The Butterfly Sister (25 page)

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About the author

Meet Amy Gail Hansen

Born in the Chicago suburbs, Amy Gail Hansen spent her early childhood near New Orleans. She holds a BA in English from Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. A former English teacher, she works as a freelance writer and journalist in suburban Chicago, where she lives with her husband and three children.
The Butterfly Sister
is her debut novel.

About the book

F
OR ME, STORY IDEAS
have always come unexpectedly and organically from real life experiences, and the origin of
The Butterfly Sister
is no exception.

In 2004 my husband and I went on our honeymoon to Italy. Moments before I checked my luggage, I realized the tag on my suitcase bore someone else's name and address. That's because I'd lent it five years prior to a college acquaintance and hadn't used it since. Removing her leather tag at the last minute and replacing it with one of those flimsy paper ones the airlines give out, I thought,
What if my bag had gotten lost? Would it have gone to her instead of me? And isn't that a good idea for a story?

Once home from my trip, I hung the tag off the ironwork base of my bedside lamp as a reminder of my
great story idea
. It sat there two years collecting dust before another layer of the story revealed itself to me at a local writers' group meeting. I went only once to this particular group—it wasn't a good fit— but the single experience provided me with my story's setting. That night a woman read a heartfelt poem about her alma mater, Wells College, a women's college that had recently adopted coeducation. It had been a decade or more since the woman graduated, but she was obviously devastated by the change. She cried when she read the poem. Her passion on the subject enchanted me and later, on my drive home, I decided to set my “suitcase story” at a women's college on the brink of going co-ed. And suddenly, but slowly, the story unfolded like petals of a flower.

As I considered women's colleges and the reasons why girls attend them, I reflected on my own school experiences. Although I was an excellent student—I graduated magna cum laude—there was one thing that sometimes distracted me from my studies: boys. Romantic relationships, whether full-fledged or fleeting, often occupied my mind instead of schoolwork. I suppose that's true for most heterosexual young women, but I wondered if students at an all-female institution had an advantage in this regard. With boys out of the academic equation, could they be more serious? More studious? More successful? Of course, my novel took a different route—because I love irony. It would be ironic for a girl to date her male professor at a women's college, a place where the opposite sex was not supposed to infiltrate her studies. Thus, Mark Suter was born.

Despite having these story elements sketched, I still didn't start writing the novel. So what did it? What tipped me off the edge of the blank page? What bridged the gap between thinking about writing a book and actually doing it? Two things: a book club and my son, Andrew. In early fall 2006, two good friends and I started a book club. Our first book pick was a popular title at the time because a movie version of the novel had just been released. It was a good book and a good read, but I remember reading the last page and thinking,
I could have written this book
. I know that sounds pompous, but I meant it in a very pragmatic way. Up to that point, I had not produced a full-length novel—only short stories—but I realized, after reading this particular book, that I was capable of the feat. I also remember looking at my son, Andrew, who was nine months old then, and imagining him a grown man one day. “My mom always talked about writing a novel, but she never did it,” I pictured him saying. Those two things—knowing I could produce a readable story and not wanting to someday disappoint my son—made me finally sit down and start writing this novel.

Five years, two more kids, and countless drafts later, I completed the version of the novel with which I landed an agent, Elisabeth Weed of Weed Literary, who sold the book to Carrie Feron, my editor at William Morrow. Under the guidance and keen eye of both of these women, I pushed the plot and characters of this book to a level I didn't think possible when I started writing it.

Looking back, I marvel that all of this—a published novel and the promise of a career writing fiction—started with a little luggage tag and a big imagination.

Author Q & A

Many writers do not successfully publish their first attempt at a novel. Is
The Butterfly Sister
your first novel, or is that tucked away in a desk drawer somewhere?

