Printfresh x Simon & Schuster Book Club: Meet Author Patti Callahan Henry

PF: Can you talk about the inspiration behind ‘The Story She Left Behind’?

PCH: It all started with a cold case literary mystery. For me, stories begin with a curiosity, a question that won’t let me go. With The Story She Left Behind, that question was: What happened to Barbara Newhall Follett and her language? I was captivated by the real-life mystery of this child prodigy who published a fantasy novel at twelve, invented an entire language, and then vanished without a trace at twenty-five. I knew I would fictionalize her, so I started imagining a daughter left behind (the real Barbara never had children) and a book written in her mother’s made-up language—one that no one could translate. The more I thought about it, the more I realized this wasn’t just a story about a missing woman; it was about the way we try to find ourselves in the things left behind.

PF: When did you first learn of the literary cold case of Barbara Newhall Follett, and when did you know you wanted to write a story based on her mystery?

PCH: I found Barbara’s story when I was researching someone else – Beatrix Potter. I read that Beatrix once made up an encoded language so that her mother couldn’t read her journals. This fascinated me and sent me down the rabbit hole (A little play on Peter Rabbit there!) of research about women who had created languages. That’s when I learned about Barbara, her genius, and her vanishing, and got that head to toe chill bump knowing – a story waits here! 

PF: What’s your favorite part of the story?

PCH: Oh, that’s so hard when I love so much about it – the child, Wynnie, the setting of the Lake District (where I visited), and the creation of a language are my top three. I have been thinking so much about this question: What do we do when the language we have isn’t enough for what we are trying to express? The created language adds a layer of mystery and a sense of wonder, as if Bronwyn’s story is always just out of reach, waiting to be unlocked. The idea that language can hold secrets, that words can be both a bridge and a barrier, is something that fascinated me while writing. Meanwhile, the landscape in this novel also enchanted me. I visited the Lake District for research and really fell in love with the geography, stories, and mystical world of this part of England. Being there in the story (as well as in real life), was one of my very favorite parts of this novel! To see the land through my character, Clara’s eyes was like getting to visit there twice. 

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