Hall Interviewed by Public Library Association

Public Libraries Online—a publication of the Public Library Association—recently interviewed Meredith. The ranging conversation touched on literary influences, novel vs. memoir writing, the impact of public libraries on the author as a young reader, and more.

Interviewer Brendan Dowling writes of Beneficence: “With lyrical precision, Hall dissects how grief reshapes each [family] member and pushes them into newfound territory. The result is a profoundly moving family saga that provides an engrossing reading experience.”

Here’s a small taste of the interview:

Dowling: The [Senter family’s] farm is truly an Edenic place. I kept googling Alstead [Maine] to find out where it is and how I could visit it.

Hall: (laughing) It is a complete world. I had a very extraordinary experience writing this book because the world seemed known to me right from the beginning. It was an inexplicable sense that I had lived this world, and I haven’t. I made it up. But it definitely took on a quality of a kind of universe that was separate from any real world, but had all of its own reality.

Read the full exchange on Public Libraries Online here.

Pre-order Beneficence here.