Carolyn Parkhurst Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Interview

Carolyn Parkhurst discusses her novel, Harmony, and how her own life influenced it

Harmony is in part about raising a child with an autism spectrum disorder. You are the parent of a child with Asperger's. How did your own experience inform the novel?

While I was working on this book, I used to make a rather lame little joke whenever I started talking about the subject matter. I'd say, "So it's about a family that has a child on the autism spectrum. But their kid is a girl, so…see? It's obviously fiction." And then I'd laugh a little too hard.

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."

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. 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 ...