Ask the Author: Harriet Lane
Answered Questions (2)
Harriet Lane
Thank you so much. I'm deep into the third book; think the end is in sight. Watch this space!
Harriet Lane
Hello! There are clues throughout, but they take different readers in different directions. There are several different interpretations, and none of them are wrong, as far as I'm concerned.
I was always writing towards that scene. I knew before I started that the book would end exactly there, in that situation, with that particular question mark. I'm wary of spoilers but I guess we can agree that there's an undercurrent of unease and apprehension running throughout the book. Perhaps I liked the idea of ending the book at the moment when that anxiety is at its peak. The books I love best seem to get under my skin and bother me long after I've finished them. Often these are books with an element of ambiguity to them (The Little Stranger, Legend of a Suicide and The Haunting of Hill House in particular). I find ambiguity so powerful, more powerful (and somehow more true) than everything being neatly resolved.
Of course I always knew some readers would hate that ambiguity. All I can say is, I write the sort of books I want to read, and this was the ending I knew I wanted before I even started writing.
I was always writing towards that scene. I knew before I started that the book would end exactly there, in that situation, with that particular question mark. I'm wary of spoilers but I guess we can agree that there's an undercurrent of unease and apprehension running throughout the book. Perhaps I liked the idea of ending the book at the moment when that anxiety is at its peak. The books I love best seem to get under my skin and bother me long after I've finished them. Often these are books with an element of ambiguity to them (The Little Stranger, Legend of a Suicide and The Haunting of Hill House in particular). I find ambiguity so powerful, more powerful (and somehow more true) than everything being neatly resolved.
Of course I always knew some readers would hate that ambiguity. All I can say is, I write the sort of books I want to read, and this was the ending I knew I wanted before I even started writing.
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