Dear Brae,
     This is a beautiful book. The story has many layers --Pax is a novel for writers.
     I was caught up in the story, but I was even more caught up in the words and the ways the author wove her story. The setting is even a bit confusing, which adds to the tale. A war is going on, but you never know where or why. It could be anywhere , anytime. 
     The critics gave this book top ratings. I will long remember this book and the journey both Pax and his young master made to discover what they never expected. 

Listen to the interview with the author about this very different book -- Click on National Public Radio graphic...

Read this interview with the author --it's really interesting!!!

Why did you decide to write this book without a defined geographical setting?
Keeping everything about the war undefined—especially the setting and time—was critical to me. I didn’t want the reader to be able to say, “Oh, this happened somewhere else,” or “This couldn’t happen now,” because that would have allowed a sense of distance and comfort I didn’t want. I wanted the reader to be able to identify with Peter as though he lived nearby, right now. It was harder to do than I’d predicted, by the way—technology and geographical clues kept trying to insert themselves into the story!

How did you go about researching the behavior and characteristics of foxes? What do you feel is the most important thing you learned about the fox?
Foxes! As always with a story, I do a lot of research because it bothers me if an author gets things wrong in a book. With foxes, the more I learned, the more impressed I became—with their intelligence, their adaptability, and their complexity. And that altered the way I wrote the book—I decided to make it more realistic than I’d originally planned. To do that, I asked a red fox expert to go over the manuscript with me, and I thanked him in the acknowledgements for his generosity. A few times for the sake of the story I fictionalized their behavior, but only a few. The most important thing I learned about —or maybe the most intriguing—is their intelligence. Foxes are just as smart as portrayed in the book—for instance, they are known to be able to understand the communications of many other species, not just crows, as I write in the book. For over fifty years in Siberia, people have been experimenting with domestication of foxes, and one fascinating result is this: unlike all other domesticated animals—dogs, cats, farm animals, etc.—who lose intelligence through domestication, foxes actually become smarter during the process! When did you make the choice to tell the story through alternating points of view? Were there certain parts of the story that were best told through Peter’s point of view and others from Pax’s perspective? In the early drafts, I only had one point of view—the fox’s. Peter’s came later, halfway into the writing, when I realized how much more light I could shed on the whole story if I included a human’s understanding. Once I decided that, I next had to figure out which piece of the story belonged to which character. I made the decisions based on two factors: who had the most insight to share, and whose view was the most moving. The hardest to choose were the first and last chapters—I wrote them each out from both points of view, and only hope I chose the right ones. As a writer, the most rewarding parts of Pax were the events that were told from both Peter’s and Pax’s perspectives— they reminded me how differently we all perceive the same thing.

When did you decide to write this book without a defined geographical setting?
Keeping everything about the war undefined—especially the setting and time—was critical to me. I didn’t want the reader to be able to say, “Oh, this happened somewhere else,” or “This couldn’t happen now,” because that would have allowed a sense of distance and comfort I didn’t want. I wanted the reader to be able to identify with Peter as though he lived nearby, right now. It was harder to do than I’d predicted, by the way—technology and geographical clues kept trying to insert themselves into the story! How did you go about researching the behavior and characteristics of foxes? What do you feel is the most important thing you learned about the fox? Foxes! As always with a story, I do a lot of research because it bothers me if an author gets things wrong in a book. With foxes, the more I learned, the more impressed I became—with their intelligence, their adaptability, and their complexity. And that altered the way I wrote the book—I decided to make it more realistic than I’d originally planned. To do that, I asked a red fox expert to go over the manuscript with me, and I thanked him in the acknowledgements for his generosity. A few times for the sake of the story I fictionalized their behavior, but only a few. The most important thing I learned about —or maybe the most intriguing—is their intelligence. Foxes are just as smart as portrayed in the book—for instance, they are known to be able to understand the communications of many other species, not just crows, as I write in the book. For over fifty years in Siberia, people have been experimenting with domestication of foxes, and one fascinating result is this: unlike all other domesticated animals—dogs, cats, farm animals, etc.—who lose intelligence through domestication, foxes actually become smarter during the process! When did you make the choice to tell the story through alternating points of view? Were there certain parts of the story that were best told through Peter’s point of view and others from Pax’s perspective? In the early drafts, I only had one point of view—the fox’s. Peter’s came later, halfway into the writing, when I realized how much more light I could shed on the whole story if I included a human’s understanding. Once I decided that, I next had to figure out which piece of the story belonged to which character. I made the decisions based on two factors: who had the most insight to share, and whose view was the most moving. The hardest to choose were the first and last chapters—I wrote them each out from both points of view, and only hope I chose the right ones. As a writer, the most rewarding parts of Pax were the events that were told from both Peter’s and Pax’s perspectives— they reminded me how differently we all perceive the same thing.