Codependencies October 15, 2012

MediaMonday for October 15, 2012: Authors and Historical Accuracy. Source media: Hilary Mandel and the Limits of Historical Accuracy, by author James Forrester, Huffington Post, October 11, 2012.

The need to need someone. The need to be needed by someone. These are twin markers of the codependent personality. On Wednesday, October 17, we’ll discuss novels with a theme of or characters exhibiting codepencencies. The conversation will continue on Friday, October 19, when Courtney Elizabeth Mauk joins us as guest host to discuss her novel, Spark.

Andrea is her brother Delphie’s keeper. She was conceived with the single intention of providing her bone marrow to save Delphie’s life. The need to be his savior motivates her childhood, but doesn’t affect Delphie’s own need. He’s a pyromaniac. After one of his fires goes horribly wrong and kills a family sleeping inside the house that burns down, Delphie’s sent to prison. Twenty years later he’s released from prison into the saving arms of Andrea and this is where the story begins. As Andrea resumes her childhood role as savior of Delphie, her life sputters and flashes and finally ignites the fire she’s been holding back all her life.

Courtney Elizabeth Mauk was born in Rolla, Miss. and grew up in Copley, Ohio, in a house filled with books. She studied creative writing at Oberlin College and spent a year writing art reviews in Washington, DC, before moving to New York City. In 2006 she received an MFA in Fiction from Columbia. Spark (Engine Books, 2012) is her debut novel. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in The LiteraryReview, PANK, Wigleaf, Necessary Fiction, and FiveChapters, among others. Mauk is an assistant editor at Barrelhouse Magazine and teaches at The Juilliard School and The Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop. She lives on Manhattan’s Upper West Side with her husband where she is at work on a second novel.

Watch the Spark book trailer here.

Follow Courtney Elizabeth Mauk on Twitter: @CourtneyMauk.