Bookpage: Behind the Book

Behind the Book: A child's second chance

Debut novelist takes inspiration from a shocking headline Column by Heidi W. Durrow

I started writing The Girl Who Fell from the Sky after reading a haunting news story about a young mother—recently depressed and despondent—who led her kids to her building’s rooftop, and apparently pushed the children off and then jumped. Reporters interviewed neighbors and friends who spoke of the young mother’s fierce devotion to her children. She’d had a recent setback, but no one could have guessed that the loving mother could do such a thing. No one could put the pieces of her story together to make sense of the reason why. I became obsessed with the miracle of that horrible tragedy: One of the children, the girl, had survived!
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