Q&A with Robin Merle

  

 

 

 

 

Robin Merle is the author of the novel A Dangerous Friendship. She also has written the book Involuntary Exit. A nonprofit professional and executive coach, she lives in Maine.

 

Q: What inspired you to write A Dangerous Friendship, and how did you create your characters Tina and Spike?

 

A: I've always been interested in the complexity of women's friendships.  I wanted to explore the idea of the dangerous friend who comes into our lives when we're most vulnerable, say, in times of loss. 

 

We know the archetypes of the popular girls and the mean girls—but what about the dangerous ones—the women who promise to give us power? Who tell us stories that we want to believe are true because our own lives seem so stale or we're unsure of what we want next.

 

I created Tina and Spike through their voices. From the start, I wanted a dynamic between a vulnerable acolyte and a magnetic leader. As I wrote, the co-dependence between them became stronger and more complex, and I trusted that development. I definitely heard them as I was creating them. 

 

I also created them as storytellers.  Tina starts off telling the story of her journeys, and Spike's stories mesmerize Tina. Spike’s voice is very clear to me—in fact, I wrote a piece where, as the author, I interviewed Spike and Tina, and they came out exactly on point, exactly as in the novel.

 

I also wanted to write about New York City and the small towns outside of the city in the Catskills. I loved describing both areas, particularly the mountain town and the local characters.

 

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

 

A: The original title was Landscaping for Wildlife. That was my literary attempt to signify that we could create environments that attract wild people and adventures. (It's actually a gardening term.) No one was crazy about that title. 

 

My husband suggested A Dangerous Friendship. I liked it. It was straightforward, more marketable. Publishers change titles all the time, as you know. They didn't change this one.

 

Q: Publisher's Weekly’s BookLife said of the novel, “Merle explores the psychic fallout of love: the identity crisis that follows abandonment, the seductive pull of pain, and the drive to chase people who promise danger but deliver disillusionment.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I think it captures the psychological tension in the novel -- from Tina’s divorce leaving her untethered to her desire to change her life and follow a Scheherazade-like character—a story-spinning seductress—to her realization that it’s time to leave and follow her own, new path.

 

Q: Did you need to do any research to write the book, and if so, did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

 

A: I researched the women's movement at the time, and the books that were being written about women and their roles in society.

 

The power of women (vs. men) is a theme in the book. (Power itself is a theme I'm drawn to.) It's something Spike talks about frequently, albeit hardly in academic terms, and it underlies Tina's search for a new identity at a time when there's ongoing debate about women's roles.

 

I was surprised by the provincial and self-defeating writings by women; for example, citing women's friendships as a reason women were unmarried. This is from a book written in 1970, not the turn of the century. I was also surprised, and reminded, that the Equal Rights Amendment never passed.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I'm working on another novel, The Enlightenment of Henry Pike. It's about an aging philanthropist with dementia who has a world-changing secret (which he sometimes forgets) and the nefarious people around him who are trying to undermine him and steal his wealth. It's a tragicomedy. 

 

I've worked in philanthropy for nearly 40 years. My head is full of stories.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: As tense as A Dangerous Friendship can be, it's also darkly humorous, like my next book about Henry Pike.

 

Finally, I hope the book encourages readers to reflect on the friendships that have shaped them, especially the ones that taught them things about themselves that they didn’t know or didn’t want to know. 

 

I also want them to appreciate that we each have the power to stand up for ourselves. The person who has our best interests at heart is ourselves.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb