The first question folks often ask a novelist is about their book’s inspirations. How did you come up with the idea? Is this a true story about you? What inspired the book? Often I tell people a fictional story is a compilation of truth and made up details. I might find a person’s quirk interesting and include them in a work. One of life’s perplexities might have been niggling at my brain for many years, and it ends up in some form in a novel. Often I take a...