I was named Lara after Boris Pasternak’s heroine in Doctor Zhivago.
My parents named me Lara after one of their favorite novels and films Doctor Zhivago. When I was a child, I used to wind-up my mother’s musical jewelry box again and again just to hear it play “Lara’s Theme.”
The Secrets We Kept
The initial inspiration for The Secrets We Kept came from CIA declassified documents.
In 2014, I read the ninety-nine declassified memos and reports pertaining to the CIA’s mission to print and smuggle Doctor Zhivago back behind the Iron Curtain where it was banned. And it was reading those redacted documents—with their blacked-out names and details—that first inspired me to want to fill in the blanks with fiction.
An important book I read during my research was Anna Pasternak’s Lara: The Untold Love Story That Inspired Doctor Zhivago.
Anna Pasternak spent over a decade researching the life of her great-uncle Boris Pasternak’s lover and muse Olga Ivinskaya. She brought Olga back to the forefront of Pasternak's story, and I found her book to be an incredible resource as I attempted to do the same through fiction.
Where I write.
I have a small home office, which is a small, narrow room with a built-in table facing a window that looks out into my front yard that’s filled with succulents and cacti (I live in Austin, Texas). When I’m working on a novel, I like to surround myself with objects that remind me of the characters or time period. For instance, while writing The Secrets We Kept, I had a copy of the CIA edition of Doctor Zhivago on my windowsill and a framed, 1958 Time Magazine with Boris Pasternak on the cover hanging behind my desk.
Music helps me write.
I’m often inspired by music and use it to tap into a certain emotion, time, or place while writing fiction. I usually write while listening to the same song, over and over again, until I can tune out the words and am left with just the feeling.
While composing the Western thread of The Secrets We Kept, I predominantly listened to 1950s and 1960s music—especially artists like Shirley Horn, Duke Ellington, and Ruth Brown.
For the Eastern thread, I listened mostly to sparse classical music—such as Franz Liszt, Tchaikovsky, and Sviatoslav Richter.
I visited Russia while writing The Secrets We Kept.
Traveling to Russia during the writing of The Secrets We Kept provided me with a sense of place and atmosphere, as well as inspiration. It was truly a magical moment getting off the train in Peredelkino and walking the same route Pasternak had walked to his dacha on the hill. Visiting his gravesite and its modest tombstone was an incredibly moving experience.
I think people should read more banned books.
Banned books like Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, and so many more all changed how I view the world. When you can imagine what life is like for someone completely different than yourself, you gain a new understanding—and with that, a richer, deeper connection to the world. People should not only read banned books they should also question why they were banned in the first place.