CT author promises tears in new book ‘ Pack Up the Moon’
In her 21st book, bestselling Connecticut author Kristan Higgins promises readers will cry but feel uplifted by the final page of her love story “Pack Up the Moon.”
Her latest book was published on June 8. It tells the story of a young couple whose honeymoon period comes to an abrupt halt when they discover that the “til death do you part” portion of the vows is creeping up on them faster than they ever anticipated.
The Durham author spoke with Hearst Connecticut Media about her new book, grief and the role it plays in a love story, and how seeing a lonely stranger on the beach inspired the story.
How would you describe “Pack Up the Moon?”
“Pack Up the Moon” is my 21st novel and it is what I would call a tragic love story with a happy ending. It’s the story of a newlywed couple, Lauren and Joshua, and they’re confronting Lauren’s terminal diagnosis that they discover about a year after they’ve been married. How they will spend their marriage and how Lauren will try to guide Josh through that first year of widowhood — they know it’s coming but they don’t know when. As she gets sicker she tries to make plans to help her husband navigate that first year without her.
What inspired you to write this particular story?
I was actually finishing up another book on Cape Cod, which is my home away from home, and it was the winter a couple years ago and I was walking my dog on the beach. We were the only people there, it was probably 12 degrees, the wind was blowing and I was trying to get home quickly and I saw this guy standing at the edge of the water and he was staring out at the ocean. He didn’t seem affected by the cold at all and it was bitter. I thought to myself, he looks like the loneliest man in the world and I wanted to write that story. I have written 20 other books and a few of the characters have been widows or widowers, but I’ve never done a character where I’ve shown that character living through that new grief — it’s always been a few years later. Everyone deserves a story in my opinion, and people get terminal diseases, young people die and I wanted to tell the story of what it would be like to know you’re not going to live as long as you’d hoped.
Your book revolves around grief, what draws you to this subject?
We will all experience devastating grief in our lives. That’s part of being human, but grief is also love. You don’t grieve someone you didn’t have a connection with, someone you didn’t value, so grief is part of the love story that we have as humans. It's such a layered, complicated emotion. It’s sneaky, it's so powerful and yet it is that expression of love. You can’t grieve someone the way Joshua grieves Lauren unless you really love them. There’s no easy fix for it, it's just something everyone has to go through themselves. I love writing about it just as much as I love writing about the funny scenes in the book or the happiness in the book because it is a book that is about a very happy loving couple and extended family. We don’t write books about people without conflict or heartache because writing about happiness is kind of boring. You don’t write a novel about a happy couple who had a smooth time of it and lived to be little old people and die together holding hands at 97.
The book features two different timelines. What made you decide to do that?
That was kind of an impulsive decision. The book starts off just two weeks before Lauren dies and Lauren’s story is told in reverse. Her story is told backwards from her death to the day that she meets Joshua and she thinks “I’ve met the man I’ll marry.” Joshua’s timeline goes forward for the next 15 months. The reason I did that was because I felt it was important to tell the reader right from the beginning that this is a tragic love story — she will die. I started there so it wouldn’t be a surprise. I think it also lets you discover the characters as they’re both telling the story of that moment. They’re stories both end on a really happy note at a really happy time.
Do you think you’re more like Joshua or Lauren?
I’m definitely more like Lauren.
I’m optimistic, energetic and social. I love to be with my friends and my family. Joshua is on the spectrum, he’s a super genius and also a multimillionaire — which I am not. He was very fun to write in that he’s so different from me. I interviewed people on the spectrum with super high IQs and social difficulties and it was really fun to write someone so different from me and put him in this very difficult, almost impossible situation of life without Lauren.
What do you want readers to take away from your book?
This moment is the one that matters and that there is always a possibility of happiness no matter what your circumstances are. I think that’s the magic of the book. Lauren knows that she’s dying and she’s having the best year of her life as she approaches her death. I don’t want to romanticize having a terminal illness. It's hard, it's exhausting, it's scary, it's devastating to your family and yourself, but there’s a choice to be made about how we live, and Lauren makes the choice that her life will be more important than her death. It will make you cry but in that really cleansing way. I do think readers will be so uplifted and fulfilled at the end of the book.