Amy Jo Burns Reflects on the Inspiration Behind Her Latest Book
“I always start with setting, mostly because I love to think about mood before I think about anything else.”
Q&A with Sherri Puzey
Amy Jo Burns is the author of the memoir Cinderland and the novel Shiner, which was a Barnes & Noble Discover Pick, NPR Best Book of the year, a Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club selection, and “told in language as incandescent as smoldering coal,” according to The New York Times. Her latest novel, Mercury, was released this month. In this exclusive interview, Burns gives Zibby Mag the inside scoop on her creative process, what her hometown means to her, and some of her favorite authors.
Zibby Mag: What was the inspiration for your new novel Mercury? You mention in the acknowledgements that you come from a family of roofers. Did any other aspect of your own family history make its way into this book?
Burns: The biggest inspiration for this book is definitely my family. Though the characters and the situations they find themselves in are all fictional, Mercury is a very real place that’s based on my hometown in western Pennsylvania. Many of the landmarks in the novel are real places, like the ballpark, the church attic, and the courthouse. The house that the Joseph family lives in is a recreation of the huge Victorian my grandparents owned in town when I was growing up. I really wanted to include it as a special place in the novel since I have so many vivid memories of the grand staircase, the Victrola in the music room, and even my grandmother’s blue-and-white kitchen.
The novel is titled for the town in which it is set: Mercury, Pennsylvania. This is your hometown, which also featured prominently in your memoir Cinderland. Did you always know you would return to Mercury in your fiction?
I actually had no idea! I had been working on a different project for a long time and needed a change of pace, so I sat down to complete a fun writing exercise from a memory of mine. When I was eight or nine, I remember being at my brother’s little league game and watching a man hide behind the bleachers as he smoked a cigarette. In the writing exercise, I asked myself what he was hiding from, and that was the first spark of Mercury. This became the opening scene in the novel, and the rest of the story came tumbling out right after!
Because so much of the book is about claiming home and what it means to belong, I wanted to set it in a place that was both beloved and familiar to me. My hometown will always be one of the biggest inspirations in my writing life.
How important is a strong sense of place in your writing? Which comes first for you: the setting or the plot?
I always start with setting, mostly because I love to think about mood before I think about anything else—and what sets a better mood than the landscape around us? It can be hopeful, mysterious, dreary, foggy, rainy, tiresome—the options are endless. I love thinking about the ways characters might either reflect or defy their surroundings, and usually that will lead me to all sorts of fun ideas for the plot.
What does your writing process look like? Which authors inspire your own writing?
I write my first drafts by hand—which can feel slow and inefficient sometimes, but it also usually produces more interesting material to work with. It’s less pressure for me to open a notebook and start writing than to stare at a blank screen. I also love making playlists to help set the mood. It helps me figure out how I want readers to feel as they’re reading, and it also helps me carve out my characters when I start thinking about their favorite songs—what they listen to when they’re happy, in love, mad, or lonely. The playlist for Mercury is my favorite because it’s filled with lots of great 90s songs that I’ve loved for a long time.
Writers I really love include Daphne du Maurier, Sue Monk Kidd, Alice Walker, and Barbara Kingsolver. I spent the last year reading through many of Kingsolver’s books, and it was such a great experience.
Mercury explores universal themes of loyalty, sacrifice, love, secrets, family. What do you hope readers will take away from reading Mercury?
I hope readers fall in love with these characters the way I did, and that they’ll feel like real members of the Joseph family. I also hope readers are left feeling inspired to ask themselves what is worth saving in their own families—what’s worth fighting for. And if something needs to be torn down, what better thing they would like to build in its place.
What books do you recommend readers should pick up after finishing Mercury?
I love Tracey Lange’s books, We Are the Brennans and The Connellys of County Down. They are both such huge-hearted family dramas with unforgettable characters. Other novels I’ve loved that are beautiful portrayals of family dynamics are Ghost Forest by Pik-Shuen Fung, Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng, and Good Talk by Mira Jacob.