M.L. Rose: The Road to Eden's Ridge
Book Club Chat

Book Club Chat: Interview with M.L. Rose (Linda Weeks and Myra McLarey)

It's unusual to see joint authors in the world of fiction these days, in my opinion. Can you tell us a little bit about how you ended up working together, how the story for Eden's Ridge came to be, and who is responsible for what bits of inspiration and knowledge?

Oh-that's a book in itself. But bits and pieces of the story: Linda and I first met in in 1985 at the gathering of faculty of the Tennessee Governor's Academy of teachers of writing. We clicked and that same night, we said we should write a book together. Finally, all these years later we did.

The more immediate story: Linda and I were having a gin and tonic at the bar where my husband bar-tended (the "Cheers" bar in Boston), and we started talking about how people are always hungry for a good love story. So that weekend, we drove to our place in Maine and began writing it. We started by writing a country song actually. Then we fleshed out the plot (which went through many changes but the heart stayed the same) and Linda went home to Tennessee. After that few days of writing together, we realized we had a good story line and continued to work on the idea through email, completing the first draft in about a month. The inspiration came from both--and it's hard to separate. For instance, we usually assigned each other scenes to write. Linda is best at setting and I have a knack for dialogue but we each write both. But we had this one scene early on where the main character moves to Nashville and we had decided that whichever of us had time would start that. Well, we both ended up writing the scene and when I started reading it to Linda (or vice versa--can't remember which) the other interrupted mid-point and said, "you aren't going to believe this"--we have both invented the character Gabby--to a T. It was spooky almost, but fun. But each scene we wrote, the other wrote into and over so we honestly don't have individual sections that each of us wrote. I think that's why it has its own voice and not mine per se, or hers. We have created a voice for M.L. Rose.

Book Club Chat: Interview with M.L. Rose (Linda Weeks and Myra McLarey)

Book Club Chat: Interview with M.L. Rose (Linda Weeks and Myra McLarey)

I feel like the underlying message of this story is to take a chance on love because if you don't you'll spend the rest of your life wishing you had. Were the characters able to live happily, even as halves of a whole? Sarah? Lilly? Ben?

Well, at this point, the reader knows the characters as well as we do, so they can flesh that out in their minds. But all of them are survivors, who--while the word happily might not fit--found ways to have rich lives--but with a huge gaping hole somewhere in their hearts. But they also have great memories that keep one going. I'm not sure that Lily did the wrong thing even--maybe it was the right thing. Maybe Ben did need to be free to live his life. It mostly means that choices are hard, but that looking back on the story, Lindsey decides to take the chance on love that Lilly--for noble and good and maybe wise reasons--did not. We hate to use a cliché like follow your dream, but that is a line that comes back full circle in this story.

Book Club Chat: Interview with M.L. Rose (Linda Weeks and Myra McLarey)

Book Club Chat: Interview with M.L. Rose (Linda Weeks and Myra McLarey)

Country music is just the perfect avenue for this kind of lost love tale. Many people look at country as "honky tonk," as Lilly calls it. Many also view it as a way to say what they can't with their own words, much like Ben. How do these two qualities meet in Lindsey?

Lindsey is like both of them. She inherited Ben's restlessness, his free-spirit--even though she doesn't know where it came from. She has Lilly's good sense and groundedness, to Maine, to land, to family. And, country music gives all those qualities and feelings a backdrop--a musical voice.

Book Club Chat: Interview with M.L. Rose (Linda Weeks and Myra McLarey)

Book Club Chat: Interview with M.L. Rose (Linda Weeks and Myra McLarey)

Death, longing, heartbreak...all heartrending situations. Did you want the story to reflect the stereotype of country music with so many personal tragedies for each character?

So in essence, you are saying that their lives became country songs so to speak, and I guess we did. There's a line that Ben says at the supper table I think about the universal nature of heart-break. And that's what we had in mind. In fact, a young woman (teacher) who recently read the story, wrote me and said it made her want to play the piano again, so she asked her mother to send her her classical music sheets.

But I (Myra) grew up on Country music--so it would be the music I would turn to to tell the story. I (Linda) have always loved the old country musicians and songs. There is, in fact, a song for any occasion. Play the first few chords of almost any song and we can both name that tune and sing most of the song. Linda did a lot of homework on the music scene in Nashville. I live in Nashville now but had no idea that would happen. Having come to know the scene and to frequent the Bluebird Café, I think she nailed it.

Book Club Chat: Interview with M.L. Rose (Linda Weeks and Myra McLarey)

Book Club Chat: Interview with M.L. Rose (Linda Weeks and Myra McLarey)

Is the point of Lindsey's story to help set to rights some of the things that went wrong in her family's past?

We're not sure what that means since we hesitate to say that things "went wrong" for these characters' lives. They set the action in motion by their own choices and then there was that chance of fate--mis-timing. The story is really about the hard choices people have to make and that sometimes, maybe, a lie is the right thing to do. GIVEN the time and the mindset of folks back in the early 1950s, Lilly and Sarah were courageous problem solvers. I think Lindsey learned the truth at exactly the right time in her life. She went through shock, anger, regret, and ultimately, I think she came to understand.

Book Club Chat: Interview with M.L. Rose (Linda Weeks and Myra McLarey)

Book Club Chat: Interview with M.L. Rose (Linda Weeks and Myra McLarey)

Do you have plans to write any more books? Together? Separate?

I have just finished my second "literary" novel. Linda has a novel that she is working works on between teaching and gardening and, and, and. We are talking about another one, but it won't be a sequel. When readers ask us what happens to Lindsey, we say, "That's for your imagination to decide."

Book Club Chat: Interview with M.L. Rose (Linda Weeks and Myra McLarey)