LIVE! #76
4 January 2026
Agenda
- Why We're Here / Roundtable Rules
- Introduction to Literary Forensics
- Group Discussion
- Further Study
Why We're Here
We writers want to improve our craft
by reading like a writer
We learn from each other
using Literary Forensics
Roundtable Rules
Always refer back to the book
Practice active listening & serendipity
Every feeling and observation is valid...
but not every conclusion
Always refer back to the book
Reading Teaches Writing
Meet today's author: Allegra Goodman
- Goodman was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Hawaii. She was brought up as a Conservative Jew, and she wrote and illustrated her first novel at the age of seven.
- She studied English and Philosophy at Harvard University, and earned a Ph.D. degree in English literature at Stanford.
- Goodman's first published novel, Kaaterskill Falls, was shortlisted for the National Book Award.
- Isola is her eighth published novel.
- Goodman has also published two short story collections, and has had over a dozen stories appear in The New Yorker.
- She lives with her family in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
"I want readers to feel like they've been on a journey, that they've been on an adventure.”
—Allegra Goodman
What do you feel?
What in the book elicited that feeling?
Every feeling and observation is valid...
but every conclusion should be questioned
We practice serendipity
- nothing is too crazy
Always refer back to the book
What do you notice?
Writing Isola
- Around 2005, Goodman and her family (including a 2-month-old) took a road trip through Vermont to Montreal. For her children, she checked out YA books about Canada from the Cambridge public library.
- In a book about the French maritime explorer Jacques Cartier, she learned that on his third voyage to Canada in 1542, he was accompanied by colonists.
- On that trip, a French noblewoman named Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval and her husband were exiled to a deserted island in the St. Lawrence estuary. Goodman was intrigued.
- Goodman spent years thinking about Marguerite before beginning to write, after researching for a year.
- She always envisioned Marguerite in the first person, and the structure is that of an epic quest.
- The first draft of Isola took 18 months. She spent another year doing revisions, per her usual schedule.
- Goodman wrote Isola concurrently with her 2023 novel, Sam, which was set in the 21st century. She wrote Sam in the morning, and "Project M" in the afternoon. Because they were so different, she could separate one from the other. She imagined it as being in a time machine, and didn't admit to anyone she was writing it until the first draft was complete. Then she continued writing a third book on Sundays.
- Writes six days a week (not Saturday): swims at 6am; writes from 8-11 am; second session (easier writing) in afternoon, goes for a walk; doesn't write at night.
Stats & Background
- Marketing: Literary Movements & Periods, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Women's Literary Fiction, Historical Literary Fiction, Women's Historical Fiction, Fiction Sagas, Family Saga Fiction
- Genre: Realistic Historical Long-Form Archplot
- Print Pages: 336; Word count: 102,019
Reading Grade: 5th-6th; Avg. wds/sent.: 9.72
Lexical Density: 43.45; Flesch Reading Ease: 81.99 - POV: Marguerite; Person: 1st; Tense: Past
- Publish date: February 4, 2025
- Publisher: The Dial Press
- Audio book length: (12 hours, 54 mins)
- Narrator: Allegra Goodman
- Recognition: NY Times 100 Top Books of 2025, Reese's Book Club pick, Vogue Best of 2025
