Please welcome Michelle Richmond, author of No One You Know. Michelle will be chatting on LibraryThing until June 2nd.

Welcome Michelle. I have heard several times The year of Fog being compared to The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard. Do you find this comparison fair and do you mind being compared to another writer? Or would you rather be recognized (rightfully, I might add) as an individual author without comparisons to others?

Welcome! Thank you for coming to my author chat for No One You Know!

A brief introduction to the book:
A couple of years ago, I was about fifty pages into a new novel. I had a basic plot, and a melange of ideas around which to construct the story. I knew, for example, that I was interested in the fine line between fact and fiction, the way stories shape our lives. I knew that I wanted to capture the spirit of San Francisco, my adopted home, the place that had inspired The Year of Fog. I knew that the story would be told by Ellie Enderlin, a coffee buyer in her mid-thirties who had lost her sister Lila--a math prodigy at Stanford--to violent crime twenty years before. Lila's murder was sensationalized in a true crime book written by Ellie's English professor, whose version of events derailed the life and career of a mathematician named Peter McConnell, with whom Lila had been working to solve a centuries-old mathematical puzzle. (Read the rest of this story here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/rich...

Hi, readingextravaganza. Thanks for the question!

I have heard this comparison, and, while I haven't read Mitchard's book, I don't mind it. I know that a lot of people loved her book, so I figure I'm in good company.

While The Year of Fog and Deep End both tackle the subject of missing children, my understanding is that the two are very different. My book is as much about memory and obsession as it is about a search for a child. I set out to write a fast-paced and yet, at the same time, meditative book, told from the point of view not of a parent, but of a woman who hoped to become the child's stepmother.

That said, it's natural for readers and reviewers to make associations among writers. The new novel, No One You Know, has been described as "Alice Sebold meets Donna Tartt." I think it's just a way for publishers and reviewers to quickly position a novel for readers based upon their interests, and therefore help the novel compete on an extremely difficult playing field-I imagine that sometimes it works , and sometimes it doesn't.

For example, my publisher chose to put a Library Journal quote recommending my book to readers of Mitchard and Jodi Picoult on the cover. I asked them not to, but from a marketing standpoint, they felt it was a good move. The writer actually has very little control over the packaging of the book; we express our opinions, but, in general, the publisher has full control over what quotes are featured, the cover, etc. In the case of The Year of Fog, I think it probably turned out to be a smart move on the part of the publisher, in that it likely attracted more readers.

Thanks again for the question!

Mensagem editada pelo seu autor, Maio 21, 2009, 11:15am.

I loved Year of Fog! I'm looking forward to reading No One you Know.

What stories have inspired you? What are some of your favorite books? Do you have a novel that you return to and read and re-read?

Tell us some about Michelle! : )

My book group read The Year of Fog. We had a great discussion about how such an event would affect a relationship, how memory works, and some of the odd facts about San Francisco presented in the book. I also No One You Know and really enjoyed that book also. I'm looking forward to your next work. Will it also be set in San Francisco or is it too early to say?

I should also say you can read the comments of the book group members at our blog, dsbookgroup.blogspot.com. Look for the link to the Comments Archive on the right and click on the "Year of Fog" link for the members' comments.

Michelle, I really did like The Year of Fog and am looking forward to this new book. In the world of libraries the patrons come in asking for new authors that write similar to the ones they have already read. Of course librarians can't get read everything so we depend on reveiws in Book List and Library Journal, etc to help us make those suggestions to our patrons. I really do like participating in 'reader's advisory', so, I often do comparisons, though I may get it wrong at times and for that I apologize.

Hi Stefibeth. Thanks for stopping by!

Some of my favorite books are Grace Paley's The Little Disturbances of Man, Walker Percy's The Moviegoer, Jayne Anne Philips' Black Tickets, Lars Gustafsson's The Death of a Beekeeper, Nabokov's Lolita, Kundera's Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Jose Saramago's Blindness...ah, I could go on and on!

I reread The Death of a Beekeeper and The Moviegoer every couple of years. I love this question, because I always think perhaps I'm a little odd to reread books. The fact that you ask the question means you probably do the same! What books do you like to read over and over again?

A little about me: I grew up in Mobile, Alabama, the middle child of three sisters. I've lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1999. My husband and I moved here from New York City, where we had lived for a couple of years. Before NYC, I was in Miami for grad school. I did my undergrad at University of Alabama, and between undergrad and grad school I had a lot of strange and poor-paying jobs, including the usual stints of waitressing, but also writing ad copy, working at a tanning salon, pulling auto parts from shelves at an auto parts warehouse....etc.

I have a little boy, who is in preschool. I write while he's in school.

I love chocolate and red wine and the beach.

And all of that is probably way more than you wanted to know!

Hi jmyers24. Thanks for joining us. Oh, I love hearing about book clubs who have read my books! Thank you for your kind words about The Year of Fog and No One You Know.

My new novel, which should be out in 2010 if all goes as planned (i.e. if I stay on schedule) is also set in San Francisco. The main character is a 39-year-old doctor who is at the end of her marriage. I'll say no more than that, for fear of jinxing myself:)

Oh, jmyers...what a great idea! I've never done this and I think it may take some bravery, but when I get a spare moment I'm definitely going to check out your book club blog. Thanks for the link.

Hi libraryclerk. First, let me thank you for what you do. As you know, in these rough economic times more and more people are turning to their libraries and librarians. Thanks for everything you do to keep book culture alive!

Thank you for your kind words about The Year of Fog. And I do think comparisons make good sense, even if the comparisons aren't necessarily something the author intended or would have even thought of. When someone compares a book to the work of an author whose work I admire, I'm that much more likely to pick up the book. When a librarian or bookseller tells me, "If you like Mary Gaitskill, you might like this," I'm very likely to check out or buy the book. So as an author I'm happy that librarians might be using these comparisons to get my book in the hands of readers. All authors want to be discovered...the paths to discovery are varied, and I'm happy for any that will lead me to readers who might not otherwise have found my work.

The reason I asked my publisher not to put the quote mentioned above on the cover of The Year of Fog was simply that I didn't have an endorsement from either of those writers, so I felt strange about having their names on the cover. But in the end, I do think it helped more readers to discover the book, so I was grateful.

I was also absolutely THRILLED with the Library Journal review of both books. Library Journal and Booklist have been very kind to me...so no complaints here!

Mensagem editada pelo seu autor, Maio 26, 2009, 3:35pm.

I love chocolate and red wine and the beach.

And all of that is probably way more than you wanted to know!

How are you treating the Jehovah's Witnesses?

Ha! Jesse! How are you?! Did I hear you have a new baby?

Haven't seen any in my neighborhood lately. You?

(For all to whom this post is confusing, there's a scene in Dream of the Blue Room in which the narrator has a memorable encounter with a Jehovah's Witness who comes to her door.)

Did I hear you have a new baby?

No. I think there are laws against that or licensing requirements that I haven't met. So still kicking it single.

As for neighborhoods, I moved down south of LA a while back, and haven't made it back up to SF in a while. How's the city?