Virginia Evans

Joyce is my mother-in-law.

And then that would help me find my way with Sybil.

But yeah, most, I mean, mostly imagination, but also, you know, pulling out of that pit out of my own, you know, experiences.

Yeah, it's so funny because I'm, you know, I'm thinking back like, how did I do?

How did I do this?

I know when I started, I had Sybil, this woman in her 70s, who was alone.

But

So much had come before she had children, she had had a marriage, she had had a big career, she had had a, you know, a whole life.

But now where you find her kind of making the incision in time, which is something Claire Keegan, I was in school with Claire Keegan, and she says you make an incision in time.

And so the incision in time is that she's 73 or four or whatever she is.

And that's the moment of entry.

But I knew that the woman I had was a complicated, intelligent, full person.

But what you saw from sort of the first snap was an older lady alone.

And so that was kind of what I was working with.

And what excited me about writing the story was fleshing out what had come before and what was still going to happen.

I remember when I sat down to start, I knew she had lost a child young, and I knew she had had this vibrant career.

Those were sort of the things that I had intact about her.

And I had her voice, I think.

I think I sort of knew what sort of a woman she was.

Which, you know, may we all be so blessed to have a Joyce.