Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.

Novelist Ellen Meeropol to visit Storrs Library on April 28

Date: 4/16/2015

LONGMEADOW – Ellen Meeropol, an Easthampton resident and author of a newly published thriller novel called “On Hurricane Island,” will share her creative work at Storrs Library on April 28 at 6:30 p.m.

Meeropol told Reminder Publications her novel examines civil liberties in post 9/11 America through the eyes of five different characters. The novel was published in March.

The protagonist of "On Hurricane Island" is a math professor named Gandalf Cohen who studies hurricanes from a mathematical perspective.

“It begins as both a major storm, a hurricane, is threatening New England, and as an anniversary of 9/11 approaches,” Meeropol said.

Cohen, an older woman who is at John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport in New York City on her way to present a paper at an academic conference, is taken away by airport security, handcuffed, and then flown by federal agents to a secret detention center off the coast of Maine.

“[They] believe that she has some information about a potential attack on the United States,” Meeropol, 68, explained.

The five character point of views include a young guard who grew up on the island, two federal agents, Cohen, and the young guard’s grandfather who often brings an historical perspective to the novel, she noted.

“My desire in using these different points of view is to try to show the different approaches to the war on terror and the different opinions about the balance between national security and civil liberties,” Meeropol said.

The idea for the novel sprung from Meeropol’s experience while going through security line at JFK International Airport, she added. Although she wasn’t arrested like her novel’s protagonist, the idea of being so brought the character of Gandalf Cohen into being.  

“I started to think about what would happen if an ordinary person were to be pulled out of that line and taken away,” she added. “The main character just popped into my brain at that point. I sort of imagined her being taken down a corridor and out of sight and I wrote the novel to find out what happened to her.”

Meeropol said she doesn’t outline the plot of her novels when she writes.

“I don’t know where a book is going until I get to the end,” she added. “I write to find the story, so I did not set out to write a book about torture or about civil liberties.”

Her first book, “House Arrest: A Novel,” focuses on medical ethics and draws upon Meeropol’s background in nursing.

Her knowledge of medicine did not come into play as much in her latest work as her previous novel, she explained. The most notable aspect seen within “On Hurricane Island” is the attention for detail regarding the physiological changes a person undergoes when being tortured.

Her third novel, which is set to be published in two years, is a departure from “On Hurricane Island’s” thriller aspects, she noted. It is more akin to literary fiction.

“The next [novel] is already in the pipeline,” she added. “It’s pretty much done. It’ll come out in about two years and it returns to two of the minor characters in my first novel. It rejoins them 11 years later. The main character in that book is a college sophomore who is obsessed by the pain of species lost by climate change.”

At Storrs Library, Meeropol will read from short passages of “On Hurricane Island,” speak about the writing process for the book, and allow for a question and answer period.

“That’s often some of the most interesting discussions,” she added. “So, I hope people come with questions.”

For more information about Meeropol visit www.ellenmeeropol.com.