"The protagonist is Desdemona Hart, a woman drowning in the choices she's been forced to make: a marriage of necessity to save her father's legacy and put a roof over his head as he dies......trouble escalates, and so will the rate at which you turn the pages. Cascade is perfect for sitting by the fire on a chilly day contemplating the immutability of things." ----Slate: 2012 Best Books, Staff Picks

Gorgeously written and involving, Cascade explores the age-old conflict between a woman's perceived duty and her deepest desires, but in O'Hara's skilled hands the struggle feels fresh and new. --People Magazine, "PEOPLE PICK"

"CASCADE unfolds like a Shakespearean tragedy, with an ending you won't see coming. Much like a drowned town, the novel becomes something that you can't take your eyes from or stop thinking about in wonder."--The Boston Globe

O'Hara deftly combines several different themes into a cohesive novel about love, ambition, loyalty, and betrayal, with an ironic twist at the end. --Library Journal, “Best Bet”

"O'Hara has vividly captured the conflicting emotions that churn behind the human face."

Galley Talk, Publisher's Weekly

NOTES TO BOOKCLUBS FROM THE AUTHOR

A Conversation with Maryanne O’Hara

The setting for Cascade is loosely based on the true story of the Quabbin reservoir, which led to the destruction and flooding of four Massachusetts towns when it was completed in 1939. What aspects of this event were the most compelling for you?

As a child visiting that reservoir, I was haunted by the idea that a government could destroy a place and say it no longer existed, that you would never again be able to mail a letter to Enfield or Greenwich or Prescott. I was also a little bit enraged. Learning about eminent domain was perhaps the beginning of my awakening to the ‘real world’ and social politics. The uncertainty of both the setting and the 1930s time period seemed a fitting backdrop for the story of Dez Spaulding’s personal struggles.

Reflecting her childhood with a theater–owning father, Dez often quotes Shakespeare. How did Shakespeare’s writings influence the narrative?

Shakespeare’s plays are full of truths that speak for everyone—for the wise man and for the wretch, for the evil heart and the noble soul. I had no interest in patterning my plot on any play, but I did want to suffuse the novel with the truths and flavor of Shakespeare, so there are many subtle references, and it was fun to use some of Shakespeare’s tricks, like the mistaken identity theme.

Dez is a painter who chronicles the events around her in great detail. Are there any parallels between her process as an artist and your own as an author?

Oh, definitely. When I imagined Dez painting, and the ideas she tried to convey, it really wasn’t much different than trying to write. I think an artist of any medium can imagine that the underlying struggle is all one big common denominator of ambition and desire and despair. At one point, Dez wins a prestigious prize and mulls on the fact that she feels a bit flat. She thinks, “That was the thing about art, about any artistic endeavor where you gathered all the energy and emotion that surrounded you and tried to paint it, write it, sing it. It was never quite enough. There was always the impulse to try for better.”

Although it’s the process, more than the end result, that keeps many of us going, Dez paints her life, whereas I prefer to recede into imagined zones. I’ve experienced dramatic events in my life, but when I think about writing about them, I get tired. I already know what happened.

Cascade is set in the turbulent 1930s. What were some of the challenges of writing an historical novel? How did you research the era?

I enjoy research, so I was content to do a lot of it. In the early years, when the novel was a short story idea, I was able to interview three gifted WPA artists before they died, as well as some other wonderful elderly people with keen memories. I watched hours of period newsreels, and old movies with an eye to background detail and an ear to diction. I read art books published before 1935 to get the painting methods right. And how helpful is it that so much research material is now available online? I made great use of the Library of Congress and the Folger Shakespeare Library. I fact–checked obsessively, for example, contacting Strathmore Artist Papers to make sure their illustration boards existed when Dez used them, and figuring out how an operator would have cut and gummed a telegram.

You’ve deftly constructed a plot that ramps up the tension with definable consequences for each character’s actions. What is your method or approach to plotting? How did the plot evolve through drafts?

I’ve always been very aware, when writing, that although a few readers might be content to admire your lovely sentences, all readers demand to be stimulated; they must wonder what will happen next, must care. Characters need to want things that they will or will not get, they need to try things that they will succeed or fail at doing. Their actions and decisions must have consequences. Having many small, personal wants and conflicts within the broader scope of larger, broader conflicts helps to keep readers turning the pages.

As for the evolution of the novel, I’m not the kind of writer who has separate drafts. I just open my story file and revise. I do remember that I had a very hard time writing the part where Dez leaves Cascade. I was tempted to just jump forward and put her in New York, but I knew I had to write through it, had to force myself to imagine how she would actually tell Asa, live with him, go to the train station, etc. I set up a work table in front of my fireplace one winter, and threw log after log onto the fire, day after day, writing through that part. Of course, it’s a lovely, cozy memory now, but at the time I was mostly full of despair, fearing the book would never get through to its ending.

There’s an interesting dynamic in the book between fate and the decisions the characters make, and how each can shape the actions of the story. For you as the author, where does the one end and the other begin?

At this point in my life, I tend to believe that it is fated that we will face certain decisions in our lives, and that when the time comes, the choices that we do make determine our soul’s growth.

You mentioned that readers have been identifying with the ‘drowned town’ aspect of Cascade. What kinds of responses have you been getting?

Well, just as people around the country responded to Dez’s postcards by sending her their stories of dust bowl devastation, storms, and floods, I have had readers similarly connect with me. The responses I’ve received range from funny to incredibly poignant. One reader told me how her grandfather, an influential attorney, incensed by the idea of eminent domain, was able to use his connections to stop their area of the Ozarks from being flooded. She wrote, “I grew up with a grandfather who told me my mission was to ‘blow up all those dams.’ Thank goodness I saw reason and remained a good citizen throughout my life.” Other readers tell me about towns in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, in the Pacific Northwest, that were “up and moved, and nothing ever the same again.” A woman in Texas reminds us that there are still ongoing clashes between the individual’s rights and the common good: “Here in Texas we are still fighting over landowner’s ‘water rights’ so I guess history hasn't changed that much from the 30's era time of your book.”

When I Skyped with a book club in New Jersey, one of the members could not be with us because she was on the shore, dealing with the sad fact that the beach house her family had owned for generations had been washed away by the devastating storm Sandy. Her loss, her friends said, on the heels of reading Cascade, made them really imagine what it would be like to lose their homes.

Dez feels she has to choose between the traditional path of wife and motherhood and her creative work. In what ways do you see women still struggling with these choices? How has your own experience (if at all) informed this theme in the book?

I definitely see women (and some men) struggling with these choices. Of course, everyone has her own story, but here’s mine: I had my only daughter when I was twenty-five, much earlier than I’d ever planned to have a child. She was born with cystic fibrosis, which readers may know is a pretty devastating genetic lung disease. At the same time, my husband was building his business, so I turned to freelance corporate writing, which allowed me to work at home to take care of our baby and at the same time, lessen the pressure on my husband while he built his company. I put my creative writing dreams on hold until I was in my thirties, when I started to panic.

Maybe because of the daunting extra care that raising my daughter required—weeks–long hospitalizations, time–consuming daily treatments, I was very aware that children, especially in earlier times, before dishwashers and clothes dryers and fully–stocked grocery stores, could easily sap a woman’s energy and result in minimal artistic output.

You resist an easy happily–ever–after ending in this book. Can you talk about how you arrived at this particular way to close the novel?

I find that if you close your eyes and imagine what would really happen, rather than try to dictate a course of events, you will write truth.