 

It's both. At its core,
The Butterfly Sister
is the book I started writing in the fall of 2006, but it's also a very different book, thanks to many drafts and revisions. I still have the very first version I finished in the spring of 2008. It's a bloated manuscript of 480 pages (gulp), but I'll never part with it. To me, it represents a very important stage of my novel-writing experience. At the time, I naïvely thought it was close to perfect and primed for publishing. I even embarrassingly pitched it to literary agents. It wasn't a bad book, but it wasn't my best work. Generally your first attempt at something never is. That's one of the biggest lessons I learned from the process: that good writing requires revision. Seldom does one get it right on the first try.

 

How much did the book change during the revision process?

 

A lot. It went from third person to first, names were changed, characters were killed off, and plot lines were cut and twisted. Yet oddly, the main story about a girl who returns to her alma mater to uncover what happened to a missing classmate and, at the same time, rectify her own past remained. And I'm happy to say the very first scene I ever wrote—when Ruby discusses her thesis in Mark's office— is still in the book, even if the details have been modified.

 

What inspired you to become an author?

 

My first inspiration to write came from my mother, Gail, an amazingly creative woman and phenomenal storyteller. When she was a child, she wrote a series of stories for kids about a girl named Carol, and she shared these stories with me at a young age. I was mesmerized, not only by the storylines and her illustrations, but by the simple fact that she created them, that they came from her. A supportive and truly dedicated mother, she encouraged me to create as well, and I produced my own set of stories about two girls named Nan and Jan. I know my stories were not as good as hers, but she never let me know it. She praised my efforts, and the seed of creativity was planted.

 

Much of the story takes place at Tarble, a fictitious private women's college. Did you attend a similar type of school?

 

No, I never went to an all-girl school. But I always wanted to. As a child, I daydreamed of going off to a private girls' boarding school. It just sounded old-fashioned and proper, a place where I could read and ride horses and do crafts. I did, however, graduate from Carthage College, a private liberal arts school boasting an absolutely gorgeous campus on the shore of Lake Michigan in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Obviously, I based Tarble College on my alma mater. The only all-girl dorm on campus, where I lived my first two years of school, is named Tarble Hall. I considered setting my book in other locales, but I kept coming back to what I knew. I also wanted to pay homage to Carthage, since I went there on a four-year, full-tuition, room- and-board scholarship. I feel forever in debt to the school for the opportunities it gifted me, both academically and socially. Carthage is where I became the person I am today, where I fell in love with literature and creative writing, so I saw it only fitting to place my story at a school both physically and philosophically similar to Carthage.

 

How much of the novel is autobiographical?

 

Bits and pieces. I think all fiction is inherently autobiographical, because an author's thoughts and word choices derive from their unique set of life experiences. But I don't think you should put too much of yourself into a work of fiction—it weighs the story down— so I did it in subtle ways, in regards to setting and minor details. For example, I lived in New Orleans for many years as a child and think of it as my second home to Chicago. I hope my love for the Crescent City is apparent in the chapters set there. I also worked as a journalist for a Chicago suburban newspaper and even wrote obituaries for a time (eerily, I got the obit gig a few weeks after I gave the same job to my heroine). I was an English major at Carthage and am a fan of Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Sylvia Plath. On a sadder note, I also experienced the death of a loved one, my brother, Brian, when I was just sixteen years old. I think these personal details add texture and color to the story, but the rest is all thanks to my vivid imagination.

 

Was
The Butterfly Sister
the original title?

 

It was the title of the book when I secured agent representation, and when my agent sold the book to William Morrow, but it was not the original title of the work. It started out as
In Medias Res
, which is a Latin literary term meaning “in the middle of things.” Deciding the title sounded too academic and perhaps too foreign, I later used the English translation of the title, but ultimately that was too boring and no longer relevant as the story evolved.
The Butterfly Sister
came to me from a purely business standpoint. I spent a lot of time thinking about titles, which titles worked and which didn't and why. Knowing that women were my target audience for the novel, and how much butterflies and sisterhood seemed to permeate the book and film market, I came up with
The Butterfly Sister
because in the end, it sounded like a book I'd like to read. Fortunately, it also worked with the plot and even influenced it.

 

Do you plan to write a sequel to
The Butterfly Sister
?

