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What makes a book worth reading?

A Theory of Expanded Love, for instance.

This coming-of-age novel by Caitlin Hicks plays out in the months between two famous deaths—Pope John XXIII and President Kennedy, in 1963.

I caught up with Caitlin Hicks to discuss issues important to fiction writers.

“What’s your book about, Caitlin? What’s its message?”

“Message?” she says. “No message. It’s a novel.” And a hilarious one, I might add.

And yet I don’t entirely believe her. Her story is definitely about something. I don’t give novels much of my time if they don’t appear to be about something. The story’s 12-year-old protagonist, Annie Shea, is too outspoken for the book not to say something.

Hicks soon confesses that she “had a question to answer with the story,” and so I ask her, “What question?”

“I’m not telling you!” she says. “I’m not telling anyone.”

She’s starting to sound like Annie, smart and sassy and skilled at digging her heels in.

“If you read the book,” says Hicks, “maybe you’ll find the answer.” Or maybe not. “Because it’s not directly answerable in an obvious way,” she says.

“Was your question answered for you?” I ask.

“Yes, but I’m not going to say what it was.”

Every good book has a secret centre

Caitlin Hicks is right to protect the mystery of her question. Readers love books that circle a central question, even if it’s never explained.

The best novels, like A Theory of Expanded Love, possess a secret centre.

I reflect on novels that have bored me—books whose point is quickly obvious. The hero’s trajectory is unambiguous, and so lacks mystery. The reading experience is mediocre, if not downright tedious. Genre fiction can get like that.

Perhaps this is why A Theory of Expanded Love is getting such rave reviews, because it is about something that is “not answerable in an obvious way.” Something to do with love. Or the lack of it. That’s my guess.

One of thirteen siblings, Annie Shea had to fight for face-time with her mother. “I had been tracking her around the house so she would notice me,” says Annie. Perhaps there’s not enough love in a large family to go around. Or does love expand infinitely? That’s a theme you can build a novel around.

“Whenever I have a question,” Hicks says, “and I create something from that question, it usually turns out to have some holding power.”

By holding power she means compelling. I know writers who want to take that word out and shoot it. It haunts them and for good reason. Compelling is the Holy Grail for novelists who want to write a book worth reading.

As long as I’m exploring…

“As long as I’m exploring then it’s interesting,” says Hicks. “My curiosity is everywhere in the book.”

Hicks may be touching the heart of the matter: As long as the writer is exploring, the story holds the reader.

Few writers speak of stories having an unspoken theme or core. One believer is Orhan Pamuk (Nobel Prize for Literature, 2006):

“[The reader] cannot help reflecting on the meaning of life as he tries to locate the centre of the novel he is reading. For in seeking this centre, he is seeking the centre of his own life and that of the world.”

I wonder if Hicks is trying probe the centre of her own life in the novel. Is her story fact or fiction?

Memoir vs. novel

Since Hicks and her protagonist were both raised in large Catholic families in Pasadena, California, I have assumed that A Theory of Expanded Love is autobiographical.

“Annie Shea is not me,” Hicks says. “This is not a memoir, it’s a novel. I’m not a redhead. Annie is so much smarter and confident. I may have thought what she thought, but I didn’t question things. I was a well-bred Catholic girl all the way up to graduating from college. I was going to confession every day. I was trying to be holy.”

For Caitlin Hicks, her real-life family wasn’t sufficiently pregnant with story material.

“I couldn’t write a memoir because I felt like I knew everything I wanted to know about my family. But then ‘the question’ came up, and I wondered why that was?”

Out of that curiosity a novel was born.

It’s a novel that explores family life through the antics of a pre-pubescent girl, and it made me laugh out loud. Annie is a girl whose desperation derives not from abuse or neglect but from a powerful urge to know how life works. Especially love.

That’s definitely it. Something about love. Love expanding to nourish every newborn heart. Is that it, Caitlin?

“It’s not really a secret,” Hicks says. “But I’m not going to tell. It’s unmentioned, but through the whole book you get a sense of what that might be.”

Here’s what I think:

Love is infinite, and when you read this novel you feel it shining through the young and rebellious Annie Shea.

Annie’s story is more than well worth reading.

When is it not okay to laugh at old people?

My 101-year-old mother, for instance.

Should I get serious and tell her she’s slipping away? That she only weighs about 80 lbs.

And when would I tell her? On our way to the golf course?

Or after we get there, when she’s filling her face with a Sunriser Special of sausages, eggs, toast, and extra fries? Maybe while she’s laughing at my jokes, I could just slip it in? Or perhaps later at her 5-star retirement villa, while she’s glued to the Golf Channel.

It has only occurred to me after all these years that she has been the source of my sense of humour. I always knew how to make her laugh.

I don’t know when she’ll stop laughing but until then I’m going to guiltlessly poke fun at old people.

Here’s a link to MOTHER LOVE where you’ll find a guiltless Reece’s piece about my mother.

“Mother Love” supports the launch of a great new novel by Caitlin Hicks: The Theory of Expanded Love.

Please note: you are allowed to laugh with impunity at anything you find at the end of these links.