CT: How closely do you relate to Ganga, her family, and her upbringing?

NM: The novel is of course fiction. Many of us have experienced a sort of lonely disconnected childhood so even though the more horrific aspects of the novel are not part of my experience, I was able to draw on the greater feeling of disconnection that often occurs in childhood.

CT: What inspired you to write this particular story?

NM: I wanted to tell the story of a woman who had committed the worst crime a woman can commit according to our culture and society. There is such a cult of maternity, a way maternity is supposed to be, a way mothers are supposed to be-meaning self-sacrificing and perfect. When a mother fails in any way, when she's just human, the entire culture comes down on her. I wanted to look at the women that we discard as monsters and see how they got to the point of no return, to humanize them and say they too have a story.

CT: Why did you choose to wait to reveal her name in the end?

NM: I wanted the reader to feel that they had heard her whole story and now she could reveal herself to them. She does tell you at the beginning that you must hear her story to understand her. And the name- is so symbolic- I didn't want it revealed until the end. In this way too, she stands in for every woman, every daughter, every mother.

CT: Is it cathartic for you to write from a place of darkness? What is that process like?

NM: I love to read the books that Franz Kafka said are like "axes to break into the frozen sea within us." These are the books I want to write too. For me that means entering the darkness and taking on the harder parts of the human psyche, bringing them up to the light for readers and for myself. Yes- this is a hard process. I do go through the usual depressions and darknesses that go with the work of writing. But as you said, I'm also rather light and I'm assuming you're referring to my FB page- fun and etc. Readers are sometimes surprised when they meet me to find that I'm quite light-hearted. But I think the writing is the obsessive working out of the darker stuff. For example, David Lynch made Twin Peaks- one of the darkest pieces of art in film history. But in real life he's a daily meditator and very very optimistic, positive etc. That's a healthy way to be, otherwise the work can eat you up.

CT: Could you tell me about your best and worst memories of Sri Lanka?

NM: I go there at least once a year- throughout my life. I'm heading back in two days to teach with www.writetoreconcile.com. A wonderful program that teaches writing to kids that grew up in the war. Lots of fantastic memories with this program and other trips through my whole life so I couldn't start telling stories coz we'd be here all day. Suffice to say it is paradise. If you want more- read my first novel, Island of a Thousand Mirrors!

CT: “ To say the truth is somewhere else entirely, and I will tell it in my own voice, in my own time.” This line, in the beginning of the book, struck me the most. It seems like something you can elaborate on in comparison to your own life.

NM: Ha! I'm not sure if you're asking whether I plan to write a memoir - perhaps - but much later in life - and after certain people have passed.

CT: I loved the platonic (key word) relationship between Samson and Ganga – was he a fictionalized character from someone you grew up with in real life?

NM: No not at all- Samson and the father character are both entirely fictional. Neither have anything to do with my own dad who is a very sweet adorable man and perhaps the reason I started writing at all- he bought me a journal at age 16 and I never stopped. I hope readers know that there is a huge gulf between a writer's life and their work. I have to be emphatic about this point because I do not want people equating either of these two fictional characters with my poor dad who after all never asked for a kid who would grow up to be a writer and make up crazy stories that people think are about him.

CT: What would you have done, if you found out a woman had killed her child and tried to drown herself in the process?

NM: I would write a novel attempting to humanize her. There are stories like this every day in the news. Every single day. When I do book clubs with mothers I hear about how hard motherhood can be- it seems to be a secret and women feel ashamed to share their true feelings. I think we need to see women, see their experiences and how hard it can be for them and support them in every way we can.