Kelly asked Chris Bohjalian:

I belong to a bookclub and we are set to read CLOSE YOUR EYES, HOLD HANDS. I read it the week it came out. I found this novel very prolific. I also thought it was different from some of your books. Where did you come up with the different aspects of this book. For example: nuclear meltdowns, homelessness, tragic teenagers etc.

Chris Bohjalian Hello, Kelly,

Thanks so much for reading -- and please thank your book group for me. I am always so flattered when a book group reads one of my novels.

I actually don't view the novel as a departure. When my 20-year-old daughter, Grace, finished reading the first draft, she said, “Dad, please take this as a compliment, because I mean it that way: Your sweet spot as a novelist is seriously messed up young women.”

I know she’s right -- think of Laurel in THE DOUBLE BIND or Hatoun in THE SANDCASTLE GIRLS or Connie in MIDWIVES or Serafina in THE LIGHT IN THE RUINS -- which brings me back to the novel’s origins.

Over the years, I’ve written about teens in trouble as a Burlington Free Press columnist. I’m a big fan of Spectrum Youth & Family Services in Burlington, Vermont and the remarkable work they do. And so I’ve met a lot of their kids. I’ve heard the teens’ stories and seen their faces. I’ve met the kids who are going to be okay, and the kids who are already so far down the rabbit hole that there’s no coming back.

One day when I was having lunch with Annie Ramniceanu, a therapist and counselor who used to work there, she started telling me how some of the kids – the teens who are falling through the system – would build igloos against the Vermont cold out of trash bags filled with wet leaves, and I knew instantly the novel I wanted to write.

The very idea of a teen girl living alone in one of those igloos broke my heart. That image haunted me – and spurred me on.

Emily Dickinson soon followed. I love her work. I went to college in Amherst, where she lived and wrote, and so I’ve always felt a totemic connection to her. And when I knew where the novel was headed, I could see why my poor Emily Shepard – the self-proclaimed Belle of Reddington – might come to depend on her.

And the nuclear meltdown? I wanted a reason for a typical, suburban teen to wind up on the streets.

I hope this helps. It's a great question.

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