E. Lockhart stopped by CBS Mornings to discuss her latest young adult novel, We Fell Apart.
Lockhart’s book, published Tuesday by Delacorte, is a stand-alone novel that takes place in the same world as her novels We Were Liars and Family of Liars. The new book follows Matilda, an 18-year-old woman who spends a summer at the home of her famous artist father, whom she has never met. While staying there, she forms relationships with the other residents of the house, including her half-brother, and tries to uncover her family secrets. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus praised the book as “atmospheric and emotionally rich.”
Lockhart said the inspiration for her new novel was a visit to a house on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
“I got an invitation to go to this house that was the summer retreat of a famous brutalist architect,” she said. “This place was almost like a castle, but with Nantucket shingles on it, and it had a huge swimming pool that was filled with sludge. It was falling apart but also ecstatically gorgeous, and I felt like I was walking through a novel, and then I thought, Oh, this novel is by me.”
Asked why she likes writing for young adults, Lockhart said, “Young adults will read your book eight times, 10 times. They show up at my events with a million notes in the margins, copies falling apart from being reread, so it is a real privilege to write for people who are going to pay that much attention.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
