“Make Them Feel Something”

Rockland resident announces new novel and shares insights on the creative process

This summer, ditch the Hallmark and reach for something a little more Hitchcockian when you snag Mary Anna Evans’ latest novel The Dark Library. 

Before moving to Rockland last June, Evans made her mark all over the U.S. From Mississippi to Kentucky to Florida to Oklahoma to New Jersey, and, for the past year, Rockland, Evans has had the opportunity to see more than most. “As a writer, it’s always good to have more to draw from,” said Evans. 

Evans certainly has plenty to draw from. Her undergrad education was in engineering and physics but she always had a passion for writing. Evans recalled a memory of a hometown author event where an audience member asked when she became a writer. While Evans considered her answer, two very important audience members raised their hands. Evans’ mother and fourth grade teacher both agreed that Evans had, in fact, always been a writer. 

While in the magnificent chaos of raising her own three children, Evans made time nurture her love for writing. She wrote haikus during naptimes and short stories while the kids were at school. After being put on bed rest for the entirety of her third pregnancy, Evans realized she had the time and space to devote herself to something a little longer. While she did not start out planning to write a crime novel, that was where her story went. It was that same story that got her the agent she has now been with for the last 25 years. 

After the baby that put her on bed rest and jump-started her writing career graduated college, Evans wanted to refine her craft by sending herself back to school. She earned her MFA in creative writing from Rutgers University – Camden and soon after stumbled upon a job description that fit her like a glove. 

Evans and her husband packed up and moved to Oklahoma where she began working as a professor. Over the course of ten years, she educated university students on the art of writing. While teaching, Evans managed to earn her PhD in English Literature, proving yet again that moms are unstoppable. “I tell my students that you’ve got to go out and live, because you’re putting experiences in the bag. Then, when it comes time to sit down and think of something to write, you reach your arm in the bag and pull something out,” stated Evans. Her biggest piece of advice, however? “Make them feel something.”

Evans latest novel The Dark Library takes place in an eerily familiar locale. The sheer cliffs, thick foliage and stunning views of a winding river made life on the Hudson River an ideal setting for Evans’ 1942 Gothic novel. 

Evans has found herself drawn to Gothic stories, citing Hitchcock and Agatha Christie as inspirations for her novel. “You’ve got women who are in a world not built for them, learning to take care of themselves and support themselves, menaced by something ‘other’, plus the beautiful settings, the atmosphere and usually a brooding, possibly dangerous man,” said Evans, her dark brows rising above her multicolored glasses. 

The novel follows Estella Ecker, a young woman who has left her freedom-filled world in Boston to return to her family’s Gothic mansion after receiving news of her father’s stroke. The house was more of a museum than a home for Estella, the only bright spot being her housekeeper turned confidant Annie. Estella has taken up a job as an underpaid professor at the local college, an institution where her fathers shadow still looms large even with a new Dean. 

 Estella now finds herself surrounded on all sides by the unanswered questions of her childhood, her tyrannical father and her missing mother, of whom no one has seen hide nor hair of. Sounds intriguing? It is. I’m already 100 pages deep.  

“Things weren’t resolved,” said Evans while discussing Estella’s fraught situation. “She needs to resolve her past and she needs to figure out how to move forward. Find a job that uses her skills and fulfills her, maybe find a relationship… and find out what her life looks like, not just what her parents saw her doing.”

Readers clever enough to preorder the novel can take advantage of Evans’ generous “bonuses” of a presigned novel and a free paperback of one of her early books.

Those who find themselves feeling “incurably curious”, as Evans lovingly calls her readers, can join Evans on July 23rd from 6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. for an author discussion and book signing at Big Red Books or learn more at maryannaevans.com. Preorder your copy through bigredbooks.net or by calling 845-875-7707.