The Things We Do for Love

Behind the Book

Of all my novels, this one arose most clearly from the world around me. I was about forty-three when I wrote it, and I noticed a sad trend happening among my friends. Many of them had put their careers first for many years, waiting for love and family to appear when they were settled and secure. They’d believed that modern medicine had given them this option. But when they finally found the loves of their lives and set about the business of family-building, their bodies denied them. Infertility, inVitro fertilizations, hormone shots; these became the everyday conversations of my generation. Meanwhile, those of us who had had our children earlier were in the high school trenches, watching reports of teen pregnancies rise. All around me, decisions about babies seemed desperate and tragic and uncertain. These were the issues I explored in The Things We Do For Love. My favorite part of the novel, when it’s all said and done, was the big, loving Italian family that is at the story’s heart.