Its a thoroughly delightfully, surprisingly profound encore.
Its partly because the author is writing close to her own experiences.
She also, naturally, falls into another doomed affair, this time with a man she calls Dark.
Credit: Beowulf Sheehan
The characters salty perspective resonates perfectly a kind, weary, almost laconic wit that carries a sneaky depth.
Read on below.Vacuumin the Darkisnow available for purchase.
I thought I only had one in me, period.
Scribner (2)
I started working on something else, but I was a waitress at the time.
I worked in this restaurant in Boston, and Id been working there on and off.
Everyone in the restaurant all the customers and stuff were really sweet….
I heard all these people asking about it, so I started writing another Mona book after that.
[Laughs] I thought it lent itself well to a sequel just the premise of it.
How much of this one is based on your own experience?
I was a little bit of a snooper.
I didnt read anyones diary, but I did some light snooping that is true.
I took a bunch of photos like, hundreds of photos.
Sometimes with their knowledge, often without their knowledge.
The photos werent very good.
I realized slowly that my story is about taking the pictures more than the pictures themselves.
My narration of the pictures were better than the pictures.
The pictures were pretty boring.
Id talk about the client and the house, etc.
The pictures were okay.
They needed some kind of text.
So in this case, the picture was not worth 1,000 words.Exactly.
It wasnt in New Mexico; it was somewhere else.
She did ask me to take pictures with her ex-husband, which I did.
Once you get into writing something, other ideas occur to you.
[They were] loosely based on my experiences, I would say.
Lets dig into the more dramatic aspect of these books.
You project a lot of your own baggage onto your own clients inevitably, I think.
I just wanted to explore that, how a person does that.
Youre triggered by your environment it allows you to go inward.
Thats what [Mona] does.
How close are you to Mona?Id say shes pretty close.
First of all, Im old Im almost 48, and Monas only 26.
Shes a version of me at various ages: 8, 12, 24, 26, 32.
Im definitely not like her now.
[Laughs] Im a little more self-aware than she is.
But shes definitely a version of me, without question.
You dig deeper into Monas past inVacuum, and wade into pretty dark territory.
I hate to admit it, but these novels are me working out my stuff.
It was really difficult.
I was tentative about it.
But I wrotePretend Im Dead10 years ago; withVacuum, 10 years had passed.
I wanted to go a little deeper.
It was difficult, definitely.
But Im happy with it in the end.
You mentioned earlier that you didnt ever want to write again after finishingPretend Im Dead.
Is that emotional difficulty partly why?Definitely, yeah.
Does it feel therapeutic too, though?For sure, it does.
To end on a lighter note: AsVacuumbegins, Mona is reeling from her breakup with Mr. Disgusting.
Did you have a boyfriend who deserved such a moniker?For sure.
Theres been more than one Mr. Disgusting in my life, absolutely.
