#HarperPresents: An Evening with Kelly Rimmer

Photo credit: Girl Well Read and HarperCollins. Do not use without written permission.

#HarperPresents hosted an evening with Kelly Rimmer at their beautiful office in downtown Toronto at the Bay Adelaide Centre.

Kelly came all the way from Australia to talk about her new novel, Truths I Never Told You, and was interviewed by Kristi Reilly, Indigo's head fiction buyer.

Do you find your writing process has changed from book one to now, book ten?

"It has. Yes," Kelly said. "So I very quickly figured out that I'm not the kind of writer that can just start writing and hope for the best. I really am the kind of person who needs to plan out what is going to unfold."

Some of her author friends don't have any kind outline and just kind of "pop out their books" and that's not how she works. Kelly submits a very long outline, she's definitely more of a planner.

How far in advance are you at the planning stage before you get to the book stage?

Before Kelly writes the first part of the book, she knows what is going to happen however, this book was kind of unique because she couldn't figure out how to join up the various elements (postpartum depression, referendum that happened in Seattle, and a complicated family dynamic). But it finally came together when she was out walking her dogs. Kelly was listening to a podcast when the missing piece came to her—the podcast was about dementia—so she raced home and twenty minutes later had her outline. "And what is in the book is pretty much what is in the outline. That doesn't always happen and that makes this book a bit special."

She also drew upon her own siblings for inspiration. They are very close and devoted to each other, but when they are all together they give each other "a bit of ribbing."

What do you find interesting about exploring stories that take place in the past?

This is Kelly's third historical fiction book (she has written a lot of contemporary novels).

Ideas are more interesting to her versus writing about a specific era. She wanted Truths I Never Told You to be about the ways that expectations of women had changed over the years (or not) and what it was like between WWII and the pill being readily available.

When Kelly was researching the book, she was at a dinner party where a discussion took place about how the pill has impacted women socially and culturally, and how contraception has changed the lives of women in general.  The actual topic itself is what she found fascinating, and the time period just happens to be historical.

Is historical fiction a genre you read yourself?

Kelly is attracted to covers, especially historical fiction covers because they are "glamorous and eye-catching." She said that she is more drawn to the concepts and covers versus a particular genre.

Although the book takes place in years past, the story is applicable today and feels more familiar and relatable than other historical fiction. Was that intentional?

"Yes. So part of the reason for the dual timelines, the 1996 narrative is a much more familiar setting to us and not a lot has actually changed in terms of mental health since 1996 compared to 1959. So we are talking about it a bit more but... And 1996 is actually when postpartum depression was recognized as a specific disorder. We have a name for it now, we know that it is a medical thing. So we've made made steps in the right direction, but we still have such a long way to go."

Today is #BellLetsTalk day in Canada—it is all about destigmatizing mental illness. Obviously postpartum depression plays a huge part in Truths I Never Told You, did you end in 1996 because so much has changed?

"If you had asked me that question before I did the research for the book, I probably would have said yes!"

Before sending the first draft off to her editor, she was reading it over and the "heart" was missing. Kelly put a call out on her personal Facebook asking if anyone would like to share their stories of postpartum depression with her, or know someone that would. There were so many responses that she couldn't interview them all. This included some of her closest friends—they were suffering in front of her and she didn't even know.

"One in five women have postpartum depression after a birth. I didn't not realize how immediate that pain was in my own circle, in my own life. Things have changed, but not enough."

The family support in the book and the family dynamic was a huge part of it. You spoke about how your siblings very much mirrored the siblings. Were there direct comparison between the people you wrote about and the people in your life?

"No. That would be good a test though," Kelly quipped. She wanted to write about a family that are all successful in their own way. Education was very important to them growing up because their father had raised them to value education.

The closeness and playfulness is what is based on her siblings.

You also mentioned that there might not have been as much progress in women's mental health, is there anything that you found either particularly shocking in the past, or particularly shocking because we haven't made a lot of progress today?

"Something that I hadn't thought about until I was writing the book is the stories that we tell ourselves about motherhood." Social media paints an unrealistic picture of motherhood and family—that's it's a happy ever after when in fact, it's really hard work. People are suffering on their own because they can't share their own reality and experience. She hadn't considered the shame surrounding this.

"There's parts of our lives that we don't share freely, and some of that is because we are each individuals. But some of that is because, I think, is that we have a picture of how it should be and if it doesn't match up, we don't ask if that's how it is for other people."

Isolation was the common thread through all of the interviews that she conducted. It was the loneliness that came up again and again, and it blew her away.

Do you have a favourite word or phrase?

"I definitely abuse some. And very, very good copyeditors take them out before you see them," Kelly said laughing. Words that represent family, love, connection and affection—warm words that capture that softness between us are are probably her favourite.

As this is your tenth book, did you find this one was easier or harder to write compared to others?

"Every new book is a new chance to fail," Kelly said laughing. "Every time a new book comes out, you are exposing some whole new piece of work. I understand my own process a little bit better now, but I don't think the writing is getting any easier. Every new book is a new challenge. It's still hard. It's still scary."

After ten books, is there one that is your favourite, or that you are most proud of?

"It's usually the one I've just finished! There is one that does stand out: The Things We Cannot Say." Kelly had wanted to write it for a decade and it is inspired by her grandparents. Although she admitted all of her books are all special in their own way.

Truths I Never Told You releases April 14th in Canada.

Truths I Never Told You

From the bestselling author of The Things We Cannot Say comes a poignant novel about the fault in memories and the lies that can bond a family together—or tear it apart.

With her father recently moved to a care facility for his worsening dementia, Beth Walsh volunteers to clear out the family home and is surprised to discover the door to her childhood playroom padlocked. She’s even more shocked at what’s behind it—a hoarder’s mess of her father’s paintings, mounds of discarded papers and miscellaneous junk in the otherwise fastidiously tidy house.

As she picks through the clutter, she finds a loose journal entry in what appears to be her late mother’s handwriting. Beth and her siblings grew up believing their mother died in a car accident when they were little more than toddlers, but this note suggests something much darker. Beth soon pieces together a disturbing portrait of a woman suffering from postpartum depression and a husband who bears little resemblance to the loving father Beth and her siblings know. With a newborn of her own and struggling with motherhood, Beth finds there may be more tying her and her mother together than she ever suspected.

Exploring the expectations society places on women of every generation, Kelly Rimmer explores the profound struggles two women unwittingly share across the decades set within an engrossing family mystery that may unravel everything they believed to be true.

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KELLY RIMMER is the USA Today bestselling women's fiction author of ten books that have been translated into more than 20 language.

Rimmer lives in rural Australia with her family and fantastically naughty dogs, Sully and Basil.