Michelle is an avid mystery reader, who wrote mostly poetry and plays for many years before embarking on the Lily books. Among her favorite mystery writers are the well-known Dorothy Sayers and the lesser-known Israeli author Batya Gur. (See the sidebar with recommended reading.) She admits, with a smile, that in addition to loving to read mysteries, one reason she started writing them was that poetry wasn’t likely to pay the college tuition bills coming soon for her children.

About Lily

Lily started her fictional life as a New Englander in Docksiders, and found her real personality when other writers encouraged Michelle to put more of herself into the character. Like Lily, Michelle is from Texas and exhibits many of the same traits and concerns. “It gave me tremendous pleasure,” said Michelle, “to have Lily voice some of my problems with the church.”

Don’t assume, though, that Lily is simply a fictional version of her creator. “Lily is much braver than I am,” said Michelle. “I’d be dialing 911, not rushing into burning buildings!” And Lily represents the “unencumbered” woman, whereas Michelle appears quite happy in her family life with husband Dennis McFarland and their two children. In fact, she said, she had originally planned Lily without romantic entanglements, but she liked the character of Tom so much as he developed (including some aspects of her own husband) that he had to stick around in one way or another.

About Dennis

Dennis is also an author, whose visit with our book group was a highlight of last year’s meetings. Michelle said Dennis does read her work in progress, but she only gives it to him when it’s almost finished, because he’s much more detail-oriented than she is. When asked if the couple might ever write a book together, Michelle replied that a non-fiction book would be most likely, because their fictional styles are so different. They did once co-author a screenplay, set in the Salem witchcraft era, but it was never produced. And Dennis wrote a brief scene with Lily and her friend Charlie into his book The Singing Boy. Michelle has also toyed with the idea of writing a play where Dennis’ family and hers would meet -- something that’s never actually happened in their 23 years together.

About the Future

There is a possibility that the character of Lily may be brought to TV, but she’d need some different stories. As a friend who writes screenplays says, “For TV you have to have a two-hour mentality,” and the introspective quality of the novels wouldn’t work well on the screen.

Once the third in the Lily series is published, Michelle is turning her hand to something different -- a semi-autobiographical novel about a friendship that ended with a tragic death. Plotting, she admits, is the most difficult part of writing mysteries, and she is looking forward to writing a book in a different voice, exploring themes and relationships without the “whodunit” aspect.

-- January 13, 2003

Recommended Reading

These are some of the authors and titles that came up in the course of our discussion with Michelle: