The Beautiful Daughters: A Novel

Author One on One with William Kent Krueger and Nicole Baart

William: We’re both Midwesterners, and our love of this land we call home is such an important part of the works we create. The landscape of Iowa plays a significant role in The Beautiful Daughters and in so many of your other novels. Could you talk a bit about your affection for this place, and how, in your mind, the land has shaped your characters and their relationships?

Nicole: I grew up in a small town in Iowa and enjoyed the sort of storybook childhood that seems to be reserved for fiction these days--one filled with grand adventures, an array of neighbors and friends, and an abundance of freedom. Imagine my surprise when as a college freshman, my peers thought I was sheltered and provincial.

In the years since, I’ve become a Canadian citizen, consider Liberia my second home, and have spent time in Africa, Europe, Central America, and beyond. And though I’ve climbed mountains and watched the stars as I floated in midnight oceans, marveled at the bustle of Time’s Square and enjoyed bush meat cooked over a charcoal fire, I feel like I’ve come full circle: my heart belongs in the Midwest.

I think the Midwest is the perfect backdrop for complex, character-driven stories like The Beautiful Daughters because both the people and the landscape are so much more than they seem. The humble characters and mythic geography provide a wealth of often overlooked possibilities. Frederick Manfred, Louise Erdrich, Marilynne Robinson, Joyce Carol Oates, Kurt Vonnegut, and so many others have contributed to the deep canon of literature that highlights this region and its people--for good reason. The Midwest is layered and beautiful, misunderstood and unpretentious. It’s secretive and as wide open as the windswept Great Plains.

William: In my own work, I’ve often cited a bit of Native American wisdom that speaks of the two wolves constantly fighting in the human spirit. One wolf is fear and the other is love. In this Native wisdom, the wolf that wins the battle is always the one you choose to feed. It seems to me this struggle between fear and love is very much at the heart of The Beautiful Daughters. Or am I crazy?

Nicole: The struggle between fear and love is absolutely central in this book. I think it also plays into the battle between hope and despair. Throughout The Beautiful Daughters, Adri and Harper are motivated by their love--and the fear that their love will go unrequited or that they are unworthy of love or that the person they love will be lost to them. I think their fears are something we can all relate to, and hopefully, their triumphs and mistakes resonate with our own experiences.

William: Your two powerful lead characters, Adri and Harper, are smart, talented, attractive, and capable women. Yet in much of the story, they struggle with significant questions of self-worth. In your own mind, is this an issue many women in our culture grapple with, and if so, why do you believe this is true?

Nicole: I absolutely think this is something women grapple with. We’ve come a long way in terms of equality, but unrealistic expectations and the subtle but pervasive message woven through nearly every aspect of our culture -- that we will never be enough or always be too much--can be crippling. This isn’t an us vs. them problem pitting women against men. As women, I think we’re harder on each other, and often the most brutal with ourselves. And it infiltrates every aspect of our personhood… Adri and Harper spend much of the book struggling with issues of identity and worth, and I think their experiences mirror many of our own.

William: I sense the ghost of Daphne DuMaurier at work in The Beautiful Daughters This is very much a novel of suspense. Manderley, the dark manse in DuMaurier’s Rebecca, is so akin to Piper Hall in your own novel, and the terrible secrets hidden in the histories of these great houses provide much of the compelling drive for the stories. Without giving away any spoilers, would you be willing share some insights about your deft use of suspense in this book?

Nicole: I did a lot of research for The Beautiful Daughters, reading firsthand accounts and talking to women who found themselves in situations similar to Adri and Harper’s. Sometimes, that research touched me so deeply I couldn’t sleep at night--or when I did I had nightmares. I couldn’t get some of these stories out of my head and I often felt like I was in a near constant state of suspense. I think that angst naturally made its way onto the page.

Piperhall was the perfect backdrop for all this drama and I loved layering shadows beneath the sunny facade of this gorgeous old estate. Piperhall is actually loosely based on the historic Renwick Mansion in Davenport, Iowa, and it was also helpful for me to try and imagine the private history of that very real place. If these walls could speak, what would they say? We all have secrets. We all have skeletons buried deep in closets we hope no one will ever find.