ANITA SHREVE , best-selling author of The Pilot’s Wife, talks to The Australian Women’s Weekly about her new book, Sea Glass (Little, Brown $29.95), selected as The AWW’s Book Of The Month in the June issue.
Sea Glass, set in New Hampshire in 1929, tells the story of a travelling type-writer salesman, Sexton Beecher, who falls in love with and proposes to Honora Willard, a beautiful young woman who he meets when she is working in a bank. As the couple begin their new life together, their love is tested to the limit by the fall-out from the Wall Street Crash and a strong attraction to a third person…
Q You collect sea glass – glass that has been weathered by the water and the wind and the sand into smooth shapes and washed upon the beach? A In the summer I’m sort of obsessed with it. As a matter of fact I go for a walk every day and I look for pieces…when I have a good ‘haul” I feel very good for the whole day (laughing).
Q What do you do with your collection? A I put it on a white plate the day of the collection and then it goes into a jar.
Q You see sea glass as a symbol, suggesting other people, other lives, other places? A Yes, I think it’s very evocative of other lives because I often wonder as I pick it up, what it used to be? These weathered shards that have turned beautiful colours but they’re essentially trash. They’ve passed overboard or else they’re part of a ship-wreck or a fire or something like that so they all have a history.
Q In your new book, Sexton thinks his wife Honora is eccentric for collecting sea glass – do your family think the same of you? A They used to think I was kind of eccentric, then after a while, everybody got involved in the hunt and now they feel pretty good if they come back with a new piece.
Q Sea Glass is set during the Depression. Is it true the idea was born during a reading at a bookshop, when you were talking about how the same house could be used in different books but set in different periods of time, such as the depression? A Yes, right in the middle of a sentence and I thought, well, there is an idea! And after that I was very deeply involved in thinking that through. It takes a very long time for the idea to jell. And come together. But that was the moment it was born.
Q What are you like to live with when you are thinking about a new plot – often when someone is brewing over a story in their heads, they aren’t quite ‘there’ all the time? A That would be a very apt description. I’m definitely preoccupied, and especially at the beginning of a novel when there are just so many ideas coming together in different moments of time – there is this collision of ideas and I am very preoccupied.
Q Do people around you complain about it? A I think they are very used to it now. They’re really understanding – usually.
Q The depression affects everybody in your latest book which, partly, is about how your characters find stability in a time of great change – I thought there were parallels with what’s been happening in the US in the past six months? A Prior to September 11, the less traumatic parallels were the economic downturn in the economy. I think with any kind of economic change, everybody’s life is affected.
Q How are you at coping with change? A Terrible, I really admire Honora and I would really like to think I would cope. I think you have too, you have very little choice, but I don’t think anyone really likes change.
Q Honorora is based partly on you? A I admire her, yes, I mean…I am in all my characters in bits and pieces, but her circumstances are very different from my own.
Q Obviously it took research to recreate the grim struggle of the depression, have you ever known times like that in your life? A Not quite like that. But during my childhood and upbringing there were times when it wasn’t necessarily a lean time, but they were not times of excess. Some of the recipes are mine, others are culled from research. There are ways of saving money and you learn them when you come from a family of five.
Q Where did you come in the family? A I was the first of three daughters.
Q There were great expectations of you, then, as the first child? A I don’t know whether there were high expectations…my feeling is that they were parcelled out pretty equally.
Q What did your mum and dad do? A My mum was a housewife and my father worked for the airlines in various capacities, including being a commercial pilot.
Q You were born where? A – Bedham, Massachusetts
Q Small? A Yes, it’s a suburb of Boston
Q Do you begin with a theme and then build plot and characters around it?A I don’t set out to write about themes. They are not a part of my thinking as I write. I’m telling a story and trying to push the form a little bit. I’m very involved with the language and the characters. The theme arrives organically. You don’t set out saying I’m going to write a novel about a woman who is going to triumph over hard times and discovers guilt and distrust and betrayal.
Q Honora is very strong in the face of great difficulties – do you think women in general are like that, that they push through the almost impossible? A Yes, I do. It is a generalisation, probably not true a lot of the time, but in this novel Honora is much better than Sexton at coping – Sexton’s character flaws are shown up by the change in circumstances whereas she grows with the challenges.
Q Honora’s rich girlfriend senses his weaknesses much sooner than Honora does? A She does have a sense early on that there’s something perhaps not right, but she ignores it.
Q Honora tries to ignore her attraction to another partly because to not do so would have been scandalous in those timer – do you think attitudes to adultery have changed since then? A I don’t think the hurt or heartache has changed one tiny bit. But it is not ruinous to the extent it would have been then.
Q Back then, people were more judgemental of women? A think people were much more rigid towards women and their sexual behaviour.
Q was Honora difficult to write because she is so far removed from where we are today? A Not really, one of the pleasures of writing of a time past is that you sort of have to immerse yourself in the period you’re writing in. Obviously there’s no divorcing yourself from everything you know, but you have to keep her true to the realities.
Q What are the opportunities for the writer in giving the novel an historical setting? A Writing is a selfish act and I enjoy setting it in a certain period. But it’s also is easier to highlight certain character developments.
Q You write about relationships in all your stories – would you agree that the modern state of marriage doesn’t seem very healthy? A No, it’s not, is it! There are arguments to be made on both sides of it. In some ways it seems men and women are healthier if they do not stay in unhealthy relationships. And yet on the other hand I feel that they don’t reap the benefits of being in a long term relationship and feeling a sense of long term intimacy. The pleasure of watching children grow and all of that. There is something lost there is no question. On the other hand I think you have fewer women who are ready to jump out of the window. It’s hard to say.
