We chat with author Paulette Kennedy about The Artist of Blackberry Grange, which follows a young caregiver in the Ozarks, where an old house holds haunting memories in this ghostly novel about family secrets, sacrifice, and lost loves.
What inspired you to write THE ARTIST OF BLACKBERRY GRANGE?
I had lots of inspirations–but ultimately this story of a young caregiver, Sadie, who finds her path through grief by caring for her great-aunt Marguerite, was inspired by my own experiences as a caregiver to both of my parents. While they were afflicted by very different, challenging illnesses toward the end of their lives, it occurred to me how often they reminisced about their youthful years–way before me and my sister were ever in the picture. As they spoke to me about their fondest memories, and their regrets, I was struck by the fact that while our bodies and minds may betray us, our essence—our spirit—remains the same, throughout our lives. And so, I wanted to write a novel honoring that and how the events of the past create a framework for the future, with a gothic, supernatural twist.
Why did you choose to include a time-slip element in the novel?
The time-slips enabled me to show Marguerite’s past and her youth in a way that was also accessible to Sadie, who uses the enchanted paintings as a portal. These time-slip interludes work as a frame narrative in the novel and give clues to the reader about what Marguerite experienced as a young woman, and the trauma that’s still affecting her. Plus, it was a fun challenge to create a time-slip story. Keeping track of all the narrative threads sometimes made my head hurt, but ultimately, I’m proud that I pushed myself in a new direction.
There is a tradition of toxic love interests in gothic fiction. How do you incorporate this idea in THE ARTIST OF BLACKBERRY GRANGE?
I’ve always been fascinated by how heroines in gothic fiction are often drawn to heroes with troubled pasts and toxic, abusive behavior that our modern sensibilities would be averse to, although there’s been a recent uptick with antagonistic, “Byronic” heroes in dark romance, and I’m seeing a lot of these traits resurface. In Sadie’s case, the loss of her father at a young age, her approval-seeking personality, and the fact that she finds herself orphaned in her twenties, all contribute to her becoming vulnerable to the predation of older men with unsavory designs. This is a novel about cycle-breaking, and Sadie must come to terms with how her past informs her troubled romantic relationships.
Can you explain how the choices characters make in the past trickle down to the present in the novel?
Especially with Marguerite and her sisters, the choices they make as young women influence their descendants in various ways. Selfishness is a trait in the Thorne family– something that the reader will see play out in the novel. But there’s a good deal of sacrifice as well. At the core of the Thorne women’s self-centeredness is a great need to be seen, to be heard, to be allowed to be oneself. The choices they make are a reflection of society’s constraints as well as the unaddressed narcissism that trickles down from generation to generation–the veneer of respectability at all costs, hiding the rot at the core.
Who was your favorite character to write in the novel?
I love all of my characters, but I think Florence was my favorite to write. She’s so awful, in many ways, but I can also relate to her as an eldest daughter–the expectations that you must be a good example for your sisters, a paragon of virtue and responsibility, etc. Even though she’s the golden child of the Thorne family, she never truly gets what she wants. And I find that incredibly tragic.
If you could go back in time and change anything in your life – or the choices you made in the past – would you? Why or why not?
I’ve thought about this a lot, as a woman entering her 50th year! The retrospective of my life is just beginning to come into focus. There are some things I regret, of course. You don’t make it through life without some regrets. And I suppose if it wouldn’t completely alter the trajectory of mine or my loved ones’ lives, there are some things I’d change. Like Sadie, I’ve experienced a lot of loss at a relatively young age, and it never gets easier to lose those you love. If I could change anything, it would be more time with those I’ve lost.
You often create strong heroines and write about female empowerment in your novels, and THE ARTIST OF BLACKBERRY GRANGE is no exception. Tell us about your two female leads – Sadie and her great aunt Marguerite, from where they get their strength, and if they are based on anyone real.
Sadie and Marguerite get a lot of their strength from what they’ve endured and what they’ve learned from their mistakes. There are so many parallels between them. While they aren’t based on anyone real, they are an amalgamation of what I’ve observed in my own family history—the secrets kept and the choices made, and how those actions impact every generation that follows. Cycle breaking is difficult, and Marguerite and Sadie are both cycle-breakers, which sets them apart and makes them the “black sheep” of their families, but I enjoy telling stories about outliers and renegades.
This is your fourth novel after Parting the Veil, The Witch of Tin Mountain, and The Devil and Mrs. Davenport. How is your new novel like your other books and how is it different?
All of my books have a thread running through them: how the traumas and choices of the past—the hidden secrets whispered about in the shadows—manifest in the lives of my main characters. All of my heroines are flawed women. They make mistakes–wrong turns, false starts, and foolish choices. But I’m not interested in perfection. I’m interested in seeing how broken people put themselves back together again. That’s the core theme running through all of my books. The ghosts, the curses, the haunted houses are symbolic of the emotional state of my characters and make for a fun atmosphere to explore the deeper themes of loss, redemption, and second chances. We are all haunted houses.