 

Probably not, because I have lived with these characters far too long. I am currently at work on a second novel, which shares themes with
The Butterfly Sister
but is a very different story. The major difference is that book two's heroine is a good ten years older than Ruby, which reflects my maturity. I essentially created Ruby in my twenties, and now that I am in my thirties, I am writing characters in that demographic. I imagine my characters will always age with me.

 

What is your best advice for writers who want to publish a novel?

 

Be patient and be persistent. There are a few exceptions, but most writers did not get where they are overnight. You should write because you want to, because you have to, because if you don't, you'll cease being you. Writing should be like breathing or eating. You should do it every day because it is part of your existence, not because you want to get published. There was a time when all I thought about was getting published, and that was when my writing was its worst. It was contrived. Conversely, my writing improved when I stopped worrying about publication, when I wrote solely to please myself. I wrote the best story I could because I wrote it out of a true desire to create, an innate passion for the art of crafting a story.

Reading Group Discussion Questions

1. At the beginning of the novel, Ruby says, “My past was never more than one thought, one breath, one heartbeat away.” Later, Professor Barnard calls the past “nature's most underestimated ghost.” What role does the past play in the story's plot and the characters' motivation? To what extent does a person's past define who he or she is at any given moment? How does the past dictate the future?
   
2. Fathers are almost nonexistent in the story, since both Ruby and Beth's dads are deceased. Furthermore, Virginia Barnard's father is portrayed in a negative light. Think about the role a father plays in a child's life, especially in regards to girls. How could a woman's relationship with her father impact her relationships with men?
   
3. What circumstances could have caused Ruby to fall so quickly and deeply in love with Mark Suter? Do you feel you would have welcomed or resisted his advances?
   
4. How does the death of Ruby's father impact her characterization? Can the loss of a loved one change who we are? Is the effect always bad, or can it be good? Are those changes irreversible?
   
5. Ruby's thesis rests on the assertion that madness and creativity are linked. Reflect on creative people. Is there a connection between the two?
   
6. Ruby's thesis revolves around the Virginia Woolf quote: “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” What do you think Woolf meant by this? Do her words still hold weight today?
   
7. Just like many intelligent and successful women, Ruby and Beth are seduced by Mark, thus making an essentially poor decision. Discuss how love can open the door for smart women to make stupid choices when it comes to a partner.
   
8. After Mark breaks up with Ruby, she tries to take her own life. What part, if any, did he play in her suicide attempt? In your opinion, did she really want to die, or did she just feel like she didn't want to live? Is there a difference?
   
9. Tarble, a fictitious all-female college in the Midwest, serves as the story's setting. In what ways does this backdrop supplement the novel's plot and themes? How might the educational experience at an all-girl college differ from a co-ed school? Is there still a need for women's colleges today?
   
10. Feminine depression is a major theme of the story. Is depression the same for both men and women? How might the depression experience be different for a woman versus a man?
    
11. At Tarble, Tia Clark and the other student protesters carry signs with the phrase
    silence is consent
    . Is being quiet synonymous with approval? When is it best to speak up, and when is it better to say nothing?
    
12. Despite what later transpires, Professor Virginia Barnard proves to be an effective mentor for Ruby during her weekend at Tarble. Reflect on your past school experiences. Which teachers made the biggest impact on your academic, social, and emotional growth? How much of a difference can a teacher make on a student, both positively and negatively?
    
13. While chatting with Ruby, Professor Barnard says “knowledge is power,” a quote attributed to English philosopher and author Sir Francis Bacon. Is knowledge power? How does what we know impact what we do?
    
14. In the cabin, Professor Barnard wants to punish Mark Suter for crimes of the heart. Should he be punished? And if so, how? Do you have any sympathy for him?
    
15. The relationships between women— mothers and daughters, sisters, and friends—is a recurring theme of the novel. What role does female bonding play in a woman's life?
    
16. At the end of the novel, Ruby reconsiders the meaning of the term
    butterfly sister
    . Reflecting on your own life, who might you refer to as a
    butterfly sister
    ?