Q Have you been successful in your personal life? A Yes, it’s fine at the moment, that’s a question that has to be answered month by month, I think (laughing).
Q You are in a long term relationship? A Oh well, we’ve been together a decade now, but we are in it for the long haul.
Q Children? A I do. I have two.
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Q Grown up? A** One is in college and one is 12.
Q Any step children? A Three.
Q Yours is a blended family then? A Absolutely. Yes…well blended. And there’s a dog that I can hear barking in the background.
QWhat’s his name? Sandy. A Cockerpoodle, a cross between a cocker spaniel and a poodle. He’s cute, real cute.
Q Thinking about how to describe what your books, I suppose the first thing that comes to my mind is ‘intelligent romance?’ A Oh thank you. Romance is such a loaded word. Because here anyway, it suggests a certain genre that is really not very intelligent.
Q I was just reading that romance fiction accounts for about 40% of the books sold in the US! A Is that right? Wow! Yes, but there are certain kinds of books in that genre that are really not very well done. It’s a tricky word to use…here anyway. You usually associate it with something you don’t want to be associated with.
Q Ever been through a period when you’ve read romantic fiction? A No, I missed it somehow. Not into soap operas either.
Q Susan Faludi is quoted in an article about romance writing as saying “romance revolves around a woman’s emotional life in a world where most women’s emotions are ignored, stepped on or worse.” A I don’t agree with that. I think romances delve into or picture imagined emotions that intelligent writing does too, just that they do it badly with cliches and bad writing.
The emotions are biblical. They’re valid. Totally valid, it’s a question of what you do with it. And I don’t believe they are ignored one little bit.
Q How did you feel about the success of The Pilot’s Wife, and how did it impact on your life? A I was very happy about it. As expected, it increased sales and it means people turn to back-lists. A lot of people didn’t even know I had existed. So it raised people’s awareness and led to a greater readership.
Q Most writers find it difficult to live off writing alone, did The Pilot’s Wife mark the turning point for you in being able to write full time? A In a sense it was, although I’d been living full time as a writer for a long time, as I was a journalist for 15 years and I’d been making my living off fiction since 1989. ‘Living’ being a relative term, if you w ant to live modestly, it can be done.
Q Were you willing to do that for a long time?A Yes, I was.
Q Because you felt this was really what you wanted to do? A Yah.
Q Earlier in your life you spent some time in Kenya and sent articles back from there – what took you there in the first place? A Like most people I went for a visit and fell into a job while I was there and finished up there for three years.
Q So you just fell in love with the place? A Well, I fell into this job. I was the editor of a local Kenyan magazine.
Q How do you look back on that period in your life now? A It was fabulous. Every day was an education. New country, new culture. I travelled around the country quite a lot it was fantastic, – beautiful. Very sad now though. It’s in terrible shape now.
Q Am I correct in saying you have never used Africa as a setting for any of your books? A That’s correct. Except for the last book, the central character came from Kenya. When I left Africa I came back to New York and I worked as an editor for US magazine, which is like Life magazine and I freelanced for others.
Q You were glad to leave journalism behind, I’ve read? A I was. Yes. It wasn’t so much as leaving it behind as going towards things I always wanted to do – fiction.
Q Was this the realisation of a dream you’d had for a long time? A I really didn’t start doing it seriously till I was in my mid 20’s.
Q Did you have notions of becoming a writer before that? A In a vague sort of way.
Q You’d written a couple of non-fiction books, Re-Making Motherhood was one – what was that about? A It was a look at how working mothers can be good role models. Women Together, Women Alone was a look at the early days of the women’s movement.
Q From your perspective? A No, it came out of an assignment I had for a magazine to track down five women who had belonged to a consciousness raising group in the early 1970’s and to find out if it took.
Q And did it? AYes, with varying degrees of success in terms of their lives, but in terms of their consciousness, yes.
Q Do you agree that now is a good time to be a young woman in terms of options and possibilities? A In terms of possibilities, yes, the world is wide open, in terms of economy, it’s a particularly tough time for kids coming out of college
Q A lot of women seem to be finding it difficult to find successful relationships with men – do you think the notion of finding Mr Right is unrealistic or still worth pursuing?A I don’t really know. Circumstances seem to have a lot to do with it.
Q Is it the same there, as in Australia where there seems to be a lot more single women pursuing an ever diminishing number of good men? A It would depend on where you look. I think among the young professional women living in urban areas, it’s probably more of a problem.
Q Are you nervous about every new book or relaxed?AI have learned how not think about it. It could be an ordeal if I allowed myself to do that. I’m better at putting it out of my mind.
Q Are you disciplined? A Moderately so, I guess.
Q You were a high school teacher at one stage – what subjects did you teach? A High school English.
Q How long for? AFive years.
Q Any favourite authors? A I’m often asked that and it’s really strange, I read all the time, but I have very eclectic taste, so it’s very hard to answer.
Q Do you have set hours for writing?AI tend to write in the mornings. From 8-12.30
Q Have an office? A Yes, at home.
Q Have you always been a great reader? A Yes
Q Your parents encouraged you to read? A Not overly so, although my mother is a determined reader now.
Q Which book captured your imagination as a child? A The Wizard of Oz. That was the book that really opened up the key to reading .It was one of the first books I got out of the library, and it really captured my imagination.
Q Your star sign? A Libra.
Q Some writers nurture a close relationship with their readers, do you? A I do I try to answer emails and queries if I can.
Q How do you feel about the author tours you have to do? A They’re hard work The rewarding part is meeting the readers.
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