Q&A with Martha Anne Toll

 

 

 

Martha Anne Toll is the author of the new novel Duet for One. She also has written the novel Three Muses. Also a literary and cultural critic, she lives in Washington, D.C.

 

Q: You write that your new novel “had a twenty-year gestation.” What happened over those 20 years as you created the story?

 

A: On the “commercial” front, I tried everything to get this book out in the world. I had an agent for a couple of years and also sent the manuscript out myself. I got serious nibbles but never a full bite.

 

On the “writing” front, I revised the manuscript almost every year and often did two or three revisions a year. I changed names, added characters, cut scenes, added scenes, rearranged scenes, trimmed, fattened, and deepened the prose.

 

I wrote two more novels, one of which, Three Muses, won the Petrichor Prize for Finely Crafted Fiction, and was published in 2022.

 

On the “personal” front, my husband and I raised two daughters. I ran a social justice organization focusing on housing and homelessness, and criminal and racial justice.

 

Like the musicians in Duet for One, I practiced, practiced, practiced to hone my writing craft. As you can imagine, a lot of life happened in those years.

 

Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: The original title was “Duet for Solo Piano,” to denote Victor Pearl’s loss of his wife and musical partner on page one. But as Victor’s son Adam grew in stature and became the book’s main character, Adam’s loneliness and inability to find a meaningful love relationship emerged as another, more important “solo duet.”

 

Thus, there are two solo duets in this book. The first is Adam’s bereaved father, and the second concerns Adam. So, “Duet for One” felt like a more accurate title.

Q: The writer Lydia Kiesling called the novel “a lovely story about artistry, time, memory, and romance.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I’m honored and grateful for Lydia Kiesling’s generous words.

 

I would add that Duet for One is also deeply about grief and loss. I started this novel in the shadow of my mother’s death and so the loss of a mother and its impact on a family infuses the pages.

 

This is not to say that Victor and Adam’s loss tracks my own, but that I wanted to explore that kind of loss in Duet. Grief is endemic to the human experience and is embedded in the novel.

 

Q: How important has music been to you in your life, and did you need to do any research to write the novel?

 

A: Music is central to my life. I studied piano as a young child and became very serious about viola in my early teens.

 

I was a music major in college, and have played/performed much of the classical orchestral literature as well as played through on one occasion or another much of the classical quartet and quintet chamber music for viola. I performed publicly all through high school and college, and to some extent after college. I am an avid listener as well.

 

I was active in the amateur chamber music scene in Boston during law school, and for about 15 years after I moved to Washington, D.C. During that time, I also played in a semi-professional orchestra in Fairfax Virginia, and was hired for a number of “gigs,” such as weddings and parties while I was working as a lawyer and a foundation executive.

 

So, my research has been primarily in the school of experience.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I have a third draft of a new novel that is out with beta readers. I will need to clean it up and do some small-ish revisions, but I do hope to start submitting it in 2025. You know as well as I do that things could change, but that’s the plan!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: First, I want to thank you for your fantastic literary citizenship. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you and I appreciate all that you do.

 

Second, for the writers out there—persist, persist, persist!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Martha Anne Toll.