Jacqueline McAlister asked Scott Hawkins:

Hi Scott- Not so much a question as a comment to tell you that The Library at Mount Char is, without question, one of the most original, strangest, most enthralling novels I have ever read. Simply amazing! I alternated between wondering how you ever thought this up and marveling at the immense talent in your writing. Thank you for this affecting piece of literature and I thank you in advance for providing the sequel?

Scott Hawkins Hey Jacqueline,

I saw your review the other day--thanks! I'm really tickled that you liked it. I check goodreads almost every night for new reviews, and when I see somebody that really liked it I grin for hours.

As to how I thought it up--there's about a zillion little answers. A big chunk of this one came from the evolution of an idea that wasn't quite working. As originally conceived, the librarians were going to be the earth's line of defense against some Cosmic Threat--like, I dunno, space demons or something. Little echoes of that show up here and there in the published version--the legion of off-stage enemies, the place where they lived being named "Garrison Oaks"--but the basic idea never quite took off.

I finally figured out I wasn't getting anywhere with that approach because I didn't have the bad guy coming in until way too late in the story. (Again, these were early drafts). The first hundred pages was basically just the librarians standing around hugging each other and saying "I wonder where Father is? Sure hope he's not dead!" It was really boring.

So I decided to try an internal enemy.

Other parts are me snipping out little bits of real life. The go-out-for-a-jog-and-almost-get-eaten-by-dogs thing actually happened to me in, I think, 1993? And I remember a Labor Day picnic when I was a kid where a guy drowned.

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