account of the life of Adam and Eve's family outside Eden. In the 74th and 75th chapters of that book, Cain and a twin sister, Luluwa, are born to Adam and Eve; later, Abel and a twin sister named Akliah are also born. Cain wanted to marry Luluwa, just like in my story. That Akliah loved Cain is my fabrication, with all the tension and heartache that it brought her. As to what inspired Gold in Havilah, all my life I've been fascinated with the early chapters of Genesis. I'd always wanted to read a good book about what it might have been like to be Adam and Eve after the Fall, and what family and community life might have been like in those early generations of the earth. The Forgotten Books of Eden does a pretty good job, but I wanted more detail. So I wrote Gold in Havilah, and on November 2, 2018, I published a sort of sequel, Ashes Like Bread. This is the story of another generation of Adamites, based on the story of Lamech and his two wives found in Genesis 4. I hope you'll read both books and enjoy them, and look forward to several more books in the series!
Jean Hoefling
The best thing about being a writer is that I get to feel fully and completely like myself most of every day. I am happiest when I am developing story, or a blog idea, or even composing a response on somebody's Facebook post. To give you an idea: I was reading Shakespeare on my own in middle school and making lists of my favorite words. Does it get more obvious?
Jean Hoefling
I'd travel to the pristine world of early Genesis that I developed in Gold in Havilah because I would love to interact with those biblical characters and pick their brains about why they made the choices they did. For most of them, we are given little to go on in the biblical text, which is both frustrating and fascinating, because then we have the luxury of speculation. In my everybody's-big-sister way, I'd like to think I could have talked Eve out of taking the first bite of forbidden fruit, or persuade Cain not to murder Abel. But then, there wouldn't be much of a story, would there? And the fact is, we humans mostly learn from picking our way through the mess we make of life and gaining some wisdom in the process.
Jean Hoefling
Mary Lindsay and Paul Randall from The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge. Their shared admiration of the same beautiful things; their unspoken insistence on commitment to values higher than themselves; their quiet love for each other so lacking in ego that, every time, leaves me wanting to be a better person.
Jean Hoefling
The ideas and stories fill my imagination and the fear that I might leave the earth with some of them untold motivates me to keep moving.
Jean Hoefling
As of January 2017 I have two book projects going, both taking place in the approximately 1000 years between creation and Noah's flood, in a direct reading of the Bible. My characters are prophets and unwilling wives and runaways and dreamers and women who got everything wrong before they got it right.
Jean Hoefling
Since I am the queen of aspiring writers, I'd give to others the same advice I give myself:
1) Just sit down and do it, every day. Force the brain to work. 2) Use fear of failure to drive you, not paralyze you. It's scarier to think about looking at yourself a year from now and realizing you still haven't written that book than it is to just write it. Fear takes way too much energy! 3) Learn to take critique and be edited.
1) Just sit down and do it, every day. Force the brain to work. 2) Use fear of failure to drive you, not paralyze you. It's scarier to think about looking at yourself a year from now and realizing you still haven't written that book than it is to just write it. Fear takes way too much energy! 3) Learn to take critique and be edited.
Jean Hoefling
I sit down and write anyway. Or I go take a walk and then sit down and write anyway. Forcing the brain to work at the same time of day is the key for me.
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