Author Interview – Paula Boyd

Have you included a lot of your life experiences, even friends, in the plot? Oh, no, not at all, and it says so quite clearly and emphatically in the disclaimer at the front of the book. Now, it is true that I did grow up in Texas, and I might possibly have loosely based the setting on a town similar to Holliday, Texas, but the description fits pretty much any small town, including the fact that there’s a Dairy Queen. One thing is very true. The ugly yellow yearbook fiasco described in Dead Man Falls is just too stupid to not be a fact. And, for the record, Jolene is not me, she just sort of looks, talks and thinks like I have from time to time—totally different thing. Lucille isn’t a mirror of my mother either, she’s more a compilation of several women, but the looks, oh, yeah, that’s her. I still have some of her very large and wildly eccentric clip-on earrings. I did not keep the trademark gold-glitter slippers, but I did buy a pair of blue sequined ones for myself in her honor. Obviously, the murderous events were made up—the local mayor didn’t actually die, but he sure did deserve to. Now, the “You slut, he’s a married man” hate mail thing is disturbingly true. Even more disturbing is that my mother was proud of it. “Isn’t that something!” she said, giggling. “At my age, somebody thinking I’m a slut! I must be doing something right!” …I could go on, but I’m pretty sure I’ve already said too much…

What’s your favorite meal? I’m kind of a health nut. I love fresh veggies and green smoothies and all that. But my most favorite thing to eat is snow crab legs—I like them better than the other varieties—and yes, I dip every single bite in melted butter. Okay, now I’m hungry!

Do you know your neighbors? I know a few, although I don’t visit regularly with any. I live in a smaller condo complex and most of my neighbors are older, which I really love. There are four units in my building and all are owned by single women—I’m the youngest by several decades and the oldest is 93—seriously! She doesn’t drive, but she still gets out of the house more than I do. I know they must think I am very strange, not leaving my house for days on end. They’ve admitted to wondering if I’d died on occasion—yes, I get the irony of that comment coming from the elderly people.

What do you hope people will take away from your writing? How will your words make them feel? Happy and good because they laughed so hard and freed a whole swarm of little endorphins in their brain. And, I suspect that after reading about what Jolene has to put up with, they’ll feel a whole lot better about their own family and lives. No one can read these books and not feel grateful that Lucille isn’t their mother—no one.

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