What Inspired Me to Write This Novel
A newspaper story.
I wrote Memory Lessons after reading about a woman who did the unthinkable: she forgot her child in her car on a hot August day. I wondered how that woman would ever manage to put her life back together, and I wrote this novel in order to discover if it was possible.
The Setting
Like my main character, Glenna, I got off a bus in Lawrence, Kansas at a turning point in my life. It was the 1960s and I was there to attend graduate school at the University of Kansas.
Although Lawrence overflows with students during the school year, it is very much a small Midwestern town, small enough when I lived there that a write-in campaign, spearheaded by a couple of students in our department, elected one of our professors as the Justice-of-the-Peace.
Although I left Lawrence many years ago, it felt like the perfect place for Glenna to rebuild her life.
The Story Behind One of the Plot-lines in Memory Lessons
As a director of a toxicology laboratory at a university hospital, I participated in weekly seminars with emergency medicine physicians to discuss both cases encountered in our institution as well as interesting cases reported in the literature.
One such case was that of a mother who took her ill infant to an emergency room where, through a series of missteps, the baby was diagnosed as having been poisoned by ethylene glycol. The mother was convicted of murder.
In prison, she gave birth to a second child, and after that child began exhibiting symptoms similar to the child who’d died, it was discovered that both infants had a rare genetic disease. Had the woman not had a second child, she would likely still be in prison.
What Readers Are Saying
Over 90% of readers give this novel 4 or 5 stars.
“Warner is so good at showing her character’s emotions…a real treat if you like to read novels that make you feel.” Kitty Johnson, author of Five Winters
“A lovely, compelling story…characters are multidimensional…the plot contains surprise twists…an enjoyable and engaging read/” Michelle Lam, author of The Accidental Prophetess
Memory Lessons is available in ELECTRONIC, PRINT, and AUDIO editions from Amazon.
