KathArine Davis, author of A Slender Thread, is our Featured Author!

In KathArine Davis' latest novel, A Slender Thread, a devastating illness reveals the complexity of the relationship between two very different sisters. Read our interview with this talented author!

CommitmentNow.com:  A Slender Thread is a beautifully written and engaging story of two sisters, Lacey and Margo, and the ties that bind them.  For their entire lives, each woman has played a different role in the relationship.  Lacey is the perfect older sister with a handsome husband, two teenage daughters and a creativity that manifests itself in the beautiful fabrics she weaves.  Margo is the younger sister whose life in New York City with her art gallery job, her older boyfriend and a history of mistakes, is a little less perfect.  Margot has always known that Lacey would keep her safe, and Lacey’s home in a small town in New Hampshire has served as a refuge for Margo.  The discovery that Lacey has a rare disease that is stealing her ability to use language reveals the complexity of the relationship between the two sisters; and it is almost as if it takes the loss of Lacey’s voice for Margo to find her own.  How did you first come up with such an original idea?

KathArine Davis:  A few years ago I met a woman who suffered from Primary Progressive Aphasia.  She was the college roommate of a dear friend of mine.  I was working on another novel at the time, but I couldn’t get this “real life” story out of my mind.  I began to think about the idea of “voice” and what it means –not just physical voice, but artistic voice.  As I got to know the characters in A Slender Thread, I saw how the relationships within the family changed as Lacey learned to live with her illness.  The fact that as Lacey lost her physical voice while Margot found her artistic voice evolved as I wrote the novel.  In a strange way, the characters themselves “gave” me that idea.

CommitmentNow.com:  In A Slender Thread, a rare disease is causing Lacey to lose her ability to speak.  And although A Slender Thread is written from several perspectives, is it never from Lacey’s.  Why did you structure the book that way?
KathArine:  I made a conscious decision not to enter into Lacey’s thoughts.  The reader is never given her point of view. We see her actions, but by keeping her “silent,” she  remains the focal point of the novel.  We, like Alex, Margot, and Oliver, remain outside her innermost thoughts.  I thought that not giving Lacey a point of view, or voice, made the novel a more interesting experience for the reader.

CommitmentNow.com:  Lacey is a weaver, and each chapter starts with a definition of a word related to weaving, which word applies as much to the bond between Lacey and Margot as it does about weaving.  What experiences lead you to the idea of weaving as a metaphor?

KathArine:  I love this question and I tried to have each definition relate in some way to what was going on in the chapter.  I would have to say that the last chapter “Tapestry: A woven cloth sometimes depicting a story” would apply most to the bond between Lacey and Margot.  In a sense their lives as girls, young women, and mature adults, exist as a tapestry where thousands of threads are woven together to create their story as sisters.  Weaving is an ancient art, one most often done by women.  It is both practical –the creation of cloth –and beautiful.  Lacey, appreciated beauty, but she was the more practical of the two sisters.  Eventually, as her illness progressed, her weaving became more of an art form, more of a way to express her thoughts and feelings.  The word “text” is part of the word textile, and there are countless examples of how weaving is related to the idea of communication.

CommitmentNow.com:  As a result of Lacey’s illness, both sisters, now middle-aged, learn to redefine themselves.  This seems to be a theme in all of your novels.  What about midlife reinvention intrigues you?

KathArine:  I am fascinated by the idea of reinventing oneself at mid-life.  I think particularly women, once they have had a career, or raised a family, or both, often seek out new challenges when they reach this stage in life.  It’s also a time when problems arise: an increased incidence of illness, children leave the nest, or don’t, long time marriages might falter, job loss, and retirement issues.  What we do in the face of these difficulties makes us who we are.  Reinventing oneself at mid-life may be a theme of mine as I reinvented myself as a writer at the age of 50.  I asked myself the question, if not now, when?

CommitmentNow.com:  A Slender Thread takes place primarily in New Hampshire (where Lacey lives) and Manhattan (where Margot lives).    How important are these locations to the story?

KathArine:  Location is always important to me in my novels.  I wanted Lacey to be in the ideal, small, picturesque town of New Castle- seemingly living the perfect life.  Margot the younger was in the more turbulent but energetic big city, a more difficult place possibly to find one’s way.  New Castle is an island off New Hampshire, and Manhattan is also an island.  I loved the metaphor in that.  Bow Lake, the vacation place for both, represented the nostalgic, idealized place of their youth.

CommitmentNow.com:  A Slender Thread is your third novel, following Capturing Paris and East Hope.  Are you working on a fourth novel?

KathArine:  I am working on a novel set in Florence, Italy (another great place) in the summer of 1969.  It is the story of three women at three different ages: 21, 51, and 81.  I’m working my way into their stories and having a good time cooking Italian food, playing language CD’s, and planning a trip to Florence for necessary research!

Katharine Davis began writing fiction in 1999. Capturing Paris (St. Martin's Press, 2006) was her first novel. Recommended in Real Simple Spring Travel 2007, the novel was also included in the New York Times suggestions for fiction set in Paris. Her second novel, East Hope, published by New American Library in 2009, won the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance 2010 Award for Fiction. A Slender Thread, her third novel, will be published by New American Library in August, 2010. She is an Associate Editor at The Potomac Review. Her website is www.katharinedavis.com.

To purchase A Slender Thread, click here.