NL Q and A: Elisabeth de Mariaffi

BY Joan Sullivan

I usually come to new stories with either a first line or a first image in mind. With Hysteria, it was an image – almost a moment, really. A young mother, lounging on a wooden raft in a quiet pond with her child, suddenly is witness to a strange and unexplainable event. It’s a hot and lazy day, the woman is half-dozing. She looks up to see a second child, a strange little girl, has appeared out of nowhere.