Life toughens them. And I think through the process of that, they look to one another, even when maybe they're rebelling against one another, or who they come from. They're just thrown together because they need one another. And I think that really was one of the drivers for me, is just sort of following their relationships, as sometimes, they're battered about by the literal winds of the world.
You know, this book is very much about mothers and daughters and their relationship to one another. And I also think it's about belief and faith and questions of what happens to you when, you know, you're told that there is a certain way to live your life, and that you end up being rejected by that faith even as you're rejecting it. And I think in a lot of ways, Justine's arc over the course of the novel is of someone who's haunted by questions of faith and belief.
Now, I have a daughter and I grew up like Reney when I was little, I slept with my great-grandmother a whole lot. We just had these generational bonds, and having a daughter who is growing up away from her grandmother is something that weighs on me. This story was produced for radio by Danny Hensel and Hadeel Al-Shalchi, and adapted for the Web by Petra Mayer.