Remarkables: Frequently Asked Questions

Note: My answers may contain some spoilers for the book—please don’t read this if you haven’t finished the book!

Where did you get the idea for Remarkables?

The first seed of the idea came from something that happened many years ago, when my family and I—like Marin—moved from Illinois to Pennsylvania. I was an adult, rather than a kid, when I made that move, but I didn’t know anyone in my new town, either, when I first arrived. I was also five months pregnant with my second child, so my husband, toddler daughter, and I were also soon adapting to a new baby in the family even as we were trying to make friends and figuring out the area. With every move I’ve ever made, there’s been a period of time when everything just feels strange; having a new baby and not getting much sleep at night made me feel that even way more intensely with the move to Pennsylvania. One of the things that seemed strange to me was the house across the street from our new house. I never saw any adults at that house, only teenagers. And there were a lot of teenagers always around—I could never figure out which actually lived in the house and which were only friends who were visiting. Also, all the teens I ever encountered at that house seemed super-nice—other-worldly nice, you might even say. In my sleep-deprived, disoriented state, I started thinking that there must be something else going on there beyond the simplest explanations.

Did you plan from the beginning for the story to involve time travel?

No. When I started writing about Marin encountering the Remarkables, I didn’t have any more of a clue than she did about who the Remarkables were and why they could just appear and disappear seemingly at will. I thought I would figure it out along with her. I’d written about eighty pages before I had the epiphany of suddenly understanding who the Remarkables had to be. And I was so happy when I figured that out!

A side note: In general, it usually is not a good idea for an author to start writing a book when she knows so little about how it’s going to turn out. But sometimes it does work out, and I feel very grateful that that approach worked with Remarkables.

Did you ever figure out what was going on with the teenagers in that real house across the street from where you lived in Pennsylvania?

No! We lived there four years, and our house and that community ended up very much feeling like home. But the house across the street was always a mystery. For all I know, maybe the kids who lived there really were time travelers!