There was a lot of Mozart and the Beatles. Growing up, we always had classical and contemporary music playing.
My parents met in music school and my father was a music professor and conductor. This character has been in my head for a long time, though at first she was an athlete in a family of musicians. It’s always very mysterious and hard to pinpoint. Why did you decide to make Lucy a musician? Most of my characters are from working or middle-class backgrounds, so I thought it would be interesting to put Lucy in a position of privilege and to make her problems more existential, more about self-actualization. I knew that I wanted to a complicated but not sordid relationship with an older man and I could picture a girl with a talented younger brother. Zarr spoke to Bookshelf from her Utah home about writing, music, and continuing to find joy in one’s art despite the stresses of career expectations.ĭid the concept or the characters in The Lucy Variations come to you first?
In The Lucy Variations, her newly published fifth novel, 16-year-old Lucy Beck-Moreau has stepped away from her blossoming career as a concert pianist, and is struggling to redefine what role music will play in her life.
Her first novel, Story of a Girl, about a teenager navigating the aftermath of a sexual indiscretion, was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award. However, rather than centering on single, defining moments, her work acknowledges the inward explorations, hesitancies, and quiet encounters that often lead to significant transformations. Sara Zarr’s novels introduce characters poised at critical points in their lives.
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