Christmas, Present
by Jacquelyn Mitchard

List Price: $12.95
Pages: 144
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 0060565578
Publisher: HarperCollins

Jacquelyn Mitchard is the New York Times best-selling author of Twelve Times Blessed, A Theory of Relativity, The Deep End of the Ocean, and The Most Wanted. Jackie is widely acclaimed for her literary achievements, but until now, few people have been aware that she is also a trusted one -- a human who has been welcomed into mouse society. It is a great honor previously bestowed on the likes of E. B. White, Benjamin Franklin, and Marie Curie. Jackie became a trusted one while still in high school by rescuing an entire family of mice from the depths of a trombone just before a performance of The Music Man. She has enjoyed the company of mice ever since, and with starring prima!, she finally realizes a long-held ambition to share her insights into mouse culture with her fellow humans. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with her husband and six children.

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This is a very short novel, and quite potent. What attracted you about working with such a tight format? Were you interested in the idea of telling a story that happens in a 24-hour period? Did you decide in advance how long you wanted the novel to be?
The predominant mood of this story is urgency. I wanted it to happen almost in "real time." To me, that would help the reader identify with Laura's calamity and her choices -- which she has no time to mull over, but must act on, through instinct. So, yes, I knew in advance how long it would take to tell this particular story, though I had been thinking about a version of it for years.

You present the past and future in this story in fascinating ways. The reader really gets a sense of the breadth and depth of these peoples' lives -- their regrets, their fears, their hopes. Almost all of this comes across in the form of memories or imagination. Could you talk about that? As you're writing the story, in the present, do you get a sense of when it's right to move into a memory, or give a glimpse of the future?
There are places that are natural "openings" in a narrative for reflection, memory, a glimpse into the future. They're usually suggested by what the protagonist is doing or thinking or by the similarity of the incidents in the narrative to something that has come before. Often, it's also important, in knowing why a given character reacts in a certain way, what losses and achievements, what pleasures and talents have formed that person. For example, Elliott always wanted to be the kind of guy who could look at a car engine and say, with macho aplomb, "It's obviously the head gasket," and the fact that he remembers, even as a father in his late 30s, that he could not do that informs the gentle, slightly baffled man he is.

One is always tempted to ask an author how much of their story comes from their real life. You've said, for instance, that there's a lot of you in True from Twelve Times Blessed. Your characters are so full of detail, and so recognizably human in their particular imperfections, that one is curious to know if there are "templates" for them in your life. Do you collect "bits and pieces" of people you know? Do you ever make a portrait of a whole person exactly?
There are bits and pieces of all of them in me and of me in each of them. As a psychologist once said about dreams, you are the writer and the director but you also play all the parts. However, I don't always know that consciously as I write. I thought I was writing a fictional account of an incident I knew of that happened to the friend of a friend -- until I realized that I once had a young husband who had to say goodbye to life, and to a pre-teen son, a boy in first grade, and a preschooler ...

You really look death in the face in this novel -- as much as any of us ever can. Did you feel a need to do this? What did you learn from writing this story?
My history has invited me to look death in the face more often that I would have wished. However, I find a certain comfort in knowing that, as John Peale Bishop wrote, "It is not death but fear of death." Death itself is part of the great unrolling ribbon of history, and an individual's death part of a larger ribbon, eventually indistinguishable. From studying biology, I knew that few deaths -- the real moment of death -- are anything but peaceful. From this story, I think I learned again what time since my husband's death had blurred: We had an obligation not to squander moments. Every nap, every hug, every mug of coffee is to be observed.

You write Laura's actual moment of death, in 2 sentences, very movingly. "She could hear the nurses singing, 'Silent night, holy night,' for long moments after Dr. Campanile pronounced aloud the time on the clock." Did you mean this as a subtle suggestion of the possibility of afterlife?
I intended to suggest that. I also know that, for dying people, the last sense to shut down is hearing.

Laura thinks at one point about wanting to be a "ghost," an invisible presence in her children's lives. Do you ever feel that you have that relation to your characters? You've said in interviews that your characters do not "come alive" or "tell you what they want to do next." But do you develop feelings for them? Do you ever write an ending that seems right, but feels different than what you might like to happen to the characters?
I often write endings that are not exactly 'happy endings,' but I always try to write endings that really are endings, not just vague trailing away of action, perhaps not too neat, but satisfactory -- fitting to the story.

Where do your ideas come from?
Everywhere. Everything I read, every conversation, every adventure. I got the idea for this story while I really was stuck in the Sumner Tunnel in Boston -- waiting only seven hours for the AAA tow truck.

What are some of your favorite novels, the ones that influenced you and made you want to write?
I just told Judy Guest that I am a writer because she wrote Ordinary People, and that's the honest truth. Also, the British writers Rumer Godden (In This House of Brede), Penelope Lively (The Bookshop), Ruth Rendall (The Tree of Hands), and my beloved pal -- I think of books as friends -- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, which I loved so much I named my daughter after the main character. Not long ago, in school, my 9th grade son got in trouble because his teacher was reading the passage in To Kill A Mockingbird in which the preacher tells Scout Finch to stand up because her father is passing. Marty started to laugh, and the teacher was perturbed. He said, "I'm not laughing at you. It's just that my mother bursts out crying every time she reads that line to us, too." Other writers who formed me are, of course, the Brontes and Louisa May Alcott, E.B. White, Truman Capote, Wallace Stegner, McKinlay Kantor, and my dear friend and mentor, Ray Bradbury. Someday I want to write a book as scary as Susan Hill's The Woman in Black, or with the horrific delicacy of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. That's my big goal.


Excerpted from Christmas, Present © Copyright 2012 by Jacquelyn Mitchard. Reprinted with permission by HarperCollins. All rights reserved.

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