An American citizen born in
Paris, Tuck now divides her time between
New York City and
Islesboro, Maine; she has also lived in
Thailand and (during her childhood)
Uruguay and
Peru. Tuck has stated that "living in other countries has given me a different perspective as a writer. It has heightened my sense of dislocation and rootlessness. ... I think this feeling is reflected in my characters, most of them women whose lives are changed by either a physical displacement or a loss of some kind". In her 2011 novel,
I Married You for Happiness, Tuck explored an unhappy marriage. She explained at the time of its publication that while the book was not autobiographical it had resonance with her first marriage. She stated "In the '60s, I was married to a strong, charismatic person and he took over my life completely". Her second marriage was happier and upon the loss of her second husband, Edward, her grief was such that she was unable to write fiction and instead wrote the biography
Woman of Rome: A Life of Elsa Morante which won the Premio Elsa Morante. == Works ==