Dee asked Chris Bohjalian:

Hi, I enjoyed your book The Guest Room. This question keeps popping up in my mind. Did you ever think of a different ending for the book?

Chris Bohjalian Earlier this month when I was speaking at R.J. Julia in Madison, CT -- a great bookstore -- one of the booksellers said, "Going all the way to back to Midwives, I love the way your endings make me gasp."

Certainly that's a goal.

And the other night at the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington, VT -- a great library -- a reader asked me, "Do you feel an obligation to give a reader a 'happily ever after ending'?"

I said no. I feel only an obligation to give a reader an ending that makes sense and is authentic, because a lot of life is not about a "happily ever after."

Those two points noted, here is what I think most about when I am contemplating the ending of one of my novels: that razor thin line that sometimes exists between heartbreak and hope. And that, I believe, is what keeps readers turning the pages of my books. There is a sense of dread (which I love in fiction and drama and film), and readers are wondering whether they will be greeted at the end by. . .heartbreak or hope.

Great question. Thanks for asking.

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