Sleeping in Eden

by Nicole Baart

  The story was sparked in my mind when the body of an unidentified woman was found near my hometown. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. My heart ached for her and for the people who missed her—and who had no idea that she had been found murdered in a ditch in Iowa. She started to come to life in my imagination, and she was very different from who I expected her to be. She was spunky and vivacious and interesting. The sort of girl who tempted fate simply by being her amazing self. And, of course, with a heroine so charming, I had to find someone who would fight for her. Someone who would feel the pull of her story deeply enough to set aside his own common sense and do everything in his power to right the unimaginable wrong that had been done to her. That someone was Lucas, and like Meg, he was a total surprise! These two characters absolutely gripped me. So much so that I was willing to write and rewrite this book over and over again for an entire decade.

  2. Dylan Reid’s and Jess Langbroek’s feelings for Meg Painter create the perfect romantic triangle. To what extent did you intend for your readers to support either suitor, as in a “Team Dylan” or “Team Jess” scenario?

  I didn’t intend for my readers to pick a suitor for Meg, though I love the idea of “Team Dylan” and “Team Jess” T-shirts! I’d wear them both, depending on my mood.

  Honestly, in writing Meg’s love triangle, I was trying to explore the nature of women and why we seem to be perpetually drawn to the “bad boy” when someone strong and stable and perfect is often right there in front of us. I’ve experienced this phenomenon personally, and I know many other women have, too. It’s a common story, but one that bears repeating because it can’t be explained no matter how hard we try. The human heart is simply too complicated to be reduced to something we can dissect and predict. To that end, Meg’s story isn’t so much prescriptive as it is descriptive. I didn’t want my readers to feel a certain way, and I hope that people end up supporting both Dylan and Jess. I’d love for readers to personally explore why they were drawn to one character over the other. Ask yourself the questions: What past experiences shaped my response? What do my reactions indicate about me and how I view relationships? I love taking the opportunity to dig deep and know myself better, and I feel like I learned a lot through my own personal reactions to the characters of Dylan and Jess. I love them both for very different reasons.

  One last thought on this issue: Did you notice that Lucas embodies both the male stereotypes? He’s a safe, responsible, levelheaded guy, but he ends up doing something totally questionable and rebellious. I think sometimes we’d like to pigeonhole people, but the truth is, we are incredibly complex—and capable of truly astonishing things.

  3. There are a number of “lost” girls in this novel—Angela Sparks, Audrey Hudson, Meg Painter. How did you anticipate this pattern echoing across the overarching narrative of the book?

  I actually think Jenna Hudson could be added to the list of lost girls in this novel. She’s lost in a different way, but aren’t we all? I guess that was kind of the point as I continued to develop these characters—to explore the idea that we are all, in a myriad of diverse ways, lost. At least, we often feel that way.

  Someone once said that fear and desire keep the world in motion, and though I don’t necessarily agree with that, I do think that most people make decisions based on those emotions. We seem to always be running to something or away from it, and many of us get lost along the way. All of the women in Sleeping in Eden were tangled up in the contradiction of their own fears and desires, and it led them to some very solitary places, both literally and metaphorically speaking. As for Audrey, I think her loss is central to the book. She symbolizes everything that Jenna wants and can’t have, and echoes back Meg’s story and the precious young life that is longed for and lost in her narrative.

  4. Lucas Hudson’s ethics in Sleeping in Eden are questionable. Given the ready temptations of Angela Sparks, why doesn’t he surrender to more base instincts?

  He loves his wife. Period. It bothers me that men are often portrayed as cheating scumbags when most of the men I know are hopelessly devoted to their wives. In fact, in my experience, the stereotype is often flipped on its head: most of the marriages that I’ve seen break up are because the wife no longer cares to make it work. Of course, that’s a gross overgeneralization and I’m sure there are lots of statistics to disprove my sentiments, but just once I wanted to read a story about a man who fought for his woman. Not a fairy-tale, knight-in-shining-armor-saves-the-fairy-princess story, but a gritty, real, heartbreaking story of a bad marriage and a rather bitter, unlovable woman who nevertheless is deeply, truly loved by her faithful husband. Even when he is sorely tempted. As for Lucas’s ethics, he takes the ring because he believes that it will soothe Jenna’s broken heart and offer her some closure and peace. Everything he does, he does for her, and the ethics of it seem minimized to me somehow in the light of how far he is willing to go to do good by her. What would you do to save your marriage? How far would you go for love? Lucas is tested against those questions time and again in Sleeping in Eden, and though he fumbles and struggles at times, I admire him for going so far beyond himself for the woman he loves.

  5. The fostering of a girl in need of a family seems like the perfect solution for the Hudson family. Your book doesn’t explain what enabled Lucas and Jenna to overcome their marital problems. Why did you choose to leave this open to interpretation?

