Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Jennifer Vido | Jen’s Jewels Interview: MILLICENT GLENN’S LAST WISH by Tori Whitaker
Author Guest / October 9, 2020

Jen: What inspired you to write Millicent Glenn’s Last Wish? Tori: When I was around five years old, I was at a big family reunion and overheard some older, distant cousins allude to the tragedy that I’ve fictionalized here. That mental vision of what happened stayed with me throughout my life. Years after the woman who was involved had already passed, I asked three people close to her if she’d ever spoken about it. They each said they’d had but one conversation in all the time they’d known he–—and they each had a different detail to share with me. I took those few details and built a whole story around them. The novel is set in two time periods. How much research was needed in order for the story to ring true with readers? I began with a sweeping search for information about the late-WWII years and early 1950s. Besides learning about fashion, media, foods and so forth, I discovered things like the need for prefabricated houses for growing families, and I wove that into my story. I read accounts written from women of the period, too–some of whom felt confined in their suburban homes and by a society that…