Cassandra asked Anna Quinn:

Just finished The Night Child—deeply absorbing, thank you! I was curious about your choice to set the "present day" story in the nineties. I loved that, and think you captured the time and place very well and evocatively. (As someone who would've been 15ish in 1997 in western Washington, it all rang true for me.) What influenced your decision to set The Night Child when you did?

Anna Quinn Dear Cassandra, Thank you for reading The Night Child and for your kind words, also your interesting question. I set TNC in the nineties because I didn't want to have technology as character. It was so important for me to give Nora and Margaret a voice—they'd been silenced for so long, that I wanted to invite readers into the theater without any tech distractions. Setting TNC in the 90's allowed me to also place Maeve in a time (1963) when there was very little therapeutic support—abuse, any abuse just wasn’t talked about...and without support Maeve continued to believe that the child was at fault, the child must be doing something provocative to entice the father—which became another layer of betrayal for Nora to cope with. Hope this helps—Anna

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