HarpoAce: ANNA QUINDLEN will be here in just a few minutes! Stay tuned!
HarpoAce: Oprah's Book Club Presents tonight's event with Anna Quindlen, author of "Black and Blue."
HarpoAce: Welcome everyone, our featured author, ANNA QUINDLEN! :-)
QuindlenA: I am really happy to be able to do this evening. I found the Oprah show on Friday, of which I was a part, particularly illuminating; given that I hadn't done any research for "Black and Blue," and was sitting down for the first time with women who were survivors of domestic violence. I hope some of you had the opportunity to see the show, which I thought was exceptional.
HarpoAce: JEise49, welcome! You've got our first question for author Anna Quindlen. :-)
Question: What was the inspiration for "Black and Blue"?
QuindlenA: I originally wanted to write a novel about issues of identity, about who we are when you divorce us from our routines, our families, our friends, our work-life. And that was really the beginning of my thinking about this book. What it would be like if a person, in this case, a woman named Fran Benedetto, had to start her life from scratch.
HarpoAce: YYS15, thanks for coming tonight! Here's your question for Anna Quindlen.
Question: Anna, you haven't written any op-eds lately. Do you plan to write any in the future?
QuindlenA: No, at the end of 1994, I left the world of newspapers in general and The New York Times specifically to focus on fiction writing full-time. And that is what I intend to continue doing.
HarpoAce: Our next question comes from a frequent Oprah Online message board
poster, ROBIN N C,
Question: Ms. Quindlen, I loved your book. Would you please explain your thought process to us, and how you came to write that Robert never did contact his mom after being taken away by his father?
QuindlenA: Well, one of the phenomenon of writing a novel in the first person is that you only know as much as your narrator knows about any given situation. So -- without giving away the ending -- I will just say that at the end of the book we aren't sure exactly what Robert's situation is. We don't know whether he has the opportunity to communicate with his mother, we don't where he is exactly, and we don't know exactly what he has been told by his father. This is the one of the situations in which the reader knows as much about the outcome as the writer does. So I leave it to all of you.
HarpoAce: VR4 Chic, here's your question for writer Anna Quindlen, author of "Black and Blue."
Question: Hi Ms. Quindlen. What advice do you have to writers who have completed manuscripts and are currently submitting them to publishers?
QuindlenA: <laughing> It is painful just to hear that question. I would say that any opportunity you have to make a personal connection with someone in the business is invaluable. For example, I was reading the other day that the novelist Reynolds Price taught the novelist Ann Tyler in a writing class many years ago. The landscape of literature is littered with chance, connection of that sort. So I would suggest to any struggling writer that if, for example, you believe your work is similar to John Irving -- and I should add, and if that is true, you are a very fine writer indeed -- that you use your research skills to find the names of Irving's editor. And send your own manuscript directly to him or her. Most of the time, in the acknowledgment of a book, section of a book, we writers will thank our agents and our editors. Look for those names. It's always better to send a manuscript to an individual than to a company. I can't add much more except best of luck to those of you who want to pursue this perilous marvelous life.
HarpoAce: Hi RobinofGA, here you go!
Question: I loved "Black and Blue". It is a great combination of information and intrigue. What is your next book?
QuindlenA: Ohhhhh. I have only written about three chapters of my next book, which
means it still is a little too mushy to talk about. And I feel quite frustrated because I haven't had a chance to touch it since December, given all the publicity I have wound up doing for "Black and Blue." But I hope to get back to it by the middle of June. And really break the back of the thing by fall.
HarpoAce: HldMeClos ask this question to Anna Quindlen, author of "Black and Blue"
Question: Reference was made to Fran's attraction to the abuse she received - a feeling something was missing in her relationship with the gym teacher, can you give an explanation as to what the attraction to the abuse was? Thank you.
QuindlenA: I don't think that there is a suggestion that Fran is attracted to the abuse. But she is attracted first and foremost to Bobby. And to a certain seductive element of danger in his personality. I think that there are many women who associate lust with love and danger with excitement. I think Fran is one of those women, although I think she is beginning to grow out of that. I remember that when I was writing a column for The New York Times called "Life in the 30s," I wrote a column that many, many readers seem to remember about two types of men: the husband type, and the boyfriend type. I used Ashely Wilkes and Rhett Butler from "Gone with the Wind" to illustrate the two types. (If I were doing the column today, I would probably also use Al Gore and Bill Clinton.) Part of the point of that column was that certain women seem to be attracted to danger and certain women to be drawn to safety and security. And I think that this is something that I went on to explore in a more serious and substantive way in "Black and Blue."
