KRISTEN-PAIGE MADONIA: I never imagined becoming a writer who wrote books about
time-travel or alternate universes, but when I began drafting INVISIBLE FAULT
LINES I knew that I wanted to be braver on the page. I wanted to take risks and
do something different than what I had done with my first novel, FINGERPRINTS
OF YOU. Both of my books explore the complexities of family dynamics and a
teenager’s journey coming-of-age, but with INVISIBLE FAULT LINES I wanted to
consider the idea of the impossible being possible, to experiment with
structure and form, and to challenge my own perceptions of reality and mystery.
It turned out that I wouldn’t be able to do that on my own -- the book would
become a collaborative project with each person who read it.
INVISIBLE FAULT LINES is a character-driven missing-persons story
about the ways we cope with loss and an intimate look at one family’s modes of
survival when faced with tragedy. But it’s something more, too. It’s a mystery
novel with historical fiction elements blended into a contemporary story that
contains hints of time-travel and the possibility of alternate worlds or
simultaneous existences. And so I’ve settled on the label “hybrid” – it’s part
contemporary, part historical, part mystery and part magical, depending on what
you choose to believe. In the end, it’s up to the reader to decide what has
happened to the characters and how their lives will take shape as the story
progresses.
The book invites the reader to participate and to make his or her
own decisions. With this novel, I wanted to acknowledge that not all questions
have clear answers, and I wanted readers to reevaluate their own beliefs and
consider how they would cope with the loss that my character is faced with it.
The book asks a great deal of the reader in that way.
With each novel I publish I become more aware that once the book
is on shelves, it no longer belongs to me. My book becomes your book, and the
book becomes a different book with each reader who reads it. No two readers are
alike, and, consequently, there are as many versions of the novel as there are
readers. With the publication of INVISIBLE FAULT LINES it has become
increasingly clear that creating a story requires active participation from the
reader. Regardless of my own intentions, the reader will enter the novel with
their own backstory and experiences that will impact their interpretation of
the narrative arc and the characters’ actions and reactions. The reader becomes
responsible for filling any voids or ambiguities I’ve allowed for in the story.
What do you look for in an ending, Jungle Red Readers -- a tied up conclusion with all the questions answered, or an open-ended ambiguous
Kristen-Paige Madonia is the author of Invisible Fault Lines and Fingerprints of You, both published by Simon & Schuster. She teaches creative writing at James Madison University, Goochland County High School, and the Key West Literary Seminar and is a member of the low-residency MFA program faculty with the University of Nebraska, Omaha. Visit her at http://www.
