Heroine Interview from The Stars Shine Bright by Sibella Giorella

» Posted on Jul 18, 2012 in Blog | Comments Off on Heroine Interview from The Stars Shine Bright by Sibella Giorella

This week I’m hosting Sibella Giorella with The Stars Shine Bright and Cathy Richmond with Through Rushing Water. If you want to enter the drawings for the books, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (July  22nd) evening.

Interview with the heroine from The Stars Shine Bright by Sibella Giorella:

1. RALEIGH HARMON, tell me the most interesting thing about you.

I’m haunted.

By three things: My dad’s murder, my mother’s mental illness, and growing up in Richmond, Virginia, a place so steeped in history the past seems more real than the present.

2.  What do you do for fun?

My idea of fun is what other people consider work: Gathering evidence to put away bad guys. When I need to relax, I run or eat cheeseburgers and fries dipped in mayonnaise (better than you imagine).

3.  What do you put off doing because you dread it?

Telling the truth to my mother.

For ten years, I’ve managed to avoid telling her I’m a Special Agent with the FBI. She only knows I’m a geologist — which is the truth. Or part of it. I’m a forensic geologist and an FBI agent. But that last part could drive her deeper into the secret world of her own making, her mental illness.

By the way, I don’t recommend living this way. Dread is a horrible constant companion. As Abe Lincoln once pointed out, death seem preferable to it. “If I am killed,” Lincoln said, “I can die but once — but to live in constant dread of it is to die over and over again.”

4.  What are you afraid of most in life?

That I’ll never figure out who killed my dad.

5.  What do you want out of life?

Authenticity.

Which probably seems contradictory for a person actively lying to her own family, it’s probably also why I want it so much.

6.  What is the most important thing to you?

That I live my life for good, not bad.

7.  Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read?

Scientific books explaining natural phenomenons in geology, physics and chemistry, and  poetry. Great poetry, with formal structure.

They might seem like opposite ends of the spectrum but they’re both tied to observation, making sense of the world.

8.  If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I’d like to learn to enjoy vacation.

9.  Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?

I take care of my mother’s dog, Madame, whose full name is Madame Chiang Kai Shek. It’s a name my mother plucked from thin air, because that’s how her mind works. Or doesn’t work.

Madame is a small black mutt of superior intuition and intelligence. 

And she is loyal to my crazy mother, to the very very end.

10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?

I would go to the beginning of time to witness geologic creation. I’d like to see how God made the world. Did He use catastrophes — earthquakes and tsunamis? Or was the process more gradual and time-consuming — the way clay is molded by a potter’s hands?

But this side of heaven, I will never know.