HarpoAce: Hi there Laugh! Thanks for coming tonight, here's your question for Anna Quindlen,
Question: Hi, Anna, as a result of your enlightening book disclosing the inner torment of battered women, has there been a movement toward positive change? (admitting that abuse is taking place and seeking help)
QuindlenA: I am not sure my book has had a real effect on this issue, but even before "Black and Blue" was published I think we were beginning to come out of the closet about abuse. It seems to me that, while I hope this novel makes a contribution, what's really needed is for individual women to come forward and tell their stories. That kind of testifying is very powerful on social issues; I remember very vividly when First Lady Betty Ford publicly said that she had had a substance abuse problem, making it clear that these things did happen to nice people in nice families. So, while it may be possible to write a novel off as confabulation or an over-dramatization, when you listen to women like the five women who were at that dinner with me in Chicago and told their stories on Oprah's program, you know that that is the real deal. And that is where real change begins.
HarpoAce: ARLD17, thanks for coming tonight! Here's your question for this powerful writer!
Question: How long did it take you to write "Black and Blue"? How difficult was the research for you? Where did you get so much insight into problem of spousal abuse?
QuindlenA: It took me two years to write "Black and Blue." And...at some level it didn't feel difficult at all because I liked Fran so much, that being with her every day was actually sort of pleasurable, even given the extreme difficulty of her situation. I actually did not do any research for the book. I found during the years that I was a reporter that putting the issues before the people was always a mistake. It's people that define an issue, not the other way around. So I was confident that if I found Fran -- found her voice, found the details of her life, found her childhood and her background and understood her and her connection to Bobby, that all the rest would follow.
HarpoAce: GigiCT, here's your light and heavy questions for author Anna Quindlen.
Question: Ms. Quindlen, you appear to be an accessible person - and funny too (Imus appearances) - do your children keep you grounded? and do you agree with Freud that "biology is destiny"?
QuindlenA: <laughing>
HarpoAce: Just one moment, we're having some technical difficulties. :-)
QuindlenA: I am back! Well, I certainly don't agree with what most people think that
Freud meant by that, that we women wind up being little more than walking wombs. However, as someone who has occasionally felt like a walking womb, I will say that all three of my children came with what appeared to be their essential characters more or
less hard-wired at birth. So while I would like to be more of a cheerleader for nurture, it is clear to me that nature is a substantial part of who we are. As for who I am, I would be less wise, less consistently entertained and above all less happy if I did not have these three great kids to keep me company every day. I am a better writer because I am a mother. I am a better human being because I am a mother, too.
HarpoAce: Hi Jctnrose, here's your question for Anna,
Question: I loved your book but missed Fri.'s show. Did you know how you wanted the book to end when you started writing?
QuindlenA: It is not really a question of how you want the book to end. Once you have a pretty good handle on your characters, which is really the essence of the process for me. You know what they will do and how they will behave. And so the ending has a certain kind of inevitability. I knew how these events would end from the time I began this book. But that is because I believe this is the only possible ending.
HarpoAce: Hi Indiglo50! Thanks for sticking around. Here's your question for author Anna Quindlen!
Question: Who is your role model?
QuindlenA: I hate to sound like a Miss American finalist.... but my mother was and continues to be my greatest role model. She had a gift for charity, and unconditional love which I have realized over the years was quite extraordinary, and most of the time I just get up every morning and try to be as much like her as possible.
HarpoAce: GIBLETT, has this question about writing tools and its process for Anna Quindlen,
Question: Anna, do you write longhand, typewriter or on computer? If computer, what is a good writing software?
QuindlenA: I have written on the computer since 1978. I know there are some writers who still like to talk about how they write in long-hand and I assume they also churn their own butter. I think using a computer makes particularly the excruciating revision process much easier than it might otherwise be. As for software, I use Microsoft Office with Microsoft Word, and it seems to work just fine for me.
HarpoAce: VR4 Chic, has a good follow-up question about Anna's writing process,
Question: What are your routines as far as when you sit down to write? Do you have a certain schedule of the day that you stick to?
QuindlenA: Yes, I do. I get my kids to school every morning, come home and waste
roughly an hour on the phone my friends, and then at about ten I start writing and I write more or less straight through until about two. It is not that I can't write longer than that I can't seem to imagine for longer than that. So after two p.m., I fill any remaining time with correspondence, writing speeches or shorter pieces, or playing Tetris. Then I go back to school and pick up my kids. It is a dirty job but someone has to do it. <laughing>
HarpoAce: Hi Laura JMN, here's your question for Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist-cum-novelist Anna Quindlen.
Question: Do you have any advice for aspiring columnists?
QuindlenA: I think it is always useful for a columnist to have started life as a reporter. There are lots of exception to this rule.... my former colleague Bill Safire is probably the best known. But since I think that good solid reporting is the underpinning of the very best column writing, it behooves most columnists to have had some experience doing just that. I think there's a couple of obvious ways to convince newspaper editors to make you a columnist. The first is to have a strong and idiosyncratic writing voice. The second is to be an obvious self-starter, someone who generates a fair number of her own stories, leads and ideas. And the third is to be unmercilessly persistent. The editor who thinks you are too young, or too female, or too liberal today may change his mind next year when he sees what other papers are running.
HarpoAce