Good Harbor
by Anita Diamant

List Price: $13.00
Pages: 256
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0743225724
Publisher: Scribner

Anita Diamant is a prizewinning journalist whose work has appeared regularly in the Boston Globe Magazine and Parenting magazine. She is the author of six books about contemporary Jewish practice. The Red Tent, her first novel, was a national bestseller and the Booksense Book of the Year. Diamant lives in Massachusetts with her husband and daughter.

top of the page

Q: Most readers are familiar with your first novel, The Red Tent, a work of historical fiction that retells the biblical story of Dinah. Why did you choose a contemporary story for your next novel?

AD: I don't feel that I chose the story so much as the story and setting chose me. Good Harbor was simply the next novel inside me. After years of writing non-fiction, I have discovered that fiction is a far less conscious process. The unconscious or perhaps subconscious has a much bigger part to play in the invention of stories and characters.
Q: On the surface, Good Harbor and The Red Tent seem very different, one set thousands of years ago, one set today. Where do the stories feel similar to you? Where do the concerns of Joyce and Kathleen in Good Harbor echo those of Dinah and her mothers in The Red Tent?

AD: The stories are very different. There is a similarity, however, in the importance of women's relationships. I think that both The Red Tent and Good Harbor are about women's connections to one another as a source of solace, information, companionship, and love. In this, I think both books tell "untold" or perhaps "undertold" stories about the heart of women's experience.
Q: You write about Good Harbor as if you've done the "walk" a million times! Your descriptions of the beach and the sensory experience of being there are very evocative. Is there a real Good Harbor or did this wonderful place come out of your imagination?

AD: Good Harbor beach is a very real, very beautiful place on Cape Ann, Massachusetts. I have walked that beach a million times and had life-affirming and life-altering conversations there with many dear friends. It's a place that always makes me feel both peaceful and energized. When I'm stressed out or unable to fall asleep, I try to think about walking along Good Harbor beach.
Q: The scenes describing Joyce's affair are pretty steamy. Was it fun to let loose on the page?

AD: Fun but challenging. I think writing about sex is pretty difficult. Generally, I subscribe to the "less is more" philosophy in this. Even so, you have to describe at least part of what's going on. Choosing which part is, I admit, fun.
Q: Kathleen's treatment for breast cancer offers quite a lot of detail about what women go through when they receive radiation treatment. Did you do a lot of research on the subject?

AD: I did do research about breast cancer and I had great help from medical and social work professionals and also from friends who had undergone treatment. I did climb up on the radiology treatment table to see what it felt like. (It was pretty frightening.) Kathleen's diagnosis of DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ) is a relatively common diagnosis, given the widespread use of mammograms and other imaging technology that show this early stage or "pre" cancer. I learned that women who are given this diagnosis sometimes find themselves being told they "only" have DCIS. Although this diagnosis is not as dire as some others, it is still a devastating, life-changing event in a woman's life. On the other hand, I also wanted to explore the way that a serious illness can be a catalyst for self-examination and growth.
Q: In your acknowledgements you thank your writing group. What role did the other members play in the development of Good Harbor?

AD: The members of my writing group were a constant source of support and encouragement, which is crucial. Writing is a very lonely occupation, and it's easy to doubt and discredit your own work. My writing group also provided good perspective on my characters ("Would Joyce really say that?") and helped me to pare the story down to its essentials.
Q: Many women reading Good Harbor will recognize themselves in Kathleen and Joyce as they deal with their teenage and adult children, experience the ups and downs of a long marriage, face growing older, cope with painful losses, and examine their relationship with faith. How much did you look to your own life and that of your friends to write Good Harbor?

AD: I certainly hope that many women will identify with aspects of Joyce's life and Kathleen's life. Their experiences -- as mothers, wives, and friends -- are universal in some ways. However, Good Harbor is not about me or any one of my friends. Good Harbor is not any more autobiographical than The Red Tent, which is my way of saying that all the fiction I write is of necessity born from my experience. My every conversation, every challenge, every joy, every memory finds its way into what I write, so of course my life is in Good Harbor. I identify with both Joyce and Kathleen, too. But I hope that readers will understand that their stories are not my life story.
Q: Good Harbor is filled with "bookish" people: Kathleen is a children's librarian; her son is an avid reader; Joyce is a writer and book group member. Were you influenced by all the readers and book group members you met on tour for The Red Tent? What did you learn as a writer from those encounters?

AD: Reading is an essential part of my life. I start my day with coffee and the printed page. I was raised among readers, and my friends, community, and family are all "bookish." My experience with readers of The Red Tent -- so many of them in book groups -- confirmed my belief in the power of reading as a source of connection among people. Although writing and reading are essentially solitary pursuits, the purpose of reading is to knit us closer together, to create understanding, to convene us as friends, coffee cups or wine glasses in hand, to explore what is most important to each of us.
Q: Will you go back to writing historical fiction again? Are you working on another book now?

AD: I have started work on a third novel, set in the early 1800s in the United States. I'm at the very early stages of this book so I can't say too much about it. However, it focuses on a group of strong, unconventional women living on the edge of society.


• Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.
© Copyright 2012 by Anita Diamant. Reprinted with permission by Scribner. All rights reserved.

• Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.

top of the page