Paula McLain: Listen to Your Obsessions
In this interview, bestselling author Paula McLain discusses the moral questions at the center of her new historical novel, Skylark.
Paula McLain is the New York Times bestselling author of six novels, including The Paris Wife, Circling the Sun, and Love and Ruin, as well as two collections of poetry and a memoir. Her work has been published in over thirty-five countries, and featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, Town & Country, Real Simple, and elsewhere. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram.
In this interview, Paula discusses the moral questions at the center of her new historical novel, Skylark, her advice for other writers, and more.
Name: Paula McLain
Literary agent: Julie Barer (The Book Group)
Book title: Skylark
Publisher: Atria Books / Simon & Schuster
Release date: January 6, 2026
Genre/category: Historical Fiction
Previous titles: The Paris Wife; Circling the Sun; Love and Ruin; When the Stars Go Dark; Like Family (memoir); A Ticket to Ride
Elevator pitch: In Skylark, a young woman imprisoned in 1664 Paris fights to reclaim her voice and her art inside the notorious Salpêtrière asylum, while—nearly three centuries later—a young doctor risks everything to help a Jewish family survive the Nazi occupation. Their stories interweave through the hidden underground of Paris, where small acts of defiance echo across generations.
What prompted you to write this book?
I’ve always been drawn to what’s hidden beneath the surface—especially in Paris, where the beauty aboveground is only half the story. Years ago, learning about the vast lattice of quarry tunnels below the city—and the underground routes that have long been a space for rebellion and resistance—lit a fuse in my imagination. I kept thinking about the kinds of stories that could touch that world, and what would lead someone to seek escape underground when other means were impossible. Ultimately, I wanted to tell a story about courage under pressure—about what it costs to stay human when the world is designed to strip that away.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
Roughly three years from first spark to publication. I’m an intuitive writer and don’t work out the plot in advance. As I wrote, it became clear that this story wanted more than one era—even though I hadn’t yet done that in a book, and I was a little leery about my ability to hold it all. The 17th-century narrative began to call for a counterpoint in the 20th century, where danger takes a different form, but the moral questions are the same: Who gets to decide whose life has value? If the world is built to erase some, what does it mean to refuse that—to leave a mark, to risk yourself for another person? I wrote the threads separately and then braided them as a last step in the drafting process. For me, the echo between timelines is the book’s deepest heartbeat.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
One of the deepest surprises was how much I became absorbed by the long history of how societies treat the mentally ill. I began with setting and story, but the research pulled me into a moral continuum. I couldn’t stop seeing the same patterns repeating across time—how easily fear becomes policy, how quickly “care” can become confinement, and how often the vulnerable are stripped of voice and dignity. I hadn’t anticipated that this thread would become so central to the book’s center of gravity
I was also surprised by how tender the novel became in places I initially imagined as purely suspenseful. The deeper I went, the more I kept returning to small human gestures—care, loyalty, the decision to tell the truth, the choice to keep going. Those moments ended up carrying as much weight as the dramatic ones.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Don’t try to impose your will on a book before you know what it is—or what it needs. Writing is a kind of trust exercise: you do the work, you show up again and again, and over time the story begins to meet you. It’s like standing at the edge of a clearing, palm open, trying to lure a wild animal out of the woods. Little by little, it creeps closer. And listen to your obsessions. Whatever you can’t stop thinking about—that’s your compass.
