family narrative—the story we were told (or sold) about who we are and what we believe.

I’m drawn to characters who are very different from myself. As a writer, and in my own life, I want to understand people whose experience and point of view are other than my own whatever it might be. That combined with my desire to unpack what was going on in this country made it useful to spend time with these men and this particular family.

For me each character is an individual and we are all flawed. I don’t think about characters as good or evil or whether or not I like them. Ultimately, I am always writing about human behavior, what compels someone to act the way they do, what drives their perceptions and needs.

The novel is a braid of a large scale social/political novel and an intimate/domestic story about a family. A major thread is the coming to consciousness story of a mother and daughter, a multi-generational view of the female experience. Importantly, the Big Guy, also begins to understand more about the impact he’s had on the women in his life.

***

For me it always comes back to the characters and inhabiting the story from the inside out—organically.  When we first meet Meghan, she is naive, a kid who has grown up in a bubble, with great privilege and protection from reality. As she comes into her own, she goes through a period of waking up which is something we all do as we prepare to separate from our families and move into the larger world.

This is a time when many of us look at the family narrative—the story we were told (or sold) about who we are and what we believe. Meghan begins to realize there’s an enormous amount she doesn’t know, an enormous amount she’s taken for granted and that despite being told that women can do whatever they want—it’s also not true. Her awakening is also the beginning of her empowerment— the opportunity to set her own course and to give the rest of us hope for a better future.

https://lithub.com/a-m-homes-on-being-for-better-or-worse-a-very-american-writer/