BookScapes #2

Someone Always Nearby: An Origin Story

Several people have asked me about the beginnings of the O’Keeffe novel that’s coming out in November. I’ll do that here, and be available for your questions in the comment section of this post. It’s a bit of a long story, though, so if you might want to grab a coffee and settle in.

As you may know, Someone is the fourth in my series of historical-biographical novels about “hidden women,” women who stood behind and supported more recognizable people: Rose Wilder Lane, who co-wrote her mother’s Little House books; Lorena Hickok, the journalist who helped Eleanor Roosevelt find her voice; Kay Summersby, Dwight Eisenhower’s military aide and lover; and—in this novel—Maria Chabot, Georgia O’Keeffe’s woman-of-all-trades. In writing biographical fiction, I want to tell an engaging story that is nuanced enough to represent the layered complexities and contradictions of lives fully lived, but I stay as close to the documented facts of the characters’ lives as I can. I try to imagine the lives …