Meg Tilly's promise to "Gemma"
by Euan Kerr, Minnesota Public RadioMeg Tilly won fans in the 1980s with her acting in "The Big Chill" and an Oscar nomination for the title role in "Agnes of God." Then she turned her back on Hollywood and moved to Canada to write.
St. Paul, Minn. — 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.
