Helen Simonson
Dear Sussan,
SPOILER ALERT. Just warning my readers before proceeding. Agatha Kent was inspired by a Kipling story "The Gardener" in which an aunt who raised her nephew visits his grave in a World War One war cemetery and the gardener says revealingly (as in the epigraph to my epilogue) "come I will take you to your son.' I wondered who the woman in Kipling's tale really was. Like her, Agatha's 'nephew' may be more to her than her friends suspect. Agatha's fiancé died on his way to their wedding - and she was shipped off to her sister's house where, a few months later, her sister had Daniel. I enjoyed knowing more about Agatha than my readers and it informed how I wrote about her - and her attitudes. But at the end of the book it seemed to me that the women were all 'mothers' with a mother's burdens and that biology almost seemed inconsequential in the love and sorrow felt by all. By the way, such secrets of birth continue in my book. Celeste's child will have Daniel's name. Best regards, Helen S.
SPOILER ALERT. Just warning my readers before proceeding. Agatha Kent was inspired by a Kipling story "The Gardener" in which an aunt who raised her nephew visits his grave in a World War One war cemetery and the gardener says revealingly (as in the epigraph to my epilogue) "come I will take you to your son.' I wondered who the woman in Kipling's tale really was. Like her, Agatha's 'nephew' may be more to her than her friends suspect. Agatha's fiancé died on his way to their wedding - and she was shipped off to her sister's house where, a few months later, her sister had Daniel. I enjoyed knowing more about Agatha than my readers and it informed how I wrote about her - and her attitudes. But at the end of the book it seemed to me that the women were all 'mothers' with a mother's burdens and that biology almost seemed inconsequential in the love and sorrow felt by all. By the way, such secrets of birth continue in my book. Celeste's child will have Daniel's name. Best regards, Helen S.
More Answered Questions
Judy
asked
Helen Simonson:
I'm a huge fan of your books, and I think I saw an email where you were recommending a new novel about to come out. . . but now I cannot recall where I saw it, or who sent it out. If you have recommended a new book, please tell us what it is? And I hope you are working on a third novel!
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