An exploration of how people grieve and how people connect with one another through their pain is at the heart of Colleen Oakley‘s upcoming novel, ‘The Invisible Husband of Frick Island.’
The Greenville native’s fourth book comes out May 25 and follows the people of Frick Island, a fictional town based on Maryland’s Smith Island on the Chesapeake Bay. A young woman named Piper loses her husband, a fisherman, in a boating accident.
“Piper being very young and very much in love and a newlywed, kind of, in her grief, wakes up one morning and sees Tom, her husband, still there and continues to behave as though he is alive and right beside her every day,” Oakley, 40, says.
The townspeople don’t know what to do with Piper’s insistence on her husband being alive, so they go along with her.
Then, a reporter comes to town to cover a piece for his paper. “He comes across a very different story,” Oakley says. It’s this story of Piper, her nonexistent husband and the town that the reporter hopes will lead to his big break.
“I think the biggest takeaway probably is that as humans, we have more in common than not, which I think is a really good thing to remind people in this day and age in the United States,” Oakley explains.
With three published books and another one out on May 25, Oakley says she learns something new with each one.
“Hopefully, my plotting gets better, my characters get stronger, my voice gets stronger. And I just try to kind of challenge myself with these very unique plots.”
Oakley is already at work on her fifth book. Oakley’s mother worked for Greenville Literacy, so books were always important for her. Oakley remembers wanting to write children’s books and later, young adult fiction.
“I thought I would be [young adult fiction] author, but I definitely always wanted to be an author, ” she says. “So it is absolutely a dream come true that I’m living.”
Greenville residents can meet the author at a cocktail and conversations event at Bar Margaret in the Village of West Greenville on June 22. Part of the proceeds will support the Greenville Literacy Association: https://mjudsonbooks.com/events/cocktails-conversation-with-colleen-oakley/
You can preorder the book: https://colleenoakley.com/books/the-invisible-husband-of-frick-island/.
