5.13.2018\u00a0 Novelist and Texas native Kathy Hepinstall parries with Polly in a Mother\u2019s Day duet<\/h1>\n

What is more Texan than the mother-daughter relationship? <\/span>This week, in honor of Mother’s Day, we talk with Kathy Hepinstall, best-selling novelist of The Book of Polly, <\/span>one of the quirkiest, funniest books about motherhood in recent years. And as a bonus, we talk with Kathy’s real-life mom, Polly, who sports a T-shirt reading \u201cIt\u2019s not me,\u201d regarding the novel.<\/p>\n

LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: <\/span>Kathy, I understand that you were born in Odessa, Texas and that you grew up mostly in Spring. How would you describe your formative years, and how do you think that later influenced your decision to be a novelist?<\/span><\/p>\n

KATHY HEPINSTALL: <\/span>My mother was a continuous delight. Part Mary Poppins, part Ma Barker. She taught me to love the woods and to love reading. I\u2019d come home with stacks of books from the library. She knew so much about the natural world, plants and animals\u2014 then and now. She was a hell of a cook. She wouldn\u2019t let the dog come inside. We had to sneak him in.<\/p>\n

Polly, How would you describe Kathy’s formative years, and how do you think that later influenced her decision to be a novelist?<\/p>\n

POLLY HEPINSTALL: <\/span>She said \u201ccontinuous delight.\u201d I say equal measures of fright for me. She could outsmart, outrun, and out-climb her brother and most of his and her own friends. She loved all little animals and even snakes. At age nine she became a true sympathizer of the American Indian and read everything the local librarian could find about them. Her very first published literary effort was a poem about Chief Sitting Bull that appeared in her school\u2019s monthly newsletter because it had won third place in a national contest.<\/p>\n

I always loved to read, and did public library work for seven years prior to marriage. I read to my children and we made weekly trips to the public library. Kathy could express herself so well in her poetry that some of those were like stories. Her high school creative writing teacher recognized her talent and handed out copies of a story she wrote using stream-of-consciousness as an example to his future classes.<\/p>\n

Kathy, I think many of your novel\u2019s fans would be surprised to find out that you have also achieved success in the upper echelon of the advertising world, with TBWA Chiat and Wieden and Kennedy, winning Clios and having such clients as Nike, Chevy, and Levis, among others. Which came first, advertising or fiction?<\/p>\n

I had been in advertising two or three years before I started trying to write novels.<\/p>\n

You also had many ad successes before your first book was published, Kathy. Remember the 3rd place Cannes Festival award, and the \u201cRoadkill Diaries\u201d that Times Magazine<\/span> listed in their end-of-the year best-of-everything issue in \u201994 or \u201895? And all those Belding Bowls, just to name a few?<\/p>\n

Polly keeps track of all my successes and buries my failures in the woods.<\/p>\n

What was your first big break in advertising?<\/p>\n

Probably it was the Nike Women\u2019s campaign which encouraged athletic girls of all sizes and shapes. I\u2019m still very proud of it.<\/p>\n

And what was your first big break as an author?<\/p>\n

That was probably getting my rock star agent, Henry Dunow,<\/span> who can sell the crap out of anything. But I\u2019d have to go back further and say my first big break was being born my mother\u2019s child.<\/p>\n

Family has been a part of your creative collaboration for some time. In fact, you co-authored a very successful novel \u2014 Sisters of Shiloh<\/span> \u2014 with your own sister, Becky. Can you tell our readers about that book, and what is like writing with your sister?<\/p>\n

I wish we could publish a novel of all our emails back and forth. Writing such a somber book together was actually quite hilarious, and we were almost always on the same page, plotwise, although I think I wanted to kill a character and Becky threw herself across his body protectively so he got to live.<\/p>\n

Polly, did you ever think your daughters would become best-selling novelists?<\/p>\n

No, I don\u2019t remember having such lofty aspirations for them: I was too busy praying they would stay safe physically and straight morally. They excelled in school and made their dad and me very proud, but I thought Kathy would become an English teacher and Becky a history teacher. (Kathy won Teaching Assistant of the Year at the University of Houston when she was getting her master\u2019s in English.)<\/p>\n

Kathy, here\u2019s the question I think most of our readers want to know: What parts of the fictional mother Polly are like, or unlike, your own mother, Polly? But I get ahead of our myself. For our readers who have not had the good fortune of reading The Book of Polly,<\/span> can you tell them about it? Also, how much is the main character like your own mother?<\/p>\n

The Book of Polly<\/span> tells the story of Willow, who was born to a mother in her late fifties. So Willow has to grow up with a margarita-drinking, shotgun-toting, squirrel- and neighbor-hating Southern \u201cgrandma\u201d in a neighborhood full of young moms going to spin class. Then Polly gets a disease known only as The Bear, and Polly and Willow take a trip to Louisiana where her last chance for survival lives: A colorful faith healer who has secret ties to Polly.<\/p>\n

