The Whole Golden World (35 page)

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About the author

Meet Kristina Riggle

K
RISTINA
R
IGGLE
is a former newspaper reporter now pursuing her first love, writing fiction. Her character-driven novels have been honored by independent booksellers in the Midwest and Great Lakes regions, and her debut,
Real Life & Liars,
was a Target Breakout pick. She finds people of all walks of life fascinating, as in the old A&E
Biography
slogan, “Every life has a story.” She's the fiction coeditor for the e-zine
Literary Mama
and has published short stories at
Literary Mama, Cimarron Review,
and elsewhere. When not writing, she can be found taking care of her two kids and dog, and squeezing in time to read whenever she can.

About the book

Author Q&A

 

What inspired you to write this particular book?

I saw a headline in my local paper that read:
FORMER TEACHER ADMITS HAVING SEX WITH 17-YEAR-OLD GIRL
. How could I not read on? But the most striking part of the story was how the young woman in question—eighteen years old by the time the court proceedings had begun—was seated on the defendant's side of the court. Not with her parents. This got me thinking from the parents' point of view, then from the girl's side of the story, and how different those two narratives would be. Not to mention what the teacher's wife would be going through.

So is this novel based on a true story?

No, I wouldn't go that far. I did follow the case in the paper, but those stories were not very detailed or numerous, and that case never went to trial because the defendant pleaded guilty. I don't know any of the private details, nor did I try to learn them. My version is completely made up, as is the setting of my book, Arbor Valley.

Where did the title,
The Whole Golden World,
come from?

This novel was known as “Book 5” at first. Then one day, driving to the YMCA for an exercise class, the weirdest sunset happened right in front of me. There was a sort of crack between the clouds covering the sky and the edge of the horizon, just at the instant the sun was setting. The light that poured out was astonishing. The setting was as mundane as you can get: a Home Depot, a defunct lumberyard, a railroad crossing. But the light was magic. As soon as I stopped the car I scribbled lines of poetry. I'd already had Morgan's character writing poetry in secret (that is to say, I was writing the poetry), and I knew I had to use this in the book. And so I did, at a pivotal point in the story, and the title comes from a line in that poem . . .

Do you relate to a particular character?

I relate to many of them in various ways. Rain, the dutiful yoga-teaching wife, is a peacemaker who thrives on stability and smoothing things over, making it her job to make everyone happy. That resonates with me. Dinah, the firebrand mom, tries so hard to parent perfectly that she sometimes goes overboard. My son is at the point where he sometimes dreads asking me a question because I'm prone to giving him an encyclopedic answer just for the joy of responding to his interest, not to mention a nerdy desire to cover all the bases.

As for Morgan, I never went through anything like what she did (thank goodness). But it wasn't hard to cast myself back to being seventeen and feeling like you have finally grown up and learned everything, only to have adults treat you as either an adult or a little kid, depending on what suits them at the moment. It's infuriating and unfair in the teenage mind. That quasi-adult, shape-shifting stage is a heady and dangerous time, though it's too hard to see that as an adolescent right in the thick of it.

Did you have a particular goal in writing this book or a point you were trying to make?

No. My books are often topical (I've written about breast cancer, blended families, and compulsive hoarding), but I don't give my novels an agenda, other than this: to make my characters understood. You don't have to like them, but I always hope the reader understands them by the end, even when they behave in ways that seem to be inexplicable on the surface. I approach all of my characters, antagonists included, with compassion. I don't believe my characters are extreme, even if their actions sometimes seem that way. None of them are so different from the rest of us.

 

Reading Group Discussion Questions

  1. What do you think of Rain's loyalty to TJ for much of the story? How does her pregnancy affect her feelings toward TJ and the case against him?

  2. Why do you think Rain believes so strongly in their relationship as the story begins, despite problems that were already brewing regarding his mercurial moods and their infertility? Was her steadfast belief in their marriage admirable?

  3. Why do you think Dinah and Joe are so disconnected as a couple when the story begins? Is it common for difficult family issues to drive spouses apart?

  4. How much responsibility do Dinah and Joe Monetti bear for what happened to Morgan? Would the story have gone differently if the twin Monetti brothers had not been born with physical and learning challenges?

