Established in 2018, TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books.
Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?
Outside the Lines is a queer love story between a young public
defender and a married mother of two, who meet in a writing workshop in Boston
in the 1980s. Drawn together by surprisingly similar family secrets, hidden
identities, and a deep connection to the Holocaust, they fall in love.
Subsequently, a terminal illness changes and intensifies their relationship
with each other and with their families.
What boundaries did
you break in the writing of this memoir? Where does that sort of courage come
from?
By the time I got
around to writing this memoir (my third), I’d inadvertantly become something of
an expert at family demolition. After my first memoir (which I thought was
pretty tame) was published, my family disowned me and declared me dead.
It took twenty years
for me to get up the ovarian fortitude to write a second memoir, in which I
told the rest of the story, including many of the gory details I’d tactfully
left out of the first book. (My parents had died in the meantime.)
I think the need to
write these stories as memoir stems from the need to claim one’s own voice and one’s
own truth, when the writer’s reality has consistently been denied or disavowed.
Family secrets manipulate and mess with one’s sense of self, which is why they
are so potent.
In my new memoir, Outside
the Lines, the two main characters died many years ago, so I feel a little less
anxious about writing my story as it relates to them. Once again, I’ve changed
names and details, and omitted scenes in order to protect the privacy of
surviving family members. But of course, I worry a great deal about how family
and friends will feel. I don’t think it’s particularly “courageous” to write
memoir; I think it’s compelled by a need to speak your truth when it has been
consistently denied.
Tell us a bit about
the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.
I’ve wanted to write
this book for a long time, but apparently I wasn’t ready to dive into the
material until a few years ago. Writing the scenes set loose a flood of
memories, both exhilarating and agonizing. So as with all writing, the highs
and lows are always built right into the daily work. I write something one day
and think it’s brilliant; I look at it in the morning, and it’s turned to
garbage.
Perhaps my greatest
high with this book came from my writer buddies, who never cease to amaze and inspire
me with their own poetry and prose, and who never pretend something is working
when it’s not. Every time we’d get together to talk about our work, I came away
on fire to fix the things they’d suggested, and excited about the whole
impossible project of bringing a bunch of words on the page into a completed
book for publication.
It was also thrilling
when my agent (whom I adore and revere) read the manuscript and liked it. Her
belief in this little book was so powerful, it made the first slew of
rejections from publishing houses less painful. Of course, when the next
slew of rejections came in, and the ones after that, my mood descended in direct proportion to the rise in
rejections. Needless to say, it was wonderful to find a publisher I admired who
liked this book enough to want to publish it. Working with her and her team has
been a blast.
What’s your favorite
piece of writing advice?
“It’s all draft
until you die.” The poet Ellen Bryant Voigt said that. Just conjuring her name
makes me happy. She is the founder and mastermind of the Warren Wilson MFA
Program for Writers, my alma mater. Ellen is all about process, all
about doing the work, without letting yourself get distracted by anything else—the
market or the critics, or your own inner judge. She reminds us that we can keep
fiddling with a draft as long as we like, long after it’s been published, or long
after we’ve given up on it. Writing is not just our work; it’s our play, it's
what reminds us we’re alive.
My favorite writing
advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the
writing of this book?
I was surprised when
I wrote a sentence I liked for more than twenty-four hours. And I was surprised—well,
more like embarrassed—to discover how incredibly immature and clueless I was at
the age of thirty. It’s sort of amazing to see the effect that thirty-plus
years of perspective had on my memories and feelings—even sensory perceptions—that
came back to me when I was writing. So as you see, self-absorption really does
have its own rewards.
How did you find the
title of your book?
I am terrible at
titles. Prolifically terrible. I must have scribbled down hundreds of titles,
one worse than the other. For a while, I was convinced that if I just found the
right Leonard Cohen lyric, I’d have my title.
Fortunately, my wife
pretty quickly came up with the title, Outside the Lines. I liked it
immediately, and then went on to brainstorm another couple hundred awful
titles. But I kept coming back to this one, because it’s about coming out, and it’s
about the complications of navigating a life outside the norm. The title lasted
through all my mood changes, so it’s a keeper. (So is she.)
Inquiring foodies and
hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any
recipes I might share?)
I am a low-brow
baking fiend. I usually need to bake cookies and brownies and other
easy-to-handle platforms for the delivery of chocolate, sugar and fat. I baked
my way through a lot of this book. There are way too many recipes for me to
list here, but they all basically boil down to butter + sugar + flour. Usually 72%
bittersweet chocolate is involved.
Here's an easy one:
Chocolate Chip Rye
Caraway Cookies
(Credit: Sycamore
Kitchen)
¾ c (1 ½ sticks) butter, room temp
½ c brown sugar
½ c sugar
1 c all-purpose flour
1 + c dark rye flour
½ tsp + baking soda
¾ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp kosher salt + for sprinkling
½ + tsp caraway seeds, some ground
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
8 oz. dark (70%) chocolate, chopped
into chunks smaller than ¼ inch
Pre-heat oven 350 degrees.
Beat butter & sugars till light
and fluffy – 3 – 5 min
In a separate bowl: whisk flours,
soda, powder, salt & caraway seeds.
Add egg & vanilla to butter and
beat till fully combined.
Add dry ingredients, beat till
almost incorporated. Add chopped chocolate.
Scoop dough onto parchment lined
cookie sheets. Sprinkle with salt. Bake till crisp edges, soft in middle ~ 15
min.
***
READ MORE ABOUT THIS
AUTHOR: www.helenfremont.com
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