Q. FAMILY TREE deals with issues close to the heart such as love and relationships. However, it also speaks to larger social issues of identity, race, and community. What served as inspiration for your story? Were you influenced by larger, social issues?
A. Interestingly, there was no single event or newspaper piece or personal experience that inspired Family Tree. The book was inspired by the times we live in, with those larger social issue creeping into my consciousness and crying for expression. Interestingly too, I don’t see the book as one about race. Basic identity, yes. Community, definitely. But the book is also about hypocrisy — about those people who say one thing and do another, who wear one face in public and another in private, who want us to do as they say, not do as they do. We all know people like this, whether personally or in the news. Writing about them was a temptation I couldn’t resist.
Q. Dana and Hugh’s young family is almost torn apart because of Lizzie’s unexpected African-American physical traits. Hugh, feeling pressure from his Caucasian New England family, begins to doubt Dana’s fidelity and ultimately damages his relationship with his African-American friend, David. Is Hugh’s mistrust from outside pressures? Or do his reactions reveal his real attitudes about race?
A. That is a pivotal question in this book. Hugh is a lawyer who has, time and again, gone out on a limb defending minority clients. Yet suddenly, seeing that his own child has minority roots, he feels a qualm. Do I think he is racist? Absolutely not. I think he is stunned. He is frightened. He is savvy enough to know exactly what his bi-racial child will face in life. And, yes, he bows to outside pressures at the start. But he loves this baby from the get-go. She is the vehicle that enables him to honestly and realistically examine his attitudes about race.
Q. The notion of secrets resonates with every character and drives the plot of Family Tree. Questions of paternity and infidelity branch across generations, leaving change in their wake. For instance, why does Ellie Jo keep her husband’s secret?
A. Ellie Jo is of a generation that found shame in certain things, her husband’s secret being one of them. Times have changed; in the modern day, Earl’s secret would be easily handled, with little shame involved. But Ellie Jo is not of the modern day. Goodness, my mother died of breast cancer when I was a child, yet I didn’t learn it until I was nearly an adult. Why? My father couldn’t say the word ‘breast,’ much less ‘cancer.,’ and he was far from unique. His and Ellie Jo’s may have been The Greatest Generation, but it was also one of the most silent ones.
Q. Driven by Hugh to discover her ancestry, Dana delves into her ambiguous family past in order to learn about the father she never knew. Although he wants to develop a relationship once they’ve reconnected, why does Dana have a hard time opening up to her estranged father? As she learns about his life and his relationship with her mother, does her attitude towards her mother change? How does this alter her concept of family?
A. Dana has grown up without a father and, perhaps by way of rationalization, prides herself in neither needing nor wanting one. She goes looking for the man solely for the sake of her daughter, but a part of her remains resentful he never cared enough to look for her. Why does she have trouble opening up to him? Fear of being hurt, perhaps? Fear of being seen as the illegitimate one, the intruder in a tight-knit family? One of the problems is that he is a really, really nice man. Liking him, for Dana, though, means believing his story, which in turn means finding fault with her mother. In time, she is able to set fault aside and be realistic about both of her parents. She sees that people are human and do make mistakes. This helps her understand her husband.
A. Interestingly, there was no single event or newspaper piece or personal experience that inspired Family Tree. The book was inspired by the times we live in, with those larger social issue creeping into my consciousness and crying for expression. Interestingly too, I don’t see the book as one about race. Basic identity, yes. Community, definitely. But the book is also about hypocrisy — about those people who say one thing and do another, who wear one face in public and another in private, who want us to do as they say, not do as they do. We all know people like this, whether personally or in the news. Writing about them was a temptation I couldn’t resist.
Q. Dana and Hugh’s young family is almost torn apart because of Lizzie’s unexpected African-American physical traits. Hugh, feeling pressure from his Caucasian New England family, begins to doubt Dana’s fidelity and ultimately damages his relationship with his African-American friend, David. Is Hugh’s mistrust from outside pressures? Or do his reactions reveal his real attitudes about race?
A. That is a pivotal question in this book. Hugh is a lawyer who has, time and again, gone out on a limb defending minority clients. Yet suddenly, seeing that his own child has minority roots, he feels a qualm. Do I think he is racist? Absolutely not. I think he is stunned. He is frightened. He is savvy enough to know exactly what his bi-racial child will face in life. And, yes, he bows to outside pressures at the start. But he loves this baby from the get-go. She is the vehicle that enables him to honestly and realistically examine his attitudes about race.
Q. The notion of secrets resonates with every character and drives the plot of Family Tree. Questions of paternity and infidelity branch across generations, leaving change in their wake. For instance, why does Ellie Jo keep her husband’s secret?
A. Ellie Jo is of a generation that found shame in certain things, her husband’s secret being one of them. Times have changed; in the modern day, Earl’s secret would be easily handled, with little shame involved. But Ellie Jo is not of the modern day. Goodness, my mother died of breast cancer when I was a child, yet I didn’t learn it until I was nearly an adult. Why? My father couldn’t say the word ‘breast,’ much less ‘cancer.,’ and he was far from unique. His and Ellie Jo’s may have been The Greatest Generation, but it was also one of the most silent ones.
Q. Driven by Hugh to discover her ancestry, Dana delves into her ambiguous family past in order to learn about the father she never knew. Although he wants to develop a relationship once they’ve reconnected, why does Dana have a hard time opening up to her estranged father? As she learns about his life and his relationship with her mother, does her attitude towards her mother change? How does this alter her concept of family?
A. Dana has grown up without a father and, perhaps by way of rationalization, prides herself in neither needing nor wanting one. She goes looking for the man solely for the sake of her daughter, but a part of her remains resentful he never cared enough to look for her. Why does she have trouble opening up to him? Fear of being hurt, perhaps? Fear of being seen as the illegitimate one, the intruder in a tight-knit family? One of the problems is that he is a really, really nice man. Liking him, for Dana, though, means believing his story, which in turn means finding fault with her mother. In time, she is able to set fault aside and be realistic about both of her parents. She sees that people are human and do make mistakes. This helps her understand her husband.