  5. Why do you think TJ refuses to admit what he's done when the police finally discover the affair? Do you think he believes his own stories?

  6. Why do you think TJ had a sexual affair with his student despite the kind of damage it would cause?

  7. Do you think Morgan was manipulated into the affair? Or did she choose her actions of her own will?

  8. Do the respective ages of TJ and Morgan affect their individual accountability for their affair? Does it matter that she's only a few months from legal adulthood when their affair begins? Does it matter that he's only twelve years older than she is? How much does it change the situation that he's her teacher?

  9. Do age limits written into law—for drinking, military service, smoking, voting, consensual sex—make sense? Does their arbitrary nature make them problematic, or are they simply a practical and moral necessity?

10. What does it mean to be an adult? And do either Morgan or TJ meet that definition?

Read on

More from Kristina Riggle

KEEPSAKE

From the critically acclaimed author of
Real Life & Liars
and
Things We Didn't Say
comes a timely and provocative novel that asks: What happens when the things we own become more important than the people we love?

Trish isn't perfect. She's divorced and raising two kids—so of course her house isn't pristine. But she's got all the important things right and she's convinced herself that she has it all under control. That is, until the day her youngest son gets hurt and Child Protective Services comes calling. It's at that moment when Trish is forced to consider the one thing she's always hoped wasn't true: that she's living out her mother's life as a compulsive hoarder.

The last person Trish ever wanted to turn to for help is her sister, Mary—meticulous, perfect Mary, whose house is always spotless . . . and who moved away from their mother to live somewhere else, just like Trish's oldest child has. But now, working together to get Trish's disaster of a home into livable shape, two very different sisters are about to uncover more than just piles of junk, as years of secrets, resentments, obsessions, and pain are finally brought into the light.

 

THINGS WE DIDN'T SAY

What goes unsaid can sometimes speak the loudest . . .

What makes up a family? For Casey it's sharing a house with her fiancé, Michael, and his three children, whom she intends to nurture more than she ever took care of herself. But Casey's plans have come undone. Michael's silences have grown unfathomable and deep. His daughter Angel seethes as only a teenage girl can, while the wide-eyed youngest, Jewel, quietly takes it all in.

Then Michael's son, Dylan, runs off, and the kids' mother, a woman never afraid to say what she thinks, noisily barges into the home. That's when Casey decides that the silences can no longer continue. She must begin speaking the words no one else can say. She'll have to dig up secrets—including her own—uncovering the hurts, and begin the healing that is long overdue. And it all starts with just a few tentative words. . . .

 

THE LIFE YOU'VE IMAGINED

Is the life you're living all you imagined?

Have you ever asked yourself,
What if?
Here, four women face the decisions of their lifetimes in this stirring and unforgettable novel of love, loss, friendship, and family.

Anna Geneva, a Chicago attorney coping with the death of a cherished friend, returns to her “speck on the map” hometown of Haven to finally come to terms with her mother, the man she left behind, and the road she did not take.

Cami Drayton, Anna's dearest friend from high school, is coming home too, forced by circumstance to move in with her alcoholic father . . . and to confront a dark family secret.

Maeve, Anna's mother, never left Haven, firmly rooted there by her sadness over her abandonment by the husband she desperately loved and the hope that someday he will return to her.

And Amy Rickart—thin, beautiful, and striving for perfection—faces a future with the perfect man . . . but is haunted by the memory of what she used to be.

 

REAL LIFE & LIARS

Sometimes you find happiness where, and when, you least expect it.

For Mirabelle Zielinski's children, happiness always seems to be just out of reach. Her polished oldest daughter, Katya, clings to a stale marriage with a workaholic husband and three spoiled children. Her son, Ivan, so creative, is a down-in-the-dumps songwriter with the worst taste in women. And the “baby,” impulsive Irina, who lives life on a whim, is now reluctantly pregnant and hitched to a man who is twice her age.

On the weekend of their parents' anniversary party, lies will be revealed, hearts will be broken . . . but love will also be found. And the biggest shock may come from Mirabelle herself, because she has a secret that will change everything.