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Behind the Book

So Much Pretty Behind the Book By By: Cara Hoffman Michelle Mann, a minor character in my novel, So Much Pretty, is known for quoting Orwell to her friends: The duty of every intelligent person, she says, is to pay attention to the obvious. In the year and a half it took me to write So Much Pretty, I was paying attention to violence in women’s lives and the demoralization of men’s characters that rang like a continuous ambient hum in the air. Josef Fritzl, Jaycee Dugard, the Craigslist Killer, the woman found dead in the trailer ten miles from my apartment, the high profile cases and the small local cases, the women and girls worldwide raped, molested, or killed by strangers, and always—the three women a day, every day, all year long who are killed in the United States by their boyfriends or husbands. The hum of these events, their cultural cache, the titillation and entertainment value that causes news outlets to run bikini pictures of a woman who was set on fire by her boyfriend, caused me to sit and think for a very long time about what, exactly, we are looking at, when we are looking at men and women. What are the things we all know and prepare for and warn our children about that we do not allow ourselves to act upon, or speak about, in our day-to-day lives? Paying attention to the obvious was also the rule I lived by as a journalist. Before writing fiction, I worked as a reporter covering environmental issues, local politics, and the police beat. The things I learned reporting, many of them off the record, have made me who I am today—made it necessary to write So Much Pretty. But the main reason I wrote So Much Pretty is because I have a son. And I believe there is no greater responsibility in the world, no social justice project as significant or worthwhile than raising a rational, capable, and peaceful man. I wanted to address the greatest fear of every parent—that your child might be hurt or that your child might hurt someone—and I wanted to address the denial, the terror-and-shame-riddled voice that reduces something as horrific as the loss of a daughter to a stubborn and possessive refrain: not in my country, not in my town, not in my family, not in my heart.