Double duty

ETHS English teacher finds time to mentor her students while publicizing her 4th novel

By Andrea Chang

The Daily Northwestern

For author Molly Moynahan, the most difficult part of completing her third novel was not the two-year writing process. Nor was it the months of promotion and marketing that followed. It was thinking of a title without the word “bones” in it.

Moynahan, an English teacher at Evanston Township High School, said her editors at HarperCollins Publishers nixed her original title, “The Bones of Angels,” because it was too similar to Alice Sebold’s “The Lovely Bones.”

“It was sort of like having a child that you had to rename six months after they were born,” Moynahan said.

But she finally settled on “Stone Garden,” a title she said is a metaphor for a graveyard and a reflection of her belief in Zen Buddhism.

Published last September to rave reviews, Moynahan’s 304-page novel follows high school senior Alice McGuire as she struggles to understand the murder of her best friend and true love Matthew Swan, whose bones are found in Mexico a year after his mysterious disappearance.

The book, Moynahan said, weaves together drama and humor to create a story of redemption.

“The book isn’t really about why he died,” she said. “It’s about the ramifications of his death. It’s about her finishing her last year of high school accepting the loss of this person.”

After her novel was published, Moynahan, who has taught at ETHS for the past four years, decided to work part-time this year to better promote “Stone Garden.”

Moynahan now spends her mornings at ETHS, teaching three classes and one homeroom, meeting with students and correcting essays. She also writes letters of recommendation for her students and is working independently with a junior who is writing a novella. Moynahan said she tries to meet with the student every Friday to review his progress and to offer feedback.

“I really didn’t want to shortchange my students,” she said, “but I also didn’t want to shortchange my luck at having a novel by a major publisher. I needed to be available to promote it.”

When she is not teaching English to juniors and seniors or spending time with her 10-year-old son, Luke, Moynahan goes on book tours and speaks to book clubs.

When writing “Stone Garden,” Moynahan, an outgoing woman with shoulder-length auburn hair and hazel-blue eyes, said she drew upon her own personal experiences from high school as well as stories she heard from friends. But she said she is careful not to base her characters on others.

In “Stone Garden,” Alice decides to volunteer at a local prison, which she hopes will help her understand Matthew’s death. Instead, Moynahan said, Alice learns about forgiveness from a group of murderers.

“She heals through knowing them and helping them,” Moynahan said. “There’s a mutuality there that helps them both. When you forgive someone, you actually help yourself. I don’t think revenge leads to healing — that’s one of the themes of the book.”

Moynahan said one of the most fulfilling parts of finishing the book was seeing her improvement as a writer. Her as-yet-untitled fourth novel, about a couple in Dallas, Texas, struggling to save their marriage, is almost finished. Her first novel, “Parting is All We Know of Heaven” was published in 1990 and was followed by “Living in Arcadia” in 1992.