I grew up spending every summer of my childhood in the Back Woods of Cape Cod. When most people think of the Cape, they think of Chatham or Hyannis Port—quaint, well-groomed New England towns, sailing boats and wide green lawns running down to the edge of calm inner bays. But the Outer Cape, where we lived, is a completely different landscape. Wild and still untamed. On the ocean side, thick forests grow right up to the edge of high, clifflike dunes that plunge down toward the open Atlantic. It’s very easy to lose your way in the woods unless you are familiar with the secret paths and maze of dirt roads that fork and fork again. But those woods, those paths, are my true north—the place that has again and again been there for me, given me strength when I needed it most.

My parents divorced when I was very young. We were shuffled around a lot between parents and grandparents, but the Cape was my one constant. Both my mother and stepfather were artists, so every year, the minute school ended, we would pack up the car and head to the Cape for the entire summer. Months of time away from the stress and endless push-me-pull-you that divorce can engender. Months being just myself, free, doing the things I loved. And so, in many ways, the Cape became home to me. This was the 60s and 70s, and most adults were too busy navel-gazing to pay much attention to us. We were a pack of completely unsupervised children, running around the woods barefoot, leaping off overhanging branches into the cool drinkable water of the bright blue kettle ponds, doing handstands on the white sandy bottoms, challenging each other to hold our breath, hitch-hiking to the penny candy store. We swam in the ocean by ourselves at age eight and got sucked into the undertow. No adults in sight. We were fearless and independent—it never occurred to us to be otherwise—and that feeling of freedom is forever embedded for me in the smells and sounds of those woods, those ponds, the giant dunes.

Every summer when I return to the Cape, no matter where I am in my life, no matter how tethered or burdened I may be feeling, I am immediately filled with a kind of “living nostalgia”—as if I have been transported back to the freedom of that first freezing crash into the sea, the taste of salt. I wanted to capture that feeling in my novel, . I wanted to immerse my protagonist in that landscape—where the cold water swim wakes her up to the reality of her life, the intoxicating summer heat infuses her romantic passion, the silent woods soothe her grief, and the wild, late night storm mirrors her inner turmoil and confusion. But more than that, I wanted to explore the indelibility of place—how it grounds and shapes our lives. And how, at the end of the day, and wherever it is, however long you stay there, “home” is the place that gives you strength. For my protagonist, Elle, the Paper Palace is her constant—her home, the place that knows all her secrets. It’s in her bones. And even though the house is made up of tiny bits of paper crushed together, like Elle it is solid, strong, still standing after all the harsh winters.