Hall in Conversation with Dani Shapiro

The legendary Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver, Colorado recently hosted Meredith in conversation with New York Times bestseller and bona fide Beneficence lover Dani Shapiro.

Shapiro knows the novel inside and out, and had probing questions. When Meredith began Beneficence she thought Tup Senter, the husband and father, would dominate the story, even over his wife, Doris Senter. But then Doris’s voice grew…as did that of their young daughter Dodie:

Shapiro: One of the things I love is that the dance in the book becomes about the way that each member of this family is tested. So, do you still think of it as Tup’s book?

Hall: I think that Doris and Tup both have a sense of who they believe they are, and I think that like most of us, we have a sense of how we're going to react through our lives, how we'll respond—I think that we believe that we will bring the very best of ourselves to situations…and that we have enough wisdom to make our way through in a kind of profound way any event that comes to us. And Doris and Tup find that that's not true, that what they believed their capacity was, in fact was not true. And so, this is not just Tup’s story, it's Doris's story…and it's also Dodie's story, too…”

Watch the full video here.

Pre-order Beneficence here.