Author Confessions: Kerri Maher
On taking twenty years to publish a novel, her latest book and how characters sometimes audition for the part.
Kerri Maher has written about a range of subjects since she began her publishing career in 2018, but her novels all share one thing: They began with a great question. I became familiar with Kerri’s work when she published her first novel The Kennedy Debutante, called a “riveting tale of forbidden love” by People, but I’ve been dying to read her most recent book All You Have to Do is Call after hearing about it on NPR. The Washington Post called it “remarkable.” Ahem, yes!
All You Have to Do is Call is a story about three women volunteering for the Jane Collective, a real underground network of women that helped other women get access to safe, illegal abortions in the 1970s. One of the characters, Veronica, is a seemingly traditional housewife in the suburbs of Chicago, but she leads a double life, working at the collective while straining to run a household. At the collective, she meets Margaret, a professor at the University of Chicago, and Patty, who unexpectedly finds herself facing some tough questions about reproductive rights when her runaway sister turns up with a problem.
It’s a super compelling story, and the book came out in paperback earlier this summer. I asked Kerri to come say hello from her own corner of Substack; she writes a great newsletter called Sandcastles With Kerri Maher.
Welcome to Dear Fiction, Kerri! We’re so excited to have you!
Let’s begin with my favorite question. What was the spark for this novel?
First of all, thank you so much for having me, Brooke! I just finished All the Summers in Between and loved it so much for its portrayal of rich, textured female friendship.
And now, your question: I was driving to meet a friend for a movie in 2018, and listening to NPR as I tend to do, when a feature story about the real-life women of the Jane Collective came on. I got totally absorbed - here were these very young women in Chicago in the late 60s and early 70s who started referring friends to safe abortion providers around the city, and slowly getting more involved in the process until they eventually took over the entire operation to become an underground women-operated reproductive health clinic. Not only did they provide safe and affordable abortions, they are provided pap smears, STD testing, and birth control counseling.
As soon as I stopped the car, I looked to see if anyone else had written a novel about them - amazingly, no one had, and I knew in that moment that I would.
I think the challenge in writing this particular book is taking an issue and real life people and creating characters that make for a good book. How did you go about finding the arc for the book and figuring out where to begin and end?
Almost as soon as I knew I wanted to write about the Jane Collective, I also knew I wanted to do it in an entirely fictional way. All You Have to Do is Call is not biographical fiction like my first three historical novels. This is a “loosely based” story, and so I had the freedom to invent the characters and their arcs. Veronica, Patty, and Margaret pretty much walked on stage in my mind as a trio and said, we’d like the audition for the parts, please. Boy, did they have stories to tell! And that was that.
As you were writing this book, the political climate has changed. How did you write a book that women on all sides of the abortion debate would want to read? Or did you write a book that’s unapologetic in what it’s about?
While reproductive justice is certainly at the heart of this novel, as is the brave feminist activism of the 1970s, I never wanted this to read like an “issue novel.” I am always guided by my characters, and believe that what invests readers in a story is wondering what will happen to these people who become part of our lives for the time it takes to read the book (and often well after). If all three of my narrators wanted the same thing, or believed the same thing, where would the complexity, fun, and emotional investment be in that?
What has been your most emotional moment as a writer, whether it was good or bad?
On my very, very long road to becoming a published novelist (I wrote my first unpublished novel at 22, and sold my first at 42!), I’d say that my worst most emotional moment was when an editor at a big NYC house asked for a revision of a YA paranormal I’d written (back in 2005-ish), then rejected it after a lot of hard work on my part.
But the absolute best moment, and probably the MOST emotional moment was when I got my first offer to publish The Kennedy Debutante. It was amazing and made all the other disappointments before it feel worthwhile. I danced around my living room to “Walking On Sunshine” - truly, positive energy like that is so much more powerful than negative. And there’s something about success after a long period of struggle that makes it all the sweeter.
Is there a part of this book that you feel as though you really nailed? A scene, a piece of dialogue, a character that you feel as though you really got right?
I am especially proud of a moment toward the end of the book where Margaret has a conversation with her boyfriend’s young daughter about the girl’s mother, Joan of Arc, and “witches" bring heroes.
What is the single worst piece of writing advice you ever received? What is the best piece of writing advice you have for readers?
Worst: This is actually tough. Most advice I’ve gotten has been useful in some way. Even “write every day,” which is totally unrealistic for most people, contains a kernel of truth: in order to get a novel written, you need to be dipping in consistently and frequently. If that’s every day, great. If it’s once a week, great. If you step away for too long, then you double your work time because you have to go back and remember where you left off.
My best advice: FIND YOUR PEOPLE. The writing life is long and hard but totally worth it, and you need other writers you can call who will read your drafts, tell you the truth, cheer you on, and hand you the tissues. And you’ll do the same for them. Where do you find these writers? Take classes (check out Grub Street and Gotham Writers for online classes you can take anywhere or look at your local community center catalogue); post on bulletin boards that you’re starting a writers’ group; go to conferences; join societies appropriate to your genre.
Lastly, is there a particular theme you return to in all of your novels? An obsession? A certain question you can’t get away from? For example, I often say that the theme I often return to is my books are often about women finding the courage to go to the people they love and ask for what they need.
I love that, Brooke, and women really do need to be reminded that it’s a STRENGTH for us to ask for what we need.
I think the question that tends to guide my books follows this template: Why did [this woman] do [this extraordinary thing]? For Kennedy, that meant “Why did Kick Kennedy defy her famous family to marry the Duke of Devonshire?” For Girl in White Gloves it was, “Why did Grace Kelly give up Hollywood for Monaco?” For Paris Bookseller, it was, “Why did Sylvia Beach open Shakespeare and Company, and why did she make the choices she did around Joyce’s Ulysses?” For All You Have to Do Is Call, it was, “Why did each of these women make the reproductive choice/s they made?”
Thank you again for having me, Brooke! And I’ll just put in a plug for MY interview with YOU,
which is part of a Substack series called “Authors Over 40” for which I interview authors whose first novels pubbed after their 40th birthdays. There are a lot of us!
What a great Q&A with Kerri. And now I'm checkinuthors Over 40... I was well into my 5th decade when my first memoir was published. I too danced around the living room when I got the call.
Thank you so much for having me, Brooke!!