Lauren Acampora Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Interview

Lauren Acampora discusses The Wonder Garden, her return to suburbia and how it has impacted her writing.

What made you want to write about the dark side of American suburbia?

It's funny - I don't know that I set out to write about the dark side of suburbia, or even suburbia, per se. In fact, the book started out as something very different. And yet the town of Old Cranbury did become critical to these stories, the nucleus shared by all the characters, almost a character itself. Isolation, anxiety and intolerance exist in every human setting, of course - urban, suburban or rural - but the straight answer to why these stories take place in suburbia is that it's what I know best, and what I see every day.

I grew up in a town much like Old Cranbury, and now live in a suburban town in Westchester County, New York. My hometown was, in a sense, a paradise - my mother called it "La La Land" - where financial inequality was nearly invisible, and easily forgotten. The town was such an extreme example of privileged living that it served as a kind of lightning rod for its residents. Some of the people I grew up with were rabidly proud of living there, while others disdained it and couldn't get away fast enough. This kind of town, like all human attempts at paradise, continues to fascinate me - and I am intrigued by how various types of ...