Our friend was an intelligent, passionate young woman, a natural leader and a bright star in our universe. She had been on the cusp of making her mark on a world that needed more people like her, and now she was gone. In time, we learned that in her new city, she befriended people who subscribed to a new-age philosophy, an appealing ethos of self-improvement, human potential, and better living. Some believed it to be the path to a better future; others called it a cult. Eventually, our friend came to share a home with these people. There were murmurs of questionable activity among these new roommates, unrequited love, perhaps mental illness. In the end, we never truly knew what happened. All that mattered, all that remained, was the tragic loss of a young woman, and the world was that much dimmer for her absence.

And so, twenty-five years before I would begin writing The Shape of Family, the question was planted in my mind. How could a young woman—strong, smart, well-loved—fall in with such people? Did she recognize any potential danger, and if she did, could she have extricated herself?

I became fascinated with the behavioral practices of cult-like groups: their common practices, the characteristics of their leaders. What draws people to such communities? What separates groups that are benign from those that are destructive? I watched and read everything I could find, ranging from nineteenth-century polygamous religious sects of the American southwest to current-day pyramid scheme sex cults preying on wealthy celebrities. In fact, many groups in our society—political parties, sports teams, product brands—utilize the same techniques as authoritarian cults, and occasionally inspire the same devotion. All these groups tap into a deep and universal human need for identity and belonging, a truth I found intriguing.

After a couple of years of thinking and research, the idea moved from my subconscious to my active mind, and I couldn’t let it go, nor would it let me go. I knew I had to write about it. I started with the idea of a young woman who joins a group, believing it to be noble, only realizing too late it is not. And, perhaps because I write to explore alternatives, I knew this time the young woman would escape from the group and survive to a hopeful future.

I started by writing the scene that now opens the novel: a young woman, dressed in white, alone on the beach at daybreak. As I wrote, more questions emerged and I conceptualized a backstory for Karina and her family that might have led her to the Sanctuary. I saw Karina’s search for identity as germane to her personality, rooted in her growing up biracial. I believed she was seeking a new family because she had once known what it meant to be part of loving one. And Prem’s death was the tragic event for which each family member could blame themselves and suffer alone. Prem’s voice came as a surprise to me; I wrote his first passage with no forethought, only longing to hear his voice myself after writing his death.