Describe your latest book.
My novel, The Daylight Marriage, is about a wife and mother who goes missing one day. The narrative alternates between her husband and children's story, as they try to figure out what's happened to her and the story of what is, in fact, happening to her. The husband is a climate scientist who studies the connection between global warming and hurricanes. The wife is a part-time florist. And their teenage daughter is unwittingly enamored with the gay couple next door. The book is about marriage and family and how our small, daily decisions can snowball in a way that we may not intend.
What's the strangest or most interesting job you've ever had?
In my early 20s, I was a counselor at a shelter for homeless and runaway teenagers. Many of the kids had violent pasts involving weapons; a few of them had attempted homicide. Most of the kids had been court-ordered to live at the shelter.
I sometimes worked the overnight shift. I was always on edge there, even while they were asleep. I was worried they might try to escape, and I was the only one there to keep them from doing so. Thankfully, no one ever did, although one boy did pull a knife on me (the other kids restrained him and everyone was all right in the end).
The shelter was an otherworldly place at night, with 12 sleeping kids, the ticking of the clock, the hum of the heater, that dark, creaky old house. At night, I paced the hallways, peering in their bedrooms, feeling a bit like a prison guard. Of course when they slept, they became harmless kids. They slept four or five to a room, tucked beneath...