Kerri Maher
Author Interview - Kerri Maher
Author of The Paris Bookseller, The Girl in White Gloves, The Kennedy Debutante, and All You Have to Do is Call
About ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS CALL by Kerri Maher:
A dramatic and inspiring novel based on the true story of the Jane Collective and the brave women who fought for our right to choose, from the USA Today bestselling author of The Paris Bookseller.
Chicago, early 1970s: Who does a woman call when she needs help? Jane.
The best-known secret in the city, Jane is an underground women’s health organization composed entirely of women helping women, empowering them to live lives free from the expectations of society by offering reproductive counseling and safe, illegal abortions. Veronica, Jane’s founder, prides herself on the services she has provided to thousands of women, yet the price of others’ freedom is that she leads a double life. When she’s not at Jane, Veronica plays the role of a conventional housewife—which becomes even more difficult during her own high-risk pregnancy.
Two more women in Veronica’s neighborhood are grappling with similar disconnects. Margaret, a young professor at the University of Chicago, secretly volunteers at Jane as she falls in love with a man whose attitude toward his ex-wife increasingly disturbs her. Patty, who’s long been content as a devoted wife and mother, has begun to sense that something essential is missing from her life. When her runaway younger sister Eliza shows up unexpectedly, Patty is forced to come to terms with what it really means to love and support a sister.
In this historic moment when the personal was nothing if not political, when television, movies, and commercials told women they’d “come a long way, baby,” Veronica, Margaret, and Patty must make choices that will change the course of their lives forever.
Author Interview - Kerri Maher
Author I draw inspiration from:
Even though I’m a slow reader, I try to read as widely as I can, and so I get inspiration from all kind of authors and books! To name a long-lasting few: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby has inspired me for years with it’s amazingly tight and yet epic story of the seedy side of ambition and wealth. Ken Follett and A.S. Byatt showed me when I was very young that a page-turner could also be smart and even educational. Jennifer Wiener is so inspirational as she fights for the recognition of women writers and fiction “for women.”
Author Interview - Kerri Maher | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book:
I love reading in bed or on the couch, but my best prolonged sessions of reading happen on airplanes, or while I’m puttering around the house, listening to my latest audio book. In fact, talking books have totally changed my life—making long drives, house work, and cooking into reading time.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with:
This is a tough one! I kept coming back to it and tried on a few characters for size, but all of them struck me as “too” something or other. Maybe … Jo March from Little Women? The elevator was invented in her lifetime. I wonder if her author was ever in one? Hmmmmm……
Author Interview - Kerri Maher | Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author:
There wasn’t a specific moment, but just a constant sense that this was what I was meant to do, starting in 5th grade when I started writing my first novel on a yellow legal pad! There was a time after college that I actually tried to avoid “becoming a writer,” and I tried doing something else, but before I knew it I was sitting at my computer writing what would be my first finished (though unpublished) novel. I literally couldn’t even avoid being a writer!
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook:
As I said above, I’m a HUGE audio book fan, partly because they fit so well into my busy life and also because I’ve always been something of an auditory learner. Second to that is a paperback—lightweight, easy to transport, easy on the eyes, plus you get the pleasure of a gorgeous cover on your bedside table.
The last book I read:
I’m answering this question at the end of the summer, so I have summer themed books here: in book form, Summer Secrets by Jane Green and on audio, The Summer I Met Jack by Michelle Gable (another historical novel about the Kennedys). Both were terrific.
Author Interview - Kerri Maher | The last book I read
Pen & paper or computer:
I’m all in on the computer these days. For a long time, I drafted on the computer and edited by hand. But I’ve done all my editing on the computer for several years now—I think since I founded YARN (www.yareview.net) and started editing others’ work on the computer, and I saw how simple and earth-friendly it is.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with:
Fenno McLeod from Julia Glass’s Three Junes. He loves books and food, and he’s a sensitive, wounded soul who would have some great insights into everyone’s life.
Author Interview - Kerri Maher | Book character I’d like to be best friends with
If I wasn’t an author, I’d be a:
Editor. I really do love reading other people’s work, and I love offering friends comments on their manuscripts. It’s such a satisfying pleasure to see a piece move from draft to shiny, final product.
Favorite decade in fashion history:
1920s! But those drop-wait dresses would look terrible on me. A close second is the 1950s.
Place I’d most like to travel:
India. I already love the food, and I’m really intrigued by the country’s long and complicated history, and the photographs I’ve seen of the country entrance me every time.
My signature drink:
In summer, I love cold brew coffee with unsweetened, vanilla almond milk. In winter, hot black tea with a splash of low-fat milk.
Favorite artist:
Jackson Pollock and Georgia O’Keefe.
Number one on my bucket list:
Well, it was publish a novel. That was number one for so long I’m not sure what could replace it!
Author Interview - Kerri Maher
Anything else you'd like to add:
Thank you so much for having me. Truly, it’s the hard work of bloggers like you, and the readers who follow you who buy books and come to events, that make a writer’s work possible!! I’m so very grateful to everyone reading this interview.
Follow Kerri Maher:
I’m most active on Instagram: @kerrimaherwriter
I also have Facebook: @kerrimaherwriter and Twitter: @kerrimaherbooks
This interview originally posted on Oct 3, 2018.
