TBR [to be read] is an invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe.
Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?
One Great
Lie is a crossover YA
novel about Charlotte, who travels to Venice for a summer-long writing program,
led by the brilliant and charismatic author, Luca Bruni. While there - with the
help of Dante, an adorable conservation student - she also hopes to uncover
some hidden truths about her Venetian ancestor, the poet Isabella Di Angelo,
who might be the real author of a very famous poem. The events of that summer
will force Charlotte to confront the long, dark history of powerful men—and the
determination of creative girls, in this deeply feminist book that is also full
of mystery and romance.
Which
character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And, which character gave you the
most trouble, and why?
I most enjoyed
creating the character of Luca Bruni, mostly because he was a challenge. Bruni
does some awful things, but it was also important for the reader to understand
why Charlotte might initially admire, look up to, and even love him, and why
she’d grieve the loss of who she thought he was. He needed to be as complex, as such people
are in real life: brilliant, troubled, someone you both felt sorry for and
longed to be, utterly charismatic, ultimately empty.
Charlotte’s
mother gave me the most trouble. She’s an important character, even if we don’t
see much of her. Charlotte’s mom is angry a lot, and sometimes scary, and readers
need to know this in order to understand Charlotte’s relationship with Bruni.
He, too, had a turbulent home life, and this makes Charlotte feel like he has a
unique ability to understand her. Her vulnerability is something he’ll exploit,
as well, as she defers to him and tiptoes around his volatility. So, the
character of Charlotte’s mom helps a reader to comprehend the why of all
that. But Charlotte’s mom is not one thing either. She’s also loving and anxious
and frustrated with her life. As a secondary character, I had less space to
show that complexity, which made it trickier.
Tell us a
bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.
Since I’ve
published nearly a book a year since I first began back in 2000, my “road to
publication” as a whole is a well-trodden one. But this book’s particular road
was odd given that it was completed and edited during the pandemic. Counted
among the highs: the fact that it was mostly finished by then. It was a comfort
to be already well underway in a book I loved writing, and entering my favorite
part of the process, too – editing. It would have been much more difficult if
I’d been attempting to start a new book.
A low – my longtime imprint at S[imon]&S[chuster] was dissolved, and
the company went through a restructuring. I’m with a new imprint at S&S
now, but it was sad to see friends and colleagues of many years move on.
What’s your
favorite piece of writing advice?
My favorite
piece of writing advice is to mostly ignore writing advice. I think it’s always
great to remember that your honest voice is the most powerful thing you have as
a writer, and getting tangled in how-to’s can sometimes take you farther away
from that.
One great tip,
though? End your writing day when you know what’s coming next. If you stop when
you’re stuck, you’ll end up with a clean closet, a pile of stuff you baked, old
photos organized, and tackling that hated paint job, everything but those
dreaded pages.
My favorite
writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in
the writing of this book?
What
surprised me were some of the people, real people, who I didn’t
even know were going to be in the book, who found their way in only after one
bit of astonishing research led to more and more of it: the feminist writers of
five hundred years ago. I had absolutely no idea that women (many of them
teens), were writing and publishing bold and controversial feminist works way
back in the 1500s. It was an awful and shocking realization, that we are still
writing about the same subjects that they were writing about back then, and
struggling with the same power dynamics, too. I found those women incredibly
inspiring, and it’s extraordinarily meaningful to me, as a writer and a woman
in the twenty-first century, to share their stories in my own work.
What’s
something about your book that you want readers to know?
I’d love for my
readers to know that all of the places, celebrations, and historical facts,
facts about drowned manuscripts, locked letters, ancient teen writers, and more
that they’ll read about in the book are all real and true. Fictional license
was taken with Luca Bruni’s private island, La Calamita, but it, too, is based
on the very real “Plague Island,” La Poveglia, which is still home to the
original, eerie, abandoned hospital and bell tower. Facts about it, the
superstitions, the ground of ash… all true. I’ve never done more (and more
fascinating) research for a book, and I’m thrilled to share it.
Inquiring
foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your
book? (Any recipes I might share?)
This book has
SO MUCH GREAT ITALIAN FOOD! Canederli, and shrimp scampi, and fried artichokes,
and cheese, and wine, and after-dinner liqueurs, and various cicchetti, like
fried meatballs and tramezzina, and, and, and! Let’s not forget dessert, such
as lemon mousse, and elegant pastries, and fritole. Here’s the recipe, because
what’s not to like about fried dough rolled in sugar?
https://www.flaviasflavors.com/desserts/fritole-veneziane/
*****
READ MORE ABOUT
THIS AUTHOR: www.debcaletti.com
LINK TO
PREFERRED SITE FOR ORDERING BOOK: https://bookshop.org/books/one-great-lie-9781797125039/9781534463172
READ AN EXCERPT FROM THIS BOOK (through June 30, 2021): https://rivetedlit.com/free-reads/
