What inspired you to set the book in Baltimore, Maryland? What came first, the characters or the setting?
I lived in Baltimore for many years. I love Baltimore. The people are fun, smart, interesting, creative. When I started writing the book, I didn’t think about where it would take place, I just wrote it in Baltimore, in Roland Park, which is where I was living at the time. Later, when I thought about it, it seemed like the perfect place to set the book as there are two renowned mental health hospitals. People who live in New York and other cities would and do travel to Baltimore for treatment. So, it made sense in the story that Jimmy and Sheba would go to Baltimore for the summer. Also, New York (where Jimmy and Sheba live) is just far enough from Baltimore (three and half hours by car, two and a half by train) that you might move there for the summer. That, of course, is the whole premise of the book: a very famous couple hide out in the home of a psychiatrist over the summer of 1975 . . . etc.
The idea for the story came after I met a woman at a party in New York who had been a summer nanny for a psychiatrist who, in the 1970’s, was housing a famous couple in his house for rehab. I promised her I wouldn’t say what city it was or who the people were. The woman who was the summer nanny didn’t spend much time with the stars and she remembered very little about them or her interactions with them. I took the scenario and sort of made it how I would have wanted it. I was playing out a fantasy in some ways. Though, of course, I had to add friction, tension, and conflicts, all of which are necessary for a story to be a complete story.
Do you have any personal connections or experiences with some other places that you mentioned in Mary Jane?
The beach house they go to is, essentially, the house that belongs to my friends Lindsay and Bruce. The neighborhood is where I raised my daughters. And, my girls went to Roland Park Country School, the school Mary Jane, the titular protagonist of this book, attends.
Is there any significance in the use of Dewey Beach as the group’s vacation spot in the book?
Well, it is where most people in Baltimore and DC vacation. Dewey and Rohoboth and . . . there are other beaches around there but I don’t know them all. When I first moved to Baltimore, most people talked about summer at Rehoboth and Dewey. Of course I went the first summer I was there. It is very unlike the beaches where I grew up in Southern California; different but great in other ways.
Did anyone in particular inspire the writing of the characters in your book? Especially the writing of Sheba and Jimmy?
With Jimmy and Sheba I was thinking of all the big stars from the 70’s. Sheba is like Marie Osmond and Toni Tennille and . . . . everyone in that era who sang on variety shows but also starred in movies. I read Keith Richards memoir when I was writing the book. Jimmy definitely isn’t Keith, but the memoir gave me good insight into what it’s like to be a rock star and what it’s like to be a heroin addict. But he was really more based on those Southern rock stars. I wanted him to be a good guy to the core. Someone who messes up a lot but really doesn’t want to hurt anyone else.
Is there one place you’d want a reader to visit in Maryland?
Baltimore! It’s a beautiful, fascinating city with wonderful, warm people.
Do you have any favorite books that take place in Maryland?
I love so many of Anne Tyler’s books. And not only do they take place in Baltimore but they take place in Roland Park. In a way the book is an ode to Anne Tyler. The street I put Mary Jane and the Cones on is the street where Macon lives in The Accidental Tourist. Characters shop at Eddie’s Market in Anne’s books, just as Mary Jane and Izzy do in my book. People who love to read should read The Accidental Tourist or, my other favorite, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.