Meg Tilly's promise to "Gemma"
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A Duluth-based publisher just released Tilly's second novel, which is called "Gemma." It's a disturbing, at times graphic, story about a man called Hazen who kidnaps and sexually abuses a girl called Gemma.
Tilly says the book was born at a writers workshop. Organizers challenged her to write a story from the point of view of a man she didn't like. She immediately fixated on a relative who had abused her when she was a girl. She told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr she was so terrified she couldn't write a thing.
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