Behind the Story: A Map to Paradise
- The Bookery
- Feb 27
- 3 min read
Learn more about Meissner’s writing process, approach to research and where the idea came for her McCarthy-era novel
Susan Meissner’s The Map to Paradise — just released in paperback — is a story about the bond between three women as they navigate the challenges of the late 1950s. The plot centers around blacklisted starlet Melanie Cole, her housekeeper, Eva, and their agoraphobic next-door-neighbor Elwood, who Melanie sometimes chats with through open windows.
When Eva and Melanie see Elwood’s sister-in-law and caretaker mysteriously digging in his rose garden one day. After that, the women never see Elwood again, which sends them on a mission to solve the mystery — which eventually creates a fragile alliance among all three women.
Go “behind the story” with us and learn more about the novel!
Where did Susan Meissner get the idea for A Map to Paradise?
According to a 2025 interview with the Poisoned Pen Bookstore, Meissner said the idea for The Map to Paradise began with a question.
“When I was noodling around for an idea for this book … I was thinking to myself that we’ve had some really good World War II books, some really stellar works and stories that deserve to be told, for the last decade,” she said. “But it occurred to me that some people may be wondering what happened after World War II.”
Meissner says that at its core, the book is about finding a sense of belonging and home, especially in a world where you don’t feel at home or accepted. Using the backdrop of the beginning of the Cold War, she explores the 1950s as “a decade of great fear,” which she helps to explain through Melanie Cole’s blacklisted status during the McCarthy era of Hollywood.
What do the three women in A Map to Paradise have in common?
According to a conversation with Cara Putnam, Meissner says that all three are looking for a sense of home and belonging. Melanie is a blacklisted actress in Hollywood, unable to work or see most of the people she’s called friends. Eva, an immigrant from war-torn Europe, has lost everyone and everything she loved in the war that just ended, and Julia, Elwood’s sister-in-law and caretaker, and if Elwood dies, she’ll be left with nothing.
“These three women are either lost everything, are losing it, or it’s going to be lost,” Meissner said. “All they have in common is this displacement, it’s either happening or it’s going to happen, and then they become allies to each other.”
What’s Meissner’s approach to researching her historical novels?
“I do a ton of research before I begin to write and while I’m writing,” Meissner said in a article for Chick Lit Central, “but I have learned over the course of writing 15 works of historical fiction that I won’t use it all, and I shouldn’t expect to use it all.”
Meissner says that even though she doesn’t use every detail she digs up in her research, the diligence helps her to give credibility and context to her novels.
“Some of the facts I learn are just to give me breadth of context so that I can write the story but that doesn't mean all those details need to show up on the page,” Meissner commented. “It's a balancing act to know what historical detail to put in and what to leave out.”
Ready to try the book out for yourself?
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