Marcus Sakey | Good People

Hey all! It’s an honor to be guest blogging here—thanks so much to Fresh Fiction for lending me the microphone. Suckers.

My new novel, GOOD PEOPLE is about, well, good people, specifically a married couple that’s been trying to have a baby. They haven’t had any luck, and are being crushed by debt from fertility treatments, and that’s straining their marriage and their hope.

Then one night, everything changes. Offered a chance at a future they’d almost lost hope in, they seize it. One simple choice. A fairy-tale ending.

But as they soon learn, fairy tale endings don’t come cheap….

Of course, that’s the finished book. When I began thinking about it, I didn’t know all that stuff.

See, for me, starting a book is a difficult time. I usually have some idea of what I want to explore, but I can’t get started until something clicks. Sometimes it’s a character, sometimes a scene. I never know until it hits. So I spend a lot of time freewriting, staring at the wall, cleaning the toilet, reading other books, cooking, browsing the web….

And it was that last that made this come together. I was just surfing, the way people don’t often do anymore. A click here led to an article there that led to a personal page. And somewhere along the way I came on a community site designed for people who were trying to have children.

It was an incredibly intimate experience.

Hopefully, none of you have had to deal with this. I haven’t. But for a lot of people, having children isn’t the simple prospect it’s “supposed” to be. For a lot of people, millions, it’s a lot more challenging than that. It involves doctor visits and calendars and daily temperature readings and shots and procedures. It can cost an enormous amount of money and be a brutal experience.

The site that I found, and others like it, were a revelation. Normal people posted regularly, supporting one another through this difficult process. They wrote about their frustration and pain, about their dreams, about what the process was doing to their marriage. They wrote about it with a simple honest that was heartbreaking. It certainly broke mine.

And as I read more—and I scoured these things for days—I realized that this was something I needed to write about. It was hard, and terrible, and real. And inside, I felt that click, the little moment that told me I had found what I was looking for.

I wanted to write about two perfectly normal people and what this would do to them. I wanted it to be as true and raw as I could. And I wanted to put them in a situation where all the answers to their prayers seemed to be laid out in front of them. Of course, nothing is as simple as it seems….

As I said, this is something I haven’t had to go through myself. I hope that I did it justice, that I did it right. And of course, at the same time, I hope it’s a book that will keep people up past bedtime, or make them miss their train stops.

Only time will tell. But if you happen to buy a copy, please, drop me a line marcus@marcussakey.com and tell me what you think. I’d really like to know.

Marcus Sakey
www.marcussakey.com/