Newtown resident Rachel Basch will read from her latest novel, The Listener, on Sunday, March 22, at C.H. Booth Library. The novel, recently published by Pegasus Books of New York, is the third book for Ms Basch. Degrees of Love, tracing the despair and love of a young couple accused of child abuse when their toddler is severely burned, was published in 1997. In 2003, The Passion of Reverend Nash, delving into love, loss and healing, was published.

The Listener once again probes the multifaceted lives and emotions of its characters, from the secretive, mournful Malcolm Dowd, a therapist, to his emotionally charged lover, Cara — also the mother of Dowd’s patient, Noah — to the therapist’s own daughters.

Noah is a complex character, and it is around his gender uncertainty that this tale unwinds. Noah highlights the fears and courage of a society that fascinated the novelist, an instructor in the MFA program at Fairfield University and in the GLSP (Graduate Liberal Studies Program) at Wesleyan University, and inspired her to write this book.

She was finishing up research for The Passion of Reverend Nash when the idea for The Listener was first sparked in her imagination. Sitting in church one Sunday, she observed the lone young man seated in front of her.

“He was lovely to look at, and obviously wearing mixed gender clothing, and nail polish. He was singing out, he was fully present, fully himself,” she recalled. She admired his courage. “To be yourself, in this place, at this age. Adolescence is a time when it’s hard enough to act on the outside, the same as on the inside,” Ms Basch said.

Around the same time, she was seeing a lot of political graffiti cropping up around the Wesleyan campus. Not all were about sexual orientation, but many were about gender identity. “At a lot of schools,” she said, “conversation takes place via graffiti. And once you start thinking about something, the universe starts presenting examples to you.”

Again, she observed another young person at the mall, comfortable with identifying with a gender other than what was expected.

She began adding news items that intersected with her story idea to her clip notes.

“Things like therapists, betrayal, and gender — about secrets and lies, and what happens within a family or person keeping a secret; what happens when a secret is revealed, which is a big part of [the plot for The Listener],” said Ms Basch. Adults and parents keep secrets unconsciously, as well as consciously, she believes. “Parents are always balancing when to reveal information, whether it is about war, poverty, sex, gender issues, or what have you. Novelists do this, too,” she said. “Writing a novel is all about conceal and reveal, and when to do it. In life, we’re always trying to decide what to show,” said Ms Basch.

Her notes, an essential part of her writing process, were started in 2003. In 2008, she finished her first draft of The Listener, but a sluggish publishing era and her then-agent’s disinterest in marketing a book perceived as less commercial, forced her to seek another agent and publisher. She put the time to good use, though, tightening and improving upon the book, with the help of several readers. In particular, she sought the input of men.

With each novel she writes, Ms Basch sets herself the task of doing something new. This time, The Listener’s two main characters are men — one in middle age, the other a college student — so having their voices seem authentic and their feelings in perspective was crucial. The male perspective was meant to test herself.

“I knew in the therapist character I wanted a nurturing male, and a man who could extend himself. Would I get it right? Until the first man read it, I wasn’t sure,” she admitted.

As she explored Noah’s confrontation with his gender identity, and as she reworked the novel, Ms Basch realized that since her first draft, there were words in the language now “that I didn’t know then, or if they even existed then, to identify people along the gender issue.”

She is grateful to the efforts of her agent, Iris Blasi, for finding a publisher for The Listener, and she is now grateful for the lapse in finding a publisher.

“The timing is absolutely great for this book, almost ironically. After bewailing its lack of publication to my friends and family for eight years, now there seem to be articles about gender identity in the news every week. There’s a conversation going on right now about gender identity, and an enormous change,” Ms Basch said. The Listener fits smoothly into this news feed.

She is not afraid that people will be put off by the social issue at hand in her novel, but rather hopes that it could serve as a discussion point for families and book clubs.

“I think our fear and recoil at people being loud and proud really comes from envy, and that feeling of ‘How come you get to be who you want to be and I don’t?’ Most of us are waiting around for someone to tell us it’s okay to be who you are,” Ms Basch said.

Along with her continuing exploration of grief, loss, love, and parenting that resonate in all of her books, Ms Basch sees one theme rise to the surface in The Listener.

“We put labels on people, but we’re much more alike than different from one another,” she said. The theme of loving and being able to be loved surfaces, as well, she said.

“We have such a hard time,” said Ms Basch. “There’s a lot of discussion of shame in this book. I believe that’s a roadblock to love. Late in the novel, the therapist says to the mother of the kid he’s counseling, ‘Just love him.’ And he reminds himself, someone should be saying this to him about one of his own kids. It sounds simple, but it’s not.

“Stop judging, stop molding, stop prodding and just love our kids and other people’s kids.”

Ms Basch will read excerpts from The Listener, and sign copies of the novel, Sunday, March 22, at 3 pm, at C.H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street. Copies of the book will be available for purchase at cover price of $24.95. Checks and cash are accepted.

All profits from the sale of The Listener on March 22 will be donated to the library. For more information call the library at 203-426-4533.