Author Q&A: 'The Gods of Green County,' by Mary Elizabeth Pope to be published Oct. 5

Needham author and college English professor Mary Elizabeth Pope is out with a new novel on Oct. 5, titled "The Gods of Green County" and published by Blair.

Although Pope now lives in Massachusetts with her husband, she grew up in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. Pope earned a B.S. and M.A. in English from Central Michigan University and a Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing from the University of Iowa. She is a full-time professor at Emmanuel College in Boston, where she teaches Creative Writing.

In addition to "The Gods of Green County," she has written a collection of short fiction called "Divining Venus: Stories," published by The Waywiser Press.

When she's not teaching or writing, she enjoys walking, reading and traveling.

Name: Mary Elizabeth Pope 

Hometown: Mt. Pleasant, Michigan 

Current town: Needham, Mass.

Age: 49 

Family: I live in Massachusetts with my husband now, but I grew up in Michigan, the child of one parent who grew up on the border between Arkansas and Missouri, and one who grew up in Rhode Island. 

Who is your favorite author?:   

I have a lot of favorite authors, but given that I read "The House of Mirth" over and over, I’ll say Edith Wharton.   

Please tell us something about yourself that most people don’t know:   

My public persona, which I’ve often been told seems outgoing, belies the fact that I am so introverted my husband jokes I’m practically agoraphobic. He’s not wrong. I’m one of those people who was naturally suited to home quarantine during the worst of the pandemic. 

What inspired you to write "The Gods of Green County"? 

Two legal cases in my family are the basis of the novel, the backdrop for which is Depression-era rural Arkansas and Missouri. My father’s hometown had a history as a frontier town, and a lot of business was still accomplished using guns during the Depression, so it was an organic source of drama. 

Please tell us about the book:  

The key character around which the story unfolds is Coralee, a wife and mother whose brother has been killed under suspicious circumstances by a local sheriff. She suffers from hallucinations, and her husband, Earl, finally requests a sanity hearing for her because he fears she will harm their young son. But Leroy, the county judge who must rule on her sanity, was once the lawyer who represented the sheriff who killed Coralee’s brother. His regrets about representing the sheriff are immense, but the decision he ultimately makes in ruling on her sanity has far-reaching consequences for every character in the book.   

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How long did it take you to write the book?  

My novel began as a series of poems published in Arkansas Review in 2011, but I think I’ve been writing it my entire life. My father’s hometown and upbringing were so fascinating to me, because they were so different from mine and from my mother’s, which were different again from my own.   

What did you find the most challenging about writing your latest book or writing in general?  

The most challenging thing about writing for me is finding time to do it.  But it was also difficult because at a certain point I’d given years to the novel and it was hard to maintain faith that someone would publish it.  So many novels — wonderful novels —never get published, and I had to try and set that fact aside or I’d never have finished it.   

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If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in the book?   

Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t.  Writing a novel is bit like a game of Jenga — each part leans on the others, and if you pull on one, the whole structure can fall apart. 

What other writing projects are you working on?   

The novel idea I’m toying with now takes on the world of my mother’s grandparents in the country club set in New England. Class differences are an interest of mine (hence my fascination with Edith Wharton) probably because I was raised very middle class, by parents who come from two different ends of the economic spectrum.  Martin Scorcese has said of his adaptation of Edith Wharton’s "The Age of Innocence" that the manners and social codes of old New York were as vicious as the weapons used in the mafia world he knew growing up. It’s that kind of drama I’m considering as a subject now. 

Are you able to make a living as an author?  

I couldn’t live off what I make as a writer at the moment. My full-time job is as a professor at Emmanuel College, where I teach Creative Writing.   

What is your writing process? What is a typical day like for you?   

There is nothing typical about my writing days, especially during the academic year, when I use whatever time I can eke out to write between my responsibilities as a faculty member. During the summer, I tend to work right after breakfast. If it’s not going well, I stop after a couple of hours. If it’s going well, I never look up until my husband knocks on the door of my study at 9 p.m. and says, “Um, what should we do about dinner?” I am often shocked that it got dark outside and I never noticed. 

What advice do you have for other writers?   

Do whatever you have to do in order not to give up, even if there are long periods of time that pass when you’re not writing.  You’ll get somewhere as long as you don’t give up. And it’s easy to give up. Rejection is a huge part of being a writer.  You have to learn to take it on the chin and keep going. 

What do you hope people learn from your book?   

I’m writing about a part of the country most people know nothing about, and about which few books have been written, because most jobs in the area are agricultural and school breaks were scheduled not around summer and the holidays, but planting and harvest seasons. My grandparents only made it through third grade. Not a lot of writers came out of that environment, so if readers come away with a sense of the atmosphere of the place and time in which the novel is set, I’ll feel I’ve done my job. 

Nancy Olesin may be reached at nolesin@wickedlocal.com or follow her on Twitter @WickedLocalArts .

Meet author Mary Elizabeth Pope

WHEN: 6 p.m. Oct. 13

WHERE: Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St., Coolidge Corner, Brookline

REGISTER: https://tinyurl.com/yrrfdnbv