Virginia Hume
Author Interview - Virginia Hume
Author of Haven Point
“Since the late 19th century, the Demarest family has spent summers on Haven Point, a remote enclave on the Maine coast. The novel focuses on three generations of Demarest women - Maren, her daughter Anne, and Anne's daughter Skye - each of whom struggles with feelings of alienation from the insular summer colony.
Maren eventually makes her peace with the community, but at the end of the summer of 1970, her seventeen-year-old daughter "Annie" leaves Haven Point and vows never to return, a promise she keeps until her untimely death nearly forty years later. Maren knows her granddaughter sees Haven Point through Anne's eyes, as snobbish and petty. Skye has no reason to question what seems like a straightforward culture clash between her bohemian art teacher mother and the hidebound summer colony.
There was much that Skye did not know, however, and through the interwoven narratives of grandmother and granddaughter, the full story emerges. The novel spans seven decades of a changing America - through wars and storms, betrayals and reconciliations, births and deaths. Through her mother's eyes, we meet young Annie, a charismatic, creative, impulsive, and mostly joyful child - and through her daughter's, the adult Anne, still creative and impulsive, but also deeply troubled.
As Anne Demarest told her art students: "Everything depends on the quality and direction of light." Haven Point is an often heart-rending exploration of the ways in which our lives and perspectives can be damaged by grief, shame, fear, and pride. Ultimately, however, it is a meditation on the healing power of forgiveness.”
Author Interview - Virginia Hume
Author I draw inspiration from: The list of authors who have inspired me with their mastery of the craft of writing is endless, so in a slight twist on the idea of "inspiration," I'll name Steven Pressfield. I stumbled across his book "Do the Work" early in the process of writing Haven Point, and found it enormously helpful. His lessons can be applied to any creative endeavor, but they are absolutely spot-on for writers.
Author Interview - Virginia Hume
Favorite place to read a book: Lying on my front porch swing, dog at my feet. Or, more precisely, ON my feet. I subscribe to the Scandinavian theory that "there's no bad weather, just bad clothing," so I'm out there all year round. (Well, except August. If the Scandinavians ever spent an August in Washington, D.C., they'd have to revisit their theory).
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with: Topaz Mortmain, the bohemian stepmother in Dodie Smith's "I Capture the Castle," would be great company. Between her lute playing, communing with nature, bizarre sartorial choices, mysterious past, what more could you want?
Well, I suppose at some point, you might want to get the elevator going again. As Topaz and I are not exactly STEM scholars, it might be nice to also have Rosalind Porter on board. Rosalind, the heroine of Jennie Fields' "Atomic Love," is a physicist who works on the Manhattan project, and I'm sure would be up to the task.
Author Interview - Virginia Hume
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author: When I was young, I loved to write. Whenever I sent a thank-you note to a relative or family friend, I would include a little "bonus poem" at the end. (I've seen some of these in recent years, and candidly, they're horrible. It's a testament to my mother's love that she actually encouraged this habit). In school, I always felt a bit hemmed in by writing assignments, which offered so little creative elbow room.
While I did not have one "aha!" moment, I do have two vivid memories - one from high school, and one from college - which reacquainted me with my childhood love of writing. The first was the underground newspaper that two high school friends and I co-wrote. I remember when we held the copies of our first edition, which we'd surreptitiously copied at the bank where one of my co-writer's mother worked. We returned to school, and as we surreptitiously placed copies under the windshield wipers of our friends' cars, we promised one another we would NEVER tell anyone we were behind this rather antic and gossipy publication. That night, we went to a party and discovered that people were buzzing about our pet project. Our classmates seemed to think it was hilarious and were speculating about who might have written it. In the face of such flattering feedback, our vow of silence lasted about two minutes before we burst out: "It was US! WE wrote it!"
The second experience was the final paper for my American Social History class in college. We were to write about an American family - our own, or someone else's. I had never known much about my mother's side of the family, so I wrote my grandfather a series of questions, which he promptly answered. Had I been faithful to what he sent me, it would have made a perfectly fine paper, but at some point it occurred to me that my professor would have no way to know if I embellished a bit. The result (which, as usual, I was working on until about five minutes before it was due), was very dramatic, and almost entirely fanciful, about my grandparents. I depicted my grandmother as a sheltered girl from a puritanical old Connecticut family, and my grandfather as a dashing, reckless, nouveaux riche rake. I folded in all kinds of ridiculous characters, all invented from whole cloth, but which allowed me to incorporate the various themes we'd covered in the class. In my telling, my grandparents were fatally unsuited, and the combustible pairing led inexorably to a tragic end.
I got an "A." My grandfather was thrilled and wanted to see the paper, so after writing this 15-page opus, I had to write an entire decoy version for his eyes.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook: All of the above, but e-book in bed, so I can enlarge the font and shed my reading glasses.
The last book I read: "To Be Young Was Very Heaven" by Marion Lawrence Peabody - research for my second novel, which will be set during the gilded age.
Author Interview - Virginia Hume
Pen & paper or computer: Both. I type drafts, but I think "out loud" with pen and paper, scribblings that, to anyone else, would look completely demented.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with: Easy - I wrote her! Adriene Maduros from Haven Point. She's clever, funny, and utterly fearless.
Author Interview - Virginia Hume
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a: I'm a bit more in touch with what I *wouldn't* be. That list is long, but professional organizer, dog trainer and personal chef are near the top.
Favorite decade in fashion history: 1950s. Fit and flare dresses!
Place I’d most like to travel: I'm itching to visit the Scottish border territories, where the Hume family is originally from.
My signature drink: double shot of espresso
Favorite artist: Winslow Homer, who so aptly captured the beauty and drama of the Maine coast, where he had a studio.
Number one on my bucket list: I knew I forgot something! Number one: make a bucket list. :-)
Anything else you'd like to add: Thank you!
Find more from the author:
https://www.instagram.com/virginiahume/
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https://twitter.com/virginiahume
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19052942.Virginia_Hume
Author Bio: Virginia graduated from Vanderbilt University with a Bachelor’s Degree in History. She spent the first few years of her career in marketing before she was bitten by the political bug, after which she spent a couple of decades in politics and public affairs communications. They say truth is stranger than fiction. At some point, she decided politics had gotten a little TOO strange, and she turned to fiction. She lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland with her husband, two daughters, and Chester, a delusional 11-pound bichon who thinks he's a German Shepherd.
