Although the events and characters in The Sun in Winter are entirely fictional, the very first scene was sparked by the terrorist attacks in Paris in November of 2015. 131 people were killed, 416 injured, and countless others were no doubt left with serious psychological wounds from witnessing the carnage. I remember sitting in my kitchen watching the ensuing chaos unfold on the news, horrified at the graphic scenes. Horrified at our world. 

Events such as these tend to throw us into deep introspection. So many lives senselessly lost or changed forever; so many families shattered. How would those left behind possibly pick up the pieces? Who would help them carry the burden of their loss through the years ahead?

I was struck by the thought that life would move on for the rest of the world, as it always does; the endless 24-hour news cycle would push this tragedy out of the spotlight to make room for the next big story. But for those who were there, and for those who lost someone in the attack, a part of them would forever remain in the loop of that night, haunted by those cruel, unanswerable questions: What if? Why didn’t I? Should I have? 

I was in the midst of my first classes for my MFA program and spending much of my free time writing and thinking about plots and characters. I tend to write about whatever is weighing on my mind, and I think I wrote the first chapter of The Sun in Winter in one sitting. Aside from some minor tweaking, it’s the only chapter in the book that’s remained mostly untouched. 

The rest of the novel grapples with guilt and the after-effects of different kinds of trauma. I also wanted to play a bit with the idea that loss and suffering are a vital part of the human experience, and that a natural part of that experience is accepting the challenges we’re given and learning and growing from them. I’m intrigued by and take great comfort in that philosophy. The stoics call it amor fati, which translates to “a love of one’s fate,” and it certainly makes life’s more difficult twists and turns somewhat more tenable.