I write novels. My third, New York Times bestseller Bittersweet, is set at the home on Lake Champlain where I spent my summers as a little girl. But that's where the resemblance to life ends - the place, renamed Winloch in the book - is inhabited by a family of deliciously bad people. I wrote Bittersweet for people like me, who love The Secret History and The Emperor's Children; it's a literary beach read.My first two novels were published in 2005 and 2007. My next novel, June, will be out in 2016.Based in some part on my own experience being photographed by two fine arts photographers, Jock Sturges and Mona Kuhn, I started my first novel, The Effects of Light, to answer the question most Americans seemed to ask when I explained this photographic work to them--would I still love it if an innocent died because that work had been made? My second novel, Set Me Free, was based in part on the time I spent on the Crow reservation in highschool, the legacy of my countercultural parents, and the complications of their generation of liberal do-gooders. The book was also an homage to my theater school-aged days and based on The Tempest.