This week for The AuthorView, author Kathleen Eagle discusses with Michelle hopeful romanticism, American Indian tradition and the husband she calls hero.

MB: What or who inspired "Night Falls Like Silk"?

KE: Several readers wrote to me about Tommy T, who was a major player in "The Night Remembers." He was 13 years old, street kid, mixed blood (Lakota and African-American), self-sufficient and had a care-taking streak. My inspiration for Tommy T was a student I had when I was teaching high school on Standing Rock (reservation).

I made my decision to give Tommy T his own book when I could finally see him as a grown man. In "The Night Remembers," he was a precocious artist who dreamed up comic super heroes. Now he's a reclusive comic book writer and illustrator whose characters, based in Lakota lore, seem to be taking on lives of their own. Another source of inspiration is the tradition of Indian ledger drawings. One of my nephews found out about an ancestor named White Bull who produced ledger drawings that are part of the Smithsonian collection.

MB: What do you like most about "Night Falls Like Silk"?

KE: I like the mystical quality about it. It was fun to bring Plains Indian mysticism into an urban setting, create a mysterious "villain," and show him moving in a world parallel to the hero's. While I'm not whole-hog into sci fi or paranormal fiction, a little mysticism in what is otherwise a very grounded and human story really fascinates me. And I like the love story, as always. Hopeful romantic, that's me.

MB: Tell us about the most heroic person you know.

KE: Tough question. I'm pretty impressed with former ambassador Joe Wilson at the moment, but I don't know him. I've always felt that my husband has shown a lot of courage over the years. As you may know, he is Lakota Sioux, born and raised on an Indian reservation in South Dakota. He truly pulled himself up by his bootstraps by looking beyond the vision he'd always had for himself (being a cowboy) and taking advantage of educational opportunities he hadn't expected or planned.

What makes it heroic is that he had almost no role models, so he didn't know how he'd be received in the "mainstream." He'd experienced prejudice. (After we got married, I experienced it through him and through the kids. Have I ever told you about the time a store clerk refused a check from my husband? I was standing in line behind him, so he handed me the checkbook. I wrote the check, and the clerk accepted it. No ID required -- just my pale face.) Anyway, Clyde became an excellent teacher, has a double master's -- loves to point out that he's now more educated than I am -- and he still gets to be a cowboy on occasion.

MB: Who's your hero? A dark brooding bad boy or a white knight in shining armor?

KE: My hero is the ordinary guy who rises to the occasion he's challenged by in the situation I put him in. He's usually reluctant. He has other plans. I probably tend a bit more toward the brooding bad boy, but I think readers find that there's a lot more to him than that.

MB: Answer the question you wish an interviewer would ask.

KE:What about your next book?

"A View of the River" will be released Sept. 1, as a paperback original. It's set in a little Minnesota town that thrived on the lumber business at the turn of the century. It was because of logging on Lake Mille Lacs that the Ojibwe were banished from their ancestral home to a reservation up North -- all but a handful of holdouts, including Birch Trueblood's ancestors.

Birch is a present-day holy man (medicine man) who does what he has to to make a living, which often includes putting on a show for "new agers." Rochelle LeClair doesn't buy into the notion that the spirits are restless at her family's declining estate, but she doesn't object to her aunt's request for Birch's ceremonies. A fortune built on the lumber business is nearly gone, but Aunt Margaret is still in charge at Rosewood.

Please check back each week for a new AuthorView interview.