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F e b r u a r y M a r c h 2 0 1 6 5 3 Words CourtesyPhotos Maine is my second home says Michael C. White. His new novel Resting Places hijacks readers across the country and keeps them up at night. IntervIeW By ClaIre Z. Cramer R esting Places opens in the middle of a hectic day in the life of successful Connecticut attorney Elizabeth Ger- lacher. Shes juggling her career her pro-bono legal work her unresolved grief over the ac- cidental death of her 21-year-old son Luke a year earlier in New Mexico and her drinking problem. A series of encounters propels Eliz- abeth to go deep into what she was not even aware she possessedher soul says author Michael C. White. Her story becomes that of a journey-quest As in all quest stories her journey is aided by strangers. When hes not writing on the coast of Maine in the summer White is a professor of English and the founder and director of Fairfield Universitys MFA Creative Writ- ing Program. A prolific writer and author of six novels including Soul Catcher and Beautiful Assassin he was on the faculty at USMs Stonecoast MFA program. His novel A Brothers Blood shows he knows and loves Maine to the bone. He keeps a summer cot- tage in Boothbay Harbor. How did you choose a parents loss of a child as the cornerstone of Resting Places Fortunately Ive never had to experience the death of a child. The essence of the sto- ry came to me many years ago when I began to notice those little crosses people put up roadside memorials marking where a loved one has been killed in an accident. At first I simply thought they were odd. Then I be- gan to wonder what sorts of people put up memorialsin Spanish descansos or rest- ing placesand what the memorials say both about the dead and those who have put them up. Finally I drove cross countryas my character Elizabeth doesand stopped at hundreds of memorials all dealing as Elizabeth must with the death of a loved one. While some of the memorials consist of just a simple cross most tell entire stories. The crosses on the descansos in the storyand on the coversuggest a Christian theme but Resting Places cannot be so easily pegged. IintendRestingPlacestobeaboutthebroad- er questions of faith and spirituality. What Elizabeth learns along the way and what she comes to understand at the end is far from what she thinks shell get when she begins. It takes Elizabeth some time to learn to travel beyond her own assumptions. Were you just a little hard on her Thats an interesting notionan author be- ing too hard on his characters However Ive known a lot of Elizabethssmart profes- sionally successful people who are unhap- Highway Signs Michael C. White py in their personal lives because of some major flaw in their character. They are often so blind or righteous or stubborn that they hurt others as well as themselves. I was hard on Elizabeth because she is so hard on her- self. She has to learn to forgive herself. Where is your peaceful place of renewal when you visit Maine I love Moosehead Lake to camp and to hike. And I feel at home when Im writing in Maine. The woods the sea the mountains the very airallinspireme.n Resting Places OpenBooksPress201616.95 paper- back is available March 1. Michael White country Moosehead Lake for fishing and Boothbay where he has a cottage. Anita Shreve says Resting Places is remarkably moving. Jacquelyn Mitchard calls it a lovely searing book.