Lara Tupper

Q: Did you travel to gather research for your novel, Off Island?

A: I visited Monhegan Island many times. It's an incredible place—a ninety-minute boat ride from my hometown. Miles of rugged hiking trails. No cars from the mainland. There was no cell service, until recently. It still feels like another time. If I could live there and write for an entire summer, I would.

The island light is ideal for painters, who line up on the hiking trails and cliff edges with their easels in the warmer months. I'm not a painter, but I'm fascinated by the process. I love to watch visual artists at work. It's a great mystery to me.

 FULL INTERVIEW: Nowhere Magazine

Q: How did you come up with the idea for Off Island, and why did you include the artist Paul Gauguin as an important part of the novel?

A: The idea occurred to me at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the summer of 2002. I wandered into a Paul Gauguin exhibit and was struck by his letters on display.

Gauguin wrote from Tahiti to his wife, Mette Gad, who was back in Denmark with their five children. He described his affairs with young Tahitian girls in great detail and I thought, There's another story here, from Mette's perspective. I didn't want her to be a victim. So I imagined a different story. Off Island includes various points of view; Mette's is one of them.

FULL INTERVIEW: Deborah Kalb Books

Open Book with Lara Tupper

By Lindsey Hollenbaugh

WASHINGTON, MA — Author, writing teacher and jazz/pop singer Lara Tupper never gives herself a day off.

"I'm self-employed, officially, so I have the beauty of arranging my own schedule," Tupper said during a phone interview from her office space in Becket, where she finished writing her second novel, "Off Island," which hits bookstores Monday.

FULL ARTICLE: The Berkshire Eagle