Mona Simpson Spoke about Her New Novel, Commitment, on LitHub’s First Draft Podcast

While drafting Commitment, Writer in Residence Mona Simpson asked herself what it might be like to imagine a mental health system that would’ve made life “gentler” for her own mother. Commitment follows Diane, a single mother, and her children, tracing the ways that mental illness affects not only Diane, but the entire family structure—something Simpson says rings true to her experience. “It just travels through the family,” Simpson says. “We do share the burdens and the exhilarations of the people we’re closest to.” For Simpson, writing the novel was an exercise in imagining what life might be like for someone like her mother if the system were slightly different, or if luck had been more on her side. “I guess this book started out being set right at the point where the mental health hospitals were beginning to empty out,” she says. “So it was a little bit of a ‘what if.’”

Post Date: 06-13-2023