None of them were working in their yards, enjoying the last of the warm weather, to see whether her body crumpled before she hit the ground, or whether she tried to right herself in the air, or whether she simply spread her arms open to the sky.
There were no witnesses, save our dog, Lorelei it was a weekday afternoon, and none of our neighbors were at home, sitting in their kitchens with their windows open, to hear whether, in that brief midair moment, my wife cried out or gasped or made no sound at all. Here is what we know, those of us who can speak to tell a story: On the afternoon of October 24, my wife, Lexy Ransome, climbed to the top of the apple tree in our backyard and fell to her death. Quindlen and Parkhurst discuss the book on “Today.” Here's an excerpt: Parkhurst’s novel is the June selection for “Today’s Book Club,” as selected by Pulitzer Prize-winning commentator and best-selling author Anna Quindlen. So begins “The Dogs of Babel,” by first-time author Carolyn Parkhurst. Strange clues have been left behind: unique, personal messages that only she could have left and that he is determined to decipher. In the days that follow, Paul becomes certain that Lexy’s death was no accident. When his wife dies in a fall from a tree in their backyard, linguist Paul Iverson is wild with despair. But the fact is, I do have a son who has Asperger's, and any attempt to write about what it's like to raise and care for a child with those particular issues is.
Which is just another way of saying this: my life is private, and I'm not always comfortable discussing which stories are "true" and which are not.
It's always tricky to answer the question of how a fiction writer's life intersects with her work in my last novel, The Nobody's Album, I describe the life experience of a fiction writer as being "like butter in cookie dough: it's a crucial part of flavor and texture - you certainly couldn't leave it out - but if you've done it right, it can't be discerned as a separate element." But their kid is a girl, so see? It's obviously fiction." And then I'd laugh a little too hard. I'd say, "So it's about a family that has a child on the autism spectrum. While I was working on this book, I used to make a rather lame little joke whenever I started talking about the subject matter. How did your own experience inform the novel? You are the parent of a child with Asperger's. Harmony is in part about raising a child with an autism spectrum disorder. Interview Carolyn Parkhurst discusses her novel, Harmony, and how her own life influenced it
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