Tamara Merrill was visiting Maine and driving with a friend when the inspiration came for her new novel. The friend asked, “ ‘Do you know anything about Malaga Island?’ and he pointed somewhere off the coast,” Merrill says. “He told me the story of the island, and I knew it was going to be a book.”

That book is Shadows in Our Bones (2019), which Kirkus calls “a valuable look at an American tragedy” and “an eloquent historical novel that explores race and heritage.”

Malaga Island was the site of an interracial community formed after the Civil War. The island’s residents—deemed degenerate and lawless by newspapers of the day—lived there until 1911, when many were removed, some forced into institutions. In 1912, the remaining 45 residents were forcibly evicted.

In researching what happened on the island, Merrill, a retired computer programmer who lives just outside of San Diego, learned much about the eugenics movement, which counted Charles Darwin, Margaret Sanger, and Theodore Roosevelt among its followers.

The racism of eugenics, as well as the desire of Gov. Frederick Plaisted to make the coast of Maine more desirable for white tourists, led to the eviction of the people of Malaga Island, the author says.

In her historical novel, Merrill deftly weaves the tragedy on Malaga Island with the contemporary story of Georgia O’Brien, a Seattle woman who finds a surprising connection to the island when her mother falls ill. Georgia, who thinks she is white, takes a DNA test and discovers she’s multiracial, eventually finding she is descended from people on Malaga Island. It’s all a work of fiction very much rooted in fact. Two years of thorough research allowed Merrill to take real people and flesh them out, as when missionary and Civil War captain George W. Lane first lands on Malaga Island and meets resident Jim McKenny:

Lane drew himself up as straight as possible and did not extend his hand. “I’m Captain George W. Lane from Malden, Massachusetts, and I’ve been called by the Lord to bring you, and the other natives, the word of God.” Jim McKenny smiled. “Well, I reckon the missus will be glad to hear that. Come on up to the house and sit a while.” He turned and started up the hill. Lane, having no choice but to follow or turn back, followed. Several children, including the boys from the beach, fell in behind them.

“Everyone in that book is real,” Merrill says. “The family in Seattle is real, although their names have been changed….The Maine Historical Society has a list of Malaga Island descendants who have identified themselves. Talking to one person led to another person and another. I went from one person to the next until I got the whole story.”

And the story isn’t a pleasant one.

“When I was writing it, I was just telling a story,” Merrill says. “Now that it’s written, I want people to realize what racial prejudice can do and what eugenics can do. Americans invented eugenics—it wasn’t the Germans.”

Merrill includes about 50 pages of historical records, including newspaper articles and state documents, which elevate Merrill’s novel from a fictional account based on a few facts to an authoritative consideration of an American tragedy. “I wanted people to know it was real,” she says. “When I would write and say something that was horrible that was reported, it wasn’t me just making it up to get people to read it. I know a lot of people won’t read through them, but it shows it’s factual.”

Merrill grew up in a family of readers. Her love of the Betsy-Tacy series of books by Maud Hart led her to writing. “I loved those books, and Betsy wanted to be a writer,” Merrill says. “I sent a little story about my cat when I was 9 to American Girl magazine, and they published it.”

What followed were “a lot of short stories and a couple of really bad novels that young girls wrote,” she says. She also earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of California, Berkeley, and an MBA at the University of Washington, and she started a family.

“After I got married, I wrote for all the women’s magazines. I was widowed when I was pregnant with my third child, so I kept writing because I needed the extra cash and needed the sanity.” She published stories in Redbook, McCall’s, and Ladies’ Home Journal and forged a career in the computer industry. After she retired, she decided to try her hand at fiction.

That novel was Family Lies, the first in her epic Augustus family trilogy, which also includes Family Matters and Family Myths. Unlike her latest book, based on real people in real situations, that trilogy is a total work of fiction.

Merrill also contributed to and co-edited Magic, Mystery, Murder, winner of the short story and anthology division of the 2019 San Diego Book Awards. Still a voracious reader—she often reads a book a day—Merrill lists the work of Louise Penny and Jodi Picoult as among her favorites. “I read everything from trash to literary stuff,” she says. “I like the human condition.”

She also writes most every day and is working on her next novel. “I write in the morning,” says Merrill. “If I’m writing really well, I write all day and all night. The only way to finish a book is to sit down and write it.”

Alec Harvey, past president of the Society for Features Journalism, is a freelance writer based in Alabama.