Interview with Author Susan Meissner

Susan Meissner is the author of ten novels, including The Shape of Mercy, named by Publishers Weekly as one of the Best Books of 2008. When she is not working on a new novel, she is directing the small groups ministry at The Church at Rancho Bernardo in San Diego. She also enjoys teaching workshops on writing and dream-following, spending time with her family, music, reading great books, and traveling. She lives in southern California with her pastor husband and their four grown children.

Welcome to Favorite PASTimes, Susan! The Shape of Mercy is not technically a work of historical fiction because it isn’t set in the past. Its historical element appears only through a contemporary character’s encounter with a diary. Yet, The Shape of Mercy is deeply engaged with history--perhaps even more so than many works set exclusively in the past. Why does history matter in this story?

We have to consider our history and how we are shaped by it, especially when that history shows our flaws. That’s how we learn to do better. The Salem witch trials reveal rather poignantly how rushed judgments and fear can bring out the worst in us. Everyone who was executed in Salem in 1692 was later exonerated; they were declared innocent of the charges against them. Hysteria, not reason, ruled the day for those long months when innocent people were accused of horrible acts. It didn’t matter how long or how loudly the accused proclaimed their innocence; you were whatever the crowd said you were. What happened in Salem hasn’t happened again, not in the same way. But we still let our opinion of someone be swayed by fear and the crowd. We judge people based on little more than our own fears and whatever the crowd says.

The three women in this story have three very basic things in common. Each one of them is the daughter of an influential man, each one was raised as an only child, and each one must decide who she is. Are they women who stand for the truth even if they stand alone? Or do they let fear propel them to do what the crowd says to do, even if the crowd is wrong?

What inspired you to write a novel focused on the Salem witch trials? Which idea came first, the contemporary story with its emphasis on refraining from judgment, or the historical story?

I read an article a couple of years ago about a woman petitioning a Massachusetts court to exonerate her great-times-eight grandmother who was accused and convicted of witchcraft during the trials. She was released when the hysteria ended, but her name was never cleared. Reading the article brought back memories of reading The Crucible in high school and being in a play called “To Burn A Witch” when I was in junior high. The men and women hung in Salem in 1692 all died proclaiming devotion to God and refusing to confess to an allegiance with the Devil, even though a confession would have kept them from execution. That is remarkable to me. And there was a story there to be told. Heroism is always story-worthy.

Lauren, the protagonist of The Shape of Mercy, is a college student. She’s younger than the typical heroine of a contemporary Christian novel for adults. What attracts you to young protagonists?

Maybe it’s because I can do something within them and for them before they are too old to have spent their lives mired in regret – like Abigail. I think perhaps the popularity of the Twilight series, whether you like the subject matter or not, reveals how we sometimes like to envision our lives back on the cusp of adulthood, when we still had many important choices to make, and hadn’t yet made them.

Writing the diary sections of the novel required you to create a voice from the seventeenth century. Did that come naturally, or did you have to rewrite those sections several times?

Interestingly enough, Mercy’s diary kind of took on a life of its own. I wrote it before I wrote any of Lauren’s story so that I could dovetail Lauren’s journey with what I knew she would encounter in the pages of Mercy’s life. It may sound trite, but I think God showed up when I was crafting Mercy’s journal entries. I wrote them rather quickly after having researched the trials for many weeks. I wrote Mercy’s diary as if it were mine, as if I had just witnessed everything that she had, because in a small way, I had.

How did living in Europe as an Air Force wife affect your worldview? Can you see yourself ever writing a novel about what it means to be an American in the twenty-first century, or do you think you’re more drawn to intimate stories?

Intimate stories are the kind that I am drawn to. I have never really considered how my American upbringing has shaped the way I see the world, but I know it surely does. But really, what I have seen of human nature – our virtues and our flaws, our strengths and our weaknesses – I have seen across the map, no matter where I’ve lived. We are designed to be in relationships of love and respect with each other, whether we live in a high-rise or a hut.

How do you feel about the fact that many Americans can no longer answer basic questions about American history? Do you think fiction that includes history can help with this crisis of memory?

Well, it was a wise man who said if we don’t learn from history we are doomed to repeat it. History is our story. It’s the story of us. It would be terrible to repeat some of our worst mistakes because we had forgotten the lessons of the past. I do think that historical fiction offers something other genres do not; a rearview mirror. That seems like a worthy offering.

In another interview, you said this: “Christian novels are for Christians. Novels written with a Christian worldview are for anyone. That’s my belief. And that thought energizes me as a writer. I don’t want anyone to stop writing books for Christians. I just want more of us Christians to write books for the Every Man.”
In light of this comment, who do you think is the audience for The Shape of Mercy?

Come back tomorrow for the answer! And if you would like a chance to win a copy of The Shape of Mercy, leave a comment with your email in the form name [at] domain [dot] com by 8am Friday morning.