Award-winning writer and Johns Hopkins University professor Alice McDermott's most celebrated works have been set in the world of Irish Catholics in 20th-century New York. The same is true for her latest novel, The Ninth Hour, in which she explores how one event—a man's suicide—reverberates through the lives of those around him. We got the change to talk to McDermott about her latest work, real-life inspiration, and how true friends keep you honest.

You’re best known for your trilogy of books about the Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture, which is really different subject matter from this book. How did you come up with the idea?
Well, there actually is a connection. The first glimmer of an idea for Behind the Moon came from this Judith Thurman article in The New Yorker about the Chauvet caves.