The story recounts how family members can influence stories long after they’re gone
“Katy’s Ghost”
Trish Evans | Sept. 17, 2019, | StoneArch Bridge Books | Women’s Fiction
Paperback | 978-1733234900 | $12.99
Ebook | 978-1733234917 | $4.99
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. – There’s no ideal time to see visions of one’s dead grandmother, but for Katy, who’s found herself at a pressing crossroads in her 30s, the timing is almost perfection. “Katy’s Ghost,” (Oct. 22, 2019, StoneArch Bridge Books) takes readers on a poignant and heartbreaking journey through loss and discovery in Southern California.
Struggling over whether to conceive after battling breast cancer, Katy is guided by her deceased grandmother, Nellie, through flashbacks decades earlier, allowing Katy to understand her family’s past and how it’s ultimately led to where she is today.
Through Nellie’s memories, the book examines how family relationships are fractured and mended over time — be it by a schizophrenic uncle or a sister lost in the drug culture of the 1960s — and how learning from previous heartaches can lead to profound and healing resolutions down the line.
“Katy and Gram’s story has moments of wit and sublime epiphany.”
Kirkus Reviews
More about Trish Evans
Trish Evans was raised in an eccentric southern California family of journalists, writers, and musicians. She graduated from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the renowned School of Speech. She taught language skills to deaf and severely hard of hearing children for several years, then received a master’s degree in marriage and family counseling from Loyola Marymount University. She also did graduate studies in psychology at USC. While attending graduate school, Trish worked as a researcher and librarian at McKinsey & Company, an international consulting company. Later, she provided research and story adaptations for various children’s television programs. She cannot remember a time when she was not writing, but in 2014 she turned her attention to full-time fiction writing. When not writing, Trish can usually be found working in her garden, bike riding or walking along the sandy shores of Malibu with Ollie, a goldendoodle. She’s married to her college sweetheart, Emmy Award-winning writer-producer Bruce D. Johnson. Katy’s Ghost is her first novel. Visit her at TrishEvansBooks.com.
An Interview with Trish Evans
What inspired you to write your first book? I began writing Katy’s Ghost at a moment in my life when I was suddenly forced to face multiple uncertainties and fears, simultaneously. I had just completed my master’s degree in marriage and family counseling and was beginning coursework at USC toward a Ph.D. in psychology when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was thirty-four. I stopped everything to focus on getting well, which, in my case, also meant facing and overcoming certain fears that had been repressed. I began to write, more or less in journal form, about some experiences I’d had in childhood and the experience of writing about them was cathartic. At some point, my journal morphed into a fictional story – I sometimes use the term fictional memoir, although that sounds like an oxymoron. But as I got well, and life went on, Katy’s Ghost began to take shape as a novel.
The main character in Katy’s Ghost touches on medical issues like cancer and pregnancy. What kind of research did you do to make the story accurate in those aspects?
When I was forced to face a dreaded disease like cancer, I wanted to learn everything I could, medically, about what it was and how I could defeat it. The first motivation was purely survival – I wanted to live! But as someone who had studied psychology, I wanted to understand if there was a connection between my disease and my own personal psychology. So, I not only carefully studied my own medical records and asked my doctors a million questions, but I also began to explore the lesser researched area of psychosomatic illness – the effect of one’s mind on one’s body. There can be, and often is, a cause-and-effect. About the time I was diagnosed, my husband and I had reached the decision to start a family, so the timing was not good. When I finally was in remission and received a clean bill of health, we sought professional medical help on our decision and we were advised against getting pregnant. In that regard, parts of the novel are true-to-life.
Why is it important to write female characters that are relatable for readers?
I’m a prolific reader, as is my husband. We’ve both commented, occasionally, that it’s easier to relate to an author who is of the same sex as the reader. It’s not always the case, but I don’t think it’s accidental that my husband’s favorite authors are male, and my favorite authors are female. Does that make us sexist? I don’t think so, at least I hope not. It’s just a fact of our personal preferences. I think women writers have a more accurate understanding of the life issues women face, and Katy’s Ghost is all about women’s life issues. I like to think it’s written in an accurate, honest way, and obviously it’s written from a “woman’s point-of-view.” As I mentioned, this began as a journal and when I re-invented it as a novel, I kept the first-person point-of-view because it was easier to make Katy’s various “life experiences” seem 100% accurate.
The book is set in California, and you’ve been a California resident all your life. What experiences did you draw from to help write the setting?
I love California and I must admit I’m totally biased in my love for this state. The book is set in the 1990s, but there are some nostalgic sequences set in the Pasadena area of the1950s and 1960s – as the innocence of Katy’s childhood in the 1950s gets shattered by certain events in the 1960s. Almost by accident, parts of the Los Angeles area became a character in Katy’s Ghost. Katy’s stuck on the freeway – like millions of us every day! I grew up in the Pasadena area and my childhood memories are of wide streets shaded by ancient oak trees and old WPA-era libraries like the one in South Pasadena where I believe the gargoyles are still standing guard at the entrance. Homes like Gram’s were designed in that casa California style, which I love. While I was writing the book, we lived in Santa Monica and spent a lot of time in nearby Westwood. It breaks my heart that Westwood Village isn’t as quaint and charming as it used to be – where once there were four or five bookstores now there are zero. But I love UCLA’s campus and I used their library for some of my medical research. And of course, there’s something about the weather in L.A. that I’m sure has helped make me who I am. I’ll find any available excuse to work in my garden or walk the back streets of our neighborhood or sneak over the hills to the beach, where I’ll meditate to the rhythmic ocean surf and squish my toes into the sand.
If you were casting a movie for Katy’s Ghost, who would be your dream actresses for Katy and Nellie?
I could easily see Reese Witherspoon playing Katy. She has the right energy and depth – she would be amazing. As for Nellie – it’s such a crazy role! I could almost see Goldie Hawn or Sally Field. Both have the eccentricity and comedic timing needed for this character – with hair dyed auburn! As for Rollie, young Katy’s schizophrenic uncle, this is the kind of role that actors love to play. Eddie Redmayne would be great and would probably win another Oscar.
What’s up next for you?
I’m just finishing Christmas in Moonlight Falls, a novel that takes place in a fictional town along a river between Wisconsin and Minnesota. Like Katy’s Ghost, there’s a family in the middle of this story that is dealing with a crisis, made even more manifest as the Holidays approach. It’s about love, loss and finding a new path forward. While I’m a true Californian, born and bred, my family roots go back to the settlements of the Midwest in the nineteenth century. My great grandfather was an itinerant Lutheran minister and, without giving away the story, Christmas in Moonlight Falls began as a photo handed down to me by my grandparents. You never know where inspiration will strike. Following Moonlight Falls, I’m also finishing a trilogy of light mysteries called The Berger & Fryze Mysteries. These three books are set in southern California and revolve around two Type-A moms who inadvertently find themselves stepping in to help two of LA’s finest police detectives solve crimes. The first book, Mom Prom Murder, will be released in spring 2020.
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