  I left their struggle open to interpretation because I didn’t think that sort of journey could be summed up in a book—or even in a series of books. Marriage is such a mystery. It’s so personal and intimate and sacred . . . And I felt like a bit of a voyeur poking and prodding Lucas and Jenna in their most vulnerable, emotionally naked moments. We see so much of their journey in the book: their grief over Audrey and the divergent roads they take, the way Lucas continues to seek Jenna and she pushes him away. But they have history on their side, and so many shared experiences that knit them together. By the end of the book, I hope it’s obvious that they both still love each other and that they have the tenacity to fight through the things that threatened to tear them apart. If love is a choice, I believe Lucas and Jenna choose to love—and Mia is a by-product of that love, not the essence of it.

  6. You’re a parent of three children. In Sleeping in Eden, you write eloquently of Jenna Hudson’s longing for a child. What led you to incorporate this theme in the novel?

  People always ask me how much of myself I put into my novels, and the answer is usually rather vague. But I wrote parts of Sleeping in Eden from a very raw and wounded place, and I believe that’s evident in Jenna’s longing for a baby. Although we never struggled with infertility, my husband and I experienced four miscarriages—two of which took place in the second trimester. Each loss was absolutely crushing, and it destroyed me when people tried to minimize what had happened by saying things like, “Well, at least it was early.” To me, the loss was no less. Each time, I grieved for a child. So it was easy for me to pour my heartache into Jenna’s character—and to understand how that sort of sorrow could tear a marriage apart. By the grace of God, my husband and I only became closer through our shared suffering. But not every story ends as happily as ours, and it wasn’t hard for me to imagine a different scenario. Especially after the birth of our youngest son. My pregnancy with him was high risk, and because I was always steeling myself for bad news, I spent nine months in a state of perpetual stress and numbness. When I finally delivered a beautiful, healthy boy, I wept for days. My mother’s heart breaks for Jenna and for women like her. For myself.

  7. You’ve spoken of “the contrived ideal of what it means to be an author.” What do you mean by that? What would most surprise your readers to know about you?

  There’s a certain author stereotype. You know the one: We’re all quirky and bookish, erudite and narcissistic. We wear jackets with elbow patches, drink coffee by the potful, love cats and tortoiseshell glasses, and live for solitude. And maybe some of those things are a little
true (at least, for some of us). But my life is so far from that writer’s fantasy! Sure, I write, and I love it and I believe that it’s my calling and a profound expression of my soul, but I also do a whole lot of laundry. I change dirty diapers and wipe snotty noses with my sleeve and say astoundingly stupid things. Whenever I get together with other authors, I half expect them to sniff the air and realize that I’m not one of them. That I’m not bright enough or witty enough or deep enough to be an Author with a capital A. Especially since I sometimes mix up words when I speak and say some insanely dumb stuff. Before I was published, I once told a group of people that I wanted to copulate Margaret Atwood. Uh, yeah. I meant emulate. I can’t believe I just told you that.

  8. Which of the characters in Sleeping in Eden most reminds you of yourself? Were any of your characters modeled on friends or family?

  None of the characters really remind me of myself, but Meg is the girl that I wished I was. The truth is, I was a shy little wallflower throughout high school, and I didn’t have an athletic bone in my body! I wanted to be tough and brave and strong, but I was skinny and nerdy and quiet. My nose was usually buried in a book, and if someone (a guy!) ever deigned to talk to me, I usually found myself tongue-tied, or worse: mute. But I love Meg’s character, her breezy personality and verve for life. I feel much more like her now, and I embrace every challenge and opportunity that comes my way. From backpacking to world travel to participating in a triathlon, I’m up for any adventure. I often say that I’ll try anything once. Back then? Not so much.

  The only other character that is even remotely based on someone I know is Lucas. This sounds incredibly sappy, but my husband loves me fiercely—and I’m convinced that he’d move heaven and earth for me. When some early readers responded to Lucas’s character, they didn’t understand why he’d continue to fight for such a moody, grieving woman. But Aaron has stuck with me through some pretty tough times, and even at my lowest (after I lost a baby and didn’t get out of bed for a week) he loved me. He called me beautiful and met me in the pit of my deepest need. I am utterly confident in his love.

  © ELLEN VELDE PHOTOGRAPHY

  NICOLE BAART was born and raised in a small town in Iowa. She and her husband have three young sons. After the adoption of their infant son, Nicole discovered a deep passion for global issues and co-founded a nonprofit organization, One Body One Hope, that works alongside a church and orphanage in Monrovia, Liberia. Sleeping in Eden is her sixth novel.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by Nicole Baart

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Howard Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Howard Books trade paperback edition May 2013

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  Designed by Jaime Putorti

  Cover design by Bruce Gore

  Front cover photograph © Arcangel Images

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Baart, Nicole.

  Sleeping in eden : a novel / Nicole Baart.

  p. cm.

  1. Physicians—Fiction. 2. Young women—Fiction. 3. Women—Crimes against—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3602.A22S54 2013

  813'.6—dc23

  2012033312

  ISBN 978-1-4391-9736-3

  ISBN 978-1-4391-9737-0 (ebook)