Interview

Lori Lansens discusses the the inspiration and origin for her novel, The Girls, about two sisters born joined at the head.

As a novelist, I'm frequently asked where I get my ideas. The question is a challenge for me because I don't really get ideas. I get characters. I have the odd sense there's a world beyond this one where my fictional characters reside, going about their dramatically rich lives until it's time for me to write their stories. When it's time (such as determined by them — not me), I invite the characters, though they sometimes come unbidden, to step through the curtain and sit with me at the desk. "Reveal yourself," I instruct, while my fingers beat a rhythm on the keyboard.

Rose and Ruby Darlen, the dual narrators of The Girls, didn't just step through the curtain, though. They charged through it in all their brilliant conjoined glory. But only after shouting at me from the window of their ramshackle farmhouse. And waving madly from their spot on the bridge over the creek. And screaming from Frankie's basement, where that unimaginable thing happens.

My first novel, Rush Home Road, was launched just a few weeks before I gave birth to my second child, a daughter. She came on the book tour with me, as did my son, two and a half years old at the time. My little boy (who couldn't ...