Report of interview of Nina Sankovich

When Nina Sankovich was asked how the memoir came about, she said Tolstoy and The Purple Chair came about because she was trying to overcome a terrible sorrow that resulted from her oldest sister's death in 2005. In response to the question about what made it different from every individual to grieve, she said in her particular case, her healing involved including the memories of her sister into her life. In response to the question if she would have gone to grief counseling, she said she would have felt uncomfortable, but would have felt comfortable going to books, because in her whole life she had read books and turned to books when something happened. When she was asked if she wrote in her childhood, she said she kept journals and wrote poetry. Furthermore, she explained her dream was to be a reader. Later in the interview, in her answer to how she chose to review each book, she mentioned it involved a personal exploration of how she was going to get herself out of the hole of despair. Towards the end of the interview, she was asked again about her motivation to write the memoir. Sankovich reiterated that it was a way to move forward from her sister’s death.