So\u2026.as far as plot\u2026.let\u2019s say Book of Polly is 10 percent real.<\/p>\n

As far as character: Polly in real life is 85 percent of Polly in the book. My mother would disagree. The rest of the family would not.<\/p>\n

Polly, since the book has your name in the title, did you get any of the royalties?<\/p>\n

I have a T-shirt that says \u201cIt\u2019s Not About ME!\u201d But, I am forced to admit I did say and did do some of the things in the book. I am a gardener and I do resent varmints that eat or destroy the fruits of my labor. But I don\u2019t feud with neighbors and, thank God, have not had cancer. Actually Willow is very much like Kathy was, that\u2019s how Kathy was able to \u201cnail\u201d Willow\u2019s teenage years.<\/p>\n

Yes, I did get a flower arrangement and a nice chunk of change from Kathy for my contribution The first time I line-edited the book, I confess that I would laugh so hard, in places, my diaphragm would cramp until I could hardly breathe. I love the book \u2014 and only wish I could claim to have inspired more of that Polly\u2019s shenanigans.<\/p>\n

And Polly, what\u2019s Mother\u2019s Day like for you?<\/p>\n

When my children were growing up they would do the traditional efforts of breakfast in bed on Mother\u2019s Day (limp toast, cold eggs, etc.), but be more cooperative about \u201clooking their best\u201d for church. As adults, I have to admit that my kids make just about every day Mother\u2019s Day for me.<\/p>\n

Kathy, since this is Mother\u2019s Day, were there certain rituals in the Hepinstall household that were observed on every such occasion?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t recall. I\u2019m sure we remembered it some years and not others, because we were a bunch of jerks. Now Polly says I make every day Mother\u2019s Day. I\u2019ll take it!<\/p>\n

How many books have you written, Kathy? And how do you manage to create in two of the most intense professional worlds there are \u2014 advertising and literature? What is your creative process like?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written seventeen or eighteen novels and will publish my eighth this summer. I\u2019m good at juggling mental tasks. It\u2019s organizing my immediate world that I find vexing. I really like to write in the morning. By five or six o\u2019clock I\u2019m losing steam.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your next project, or is there a book you\u2019re especially excited about?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m writing a book about writing called Your Brain is a Horse Named Clyde.<\/span><\/p>\n

How will you celebrate this Mother\u2019s Day, both of you?<\/p>\n

I will quietly add to her shrine in Boulder, Colorado, while she blesses some neighborhood children in The Woodlands, Texas.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

Praise for Kathy Hepinstall’s THE BOOK OF POLLY<\/h1>\n

\u201cDelightful. . . funny and poignant.\u201d
\u2014People<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA mother\/daughter comedy steeped in quirky characters, personal history mysteries, and no small amount of love, The Book of Polly<\/span> is a delightful read about one of the world’s most fundamental relationships.\u201d\u00a0
\u2014Refinery29<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHepinstall\u2019s Southern coming-of-age novel. . . [is] full of laughter and warmth and sadness. This is a warm and fresh tale.\u201d \u2014Publishers Weekly<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Book of Polly has heart and humor, revenge, forgiveness, redemption and a larger than life cast of pitch-perfect characters who bring to mind such Southern literary standard-bearers as Lee Smith and Fannie Flagg. Get ready to fall in love.\u201d \u2014Mary Kay Andrews, New York Times<\/span> bestselling author of The Weekenders<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am wildly in love with The Book of Polly.<\/span> Hepinstall\u2019s characters are so deeply drawn I could almost hear them breathing, and she has a gift for laying the hearts of even minor players open in a single sentence. This is a purely wonderful book about growing up, about growing old, about never going gently into any kind of night. I want everyone I ever met to read it.\u201d \u2014Joshilyn Jackson, New York Times<\/span> bestselling author of The Opposite of Everyone<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWonderfully funny, sneaky and involving, the characters in this story are unpredictable and outrageous. If you ever pined for a mother who would take a hunting falcon as her wingman to a parent-teacher conference, Polly is the gal for you. Delicious.\u201d \u2014Mark Childress, author of Crazy in Alabama<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHilarious and heartfelt, I wanted to wrap my arms round this book and hug it\u2014I loved every page.\u201d \u2014Jamie Ford, New York Times<\/span> bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWith a drink in one hand, a shotgun in the other, the inimitable Polly Havens can steer a raft through a swamp and decimate squirrels in her garden with ruthless aplomb, with time left over for all-out war with her youngest child. A hilarious, page-turning battle royale between mother and daughter \u2014 where the weapon of choice is love.\u201d
\u2014Wilton Barnhardt, author of Lookaway, Lookaway<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Book of Polly<\/span> is rich with the best kind of humor: quick, smart wit that strikes a perfect balance between wistfully inquisitive Willow and her mother, the one and only, Polly.\u201d \u2014Jill McCorkle, author of Life After Life<\/span><\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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