Interview

Jane Hamilton discusses whether the two devastating incidents at the heart of A Map of the World are based on real events, and she shares which authors have most influenced her.

Are the two devastating incidents at the heart of A Map of the World based on real events?
Both are based on real events. The drowning was the first kernel of the book: I knew a little boy about my son's age who drowned in his family's swimming pool. The death haunted me and I knew it would eventually come through in my writing. I had the first third of the book written for a long time, and I knew Alice was going to get in trouble because of the drowning, but I couldn't see how she was going to make peace with herself. I wrote the equivalent of three novels trying to come up with various solutions--all failures--but I was determined not to leave her forever in her dilemma. In 1990 I came across an article about Kelly Michaels (she was convicted of abusing scores of children at a day care center) and quite soon after that I saw a documentary about a similar situation involving a couple in North Carolina. Both the writer and the filmmaker believed their subjects were innocent and had gotten swept up in a witch hunt. The accused were in a predicament that was so horrifying I resisted writing about it, but I felt keenly that it was something that could happen to any of us. Living as I do--on the outskirts...