7 Questions with Kelly Rimmer
Historically — pun totally intended — I’ve found historical fiction to be a bit...dry. And then I read The Things You Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer.
Brisk and meaningful and painfully real, her work jumped off the page and into my heart.
And now, much to my delight, she’s back, with a new historical fiction title, Truths I Never Told You.
Recently, we had the opportunity to ask Rimmer some questions about her life and her writing. We’re delighted to give you the opportunity to get to know her a little bit before you dive into her newest read.
1. What's your favorite drink?
I love coffee! It’s both my superpower and my weakness!
2. Where and when do you write?
I can write anywhere. I’ve written in the car while my kids are at sports, on planes and in airports, in food courts and in cafes and on trains. I find clarity of thought when I write early in the day, but also find late-night writing sessions very useful for building momentum. I think meeting challenging deadlines when I had a day job and young family to juggle too trained me to write whenever and wherever the opportunity arises.
3. What does your prewriting process look like?
Well, first I prepare the all-important coffee, and then I find the right music. I have a collection of playlists that I cycle through until I find one which matches my mood or sometimes the mood of what I need to write. But beyond that – I really do just sit at the keyboard and try to get words down as fast as I can. I write my first drafts in a rush, and then take my time refining and polishing them.
4. What's up next?
I’m working on a novel which will be released in mid-2021. It’s another historical – set in Warsaw during and immediately after World War 2.
5. This novel felt deeply personal. Where did the idea for this story come from?
The very first seed of the idea that became this story was just a random piece of information I read in an article - that one in five women will suffer from postpartum depression after the birth of a child. I started to wonder about this condition that is so common, but so rarely discussed. Right from the outset, I wanted to write from the perspective of women battling with their mental health as they also tried to parent very young children.
6. One of the strengths I commented on in my review was your ability to manage the large cast of characters that populated this book. Is there one character that you like or identify with the most? If so, why?
I don’t ever base individual characters on real people, but the dynamic that underpins the relationship Beth and her siblings share is modeled on my own relationships with my sisters and brother. We aren’t nearly as close in age as the Walsh siblings, but we have the same playful interactions when we come together, and we both drive each crazy and remain very close.
7. *SPOILER ALERT* I think part of the reason this novel refuses to let me go is because there remain lingering questions. Specifically, questions pertaining to what happened to Grace on that fateful day. When you were writing the novel, or even after, did you decide what happened to Grace, or are you just as in the dark in regards to her final hours as your readers are?
I actually have a very clear picture in my mind about Grace’s disappearance and I did consider writing those scenes into the book. The sad reality of those days was that women would often be injured or murdered during backyard abortions, and the secrecy and the shame meant those women could just be disappeared. So many families lost beloved sisters or daughters or mothers that way, and those families rarely got to understand exactly what had happened to their loved ones. That’s why I decided that just like for Maryanne, readers would only get to follow Grace’s journey until she left in the back of that car
Check out these reads by Kelly Rimmer:
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