A CONVERSATION WITH JOANNA GOODMAN

Q. Harmony is your third novel. Can you tell us what inspired it and how you came to write it?

A. Having my first child definitely inspired the premise of this novel. While I was pregnant, I was so concerned about having a healthy baby with ten fingers and ten toes. I also heard a story about a woman whose child was born with a dislocated hip and had to be in a body cast for the first few months of her life. This mother was such a perfectionist, she hid her newborn daughter from friends and family until the cast came off. Thus was born the idea of a perfectionist mother whose baby is born with a deformity.

Q. Did you have to do a lot of research? Did the actual writing flow easily or was it a grind?

A. I did do a lot of research, mostly on club feet, but also on the background story, which is the core of the mystery. Once the research was in place, the writing really flowed. I found it very easy to write in the voice of a perfectionist who also happens to be a new mother and an artist! The only glitch along the way came after I finished writing the novel, when I made a decision with my editor to change the narrator’s point of view from first person to third person, to soften Anne’s character.

Q. In the novel, Anne struggles as a new mother to maintain a sense of herself as a woman, independent of her roles of wife, mother, and daughter. You’re also a relatively new wife and young mother. Are Anne’s joys and struggles ones you’ve also experienced?

A. Yes, from the day my daughter was born, it was so important for me to still feel “myself.” In other words, to feel personally fulfilled outside my home, to feel attractive, to have some kind of a life. Which is why I’ve stayed connected to my business and why I continue to write and why I still try to wear stylish clothes. No “Mom jeans” for me!

Q. Elie’s background as Lebanese and a numismatist (rare coin dealer) is so unusual. What made you choose that background for him?

A. A very good friend of my father is Lebanese, and his background and life experiences always fascinated me. I always knew Elie would be Lebanese. As for the coin collecting, the idea popped into my head years before I started writing Harmony, and I did extensive research on numismatics in New York City. Basically, Elie’s character has been alive and waiting for a story for several years.

Q. Jean is one of my favorite characters. I particularly admire her courage in leaving her past behind and starting over, struggling for years almost all on her own to create new lives for herself and Anne. Yet, once Anne was grown, Jean gave up many aspects of her buttoned-down life and forged a looser, very personal style of living. Was Jean inspired by women you’ve known, or do you aspire to her mid-life transformation?

A. Jean is a courageous, ever-evolving woman. Because she evolved so much in her youth--from oppressed wife to independent career woman--I felt it would be true to her character if her evolution continued well into middle age. I imagine--I hope!!—that at some point in our lives we start to look for deeper meaning in the world than what we can find in our careers.

Q. In addition to your roles as wife, mother, and writer, you also juggle work at Au Lit, the fine bedding shop that you and your husband run in Toronto. How do you manage it all?

A. I have a phenomenal team of people in my life. My staff at Au Lit is more than capable of managing the business in my absence, so that I am able to go in just two or three times a week and offer guidance and direction. Also, my mother and husband are running the company with me, so we really are in it together. In other words, if I need to be at work, my husband can stay with my daughter. And for the first two years of my daughter’s life, my mother was her part-time nanny. So we all three pretty much split the parenting/work duties among us.

The other practical answer to that question is that when I am deeply involved in a novel, I tend to pull my energy back from the business, which is a great benefit to being self-employed. I also only write at night, so I can be with my daughter during the day.

Q. Now that you’ve published several novels, has the experience of writing changed for you? When you’re dealing with page proofs, promotion, and contracts, etc. on a regular basis, is it harder to stay fresh and creative?

A. Dealing with the business side of writing has no impact on my creativity. If anything, the idea that my novels are going to be published and (hopefully!) read, makes the whole process all the more exciting. When a novel has been published, and there’s a good chance my next one will be published, I feel way more invigorated and inspired.

Q. Can you share some of the reactions of your readers to your work?

A. I am so grateful that the majority of the feedback I’ve received has been positive. Because I sell all my novels in my own stores, I get to hear tons of feedback from clients who read my books and then come in to shop again. What I hear most, and this was especially true of You Made Me Love You, is that my characters are so relatable and real. One radio reviewer actually said that reading the book made him feel as if he was sitting in a café, eavesdropping on an intimate conversation among the three sisters. He said he felt that he really knew these people, and that has been the most consistent reaction to my work.

Q. What are you working on now? What are your long-term hopes and dreams for your writing career?

A. I am working on my fourth novel, which is a romantic comedy called She’s Got Baggage. It’s a about a widowed mother of four who falls in love with a self-proclaimed lifetime bachelor who can’t stand children.

As for my dreams for my writing career, I intend to keep writing novels and creating characters that excite and inspire me. Writing is my passion, and I look forward to a lifetime of it! I’d also like to see my novels on the big screen one day. I think Harmony would make a great movie.

Q. As a Canadian writer, what special challenges do you face in writing for the U.S. audience?

A. I think the themes of my novels, particularly Harmony, are so universal that I cannot imagine my being Canadian could pose a challenge. For me, strong characters and a good plot can be set absolutely anywhere in the world and be successful. In fact, one of my all- time favorite books was about a Newfoundland politician from the fifties. I have very little interest in Newfoundland politics, but the characters and storyline of this novel were so fascinating I couldn’t put it down.

Also, practically speaking, are Canadians and Americans really all that different?