Glass Flower follows a Vietnam veteran and psychiatrist in Philadelphia who struggles to put his life back together and save his marriage and relationship with his daughter. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

I’ve worked with many veterans and been struck by the family dysfunction that often follows military service experiences. Soldiers suffer horrors and then, if they even survive, return to families that can never understand the shit sandwiches that their loved ones have been forced to eat. During the Vietnam Era, veterans received no assistance with re-entry. They were simply expected to resume their civilian lives, as if the war never happened, and they weren’t forever changed. But they were.

Malory tries to hide from his past and focus on the future, only to discover that without dealing with trauma from his past, he has no future worth having. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?

Many of the veterans I’ve known came to the military with significant unresolved psychological issues from their families of origin. Remember that Malory wasn’t drafted and, with the intercession of his father-in-law, could have served in the Coast Guard on the Philadelphia waterfront. But he wants to prove something and goes halfway around the world to do it. He has to prove that he’s worth more than those scattered leaves in the Lehighton band shell, but with his lack of self-knowledge, goes about it in exactly the wrong way until the very end of the novel when, finally, he understands.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

I wanted to write an entertaining thriller that zips along but also, artfully, doubles as a series of psychiatric vignettes. Everyone struggles, and I want the reader to understand the psychological crises that transpire silently while no one is listening. Despite his torment of Malory, Quinton gives the psychiatrist the opportunity to change and finally transcend his trauma, but Quinton suffers greatly in doing so. I think of that as the most tragic part of the novel, but not everything has a happy ending. Just look at the Vietnam War.

What is the next book that you are working on and when can your fans expect it to be out?

I’ve written a Gothic, supernatural thriller and its sequel both set in the 19th Century and, like Glass Flower, thoroughly of Pennsylvania. With notes of Wilkie Collins and M.R. James, the books will make the perfect companions for a damp, windy, and haunted October night. It’s all about distillation now, as I work toward a final draught filled with both memories of the light and nightmares of the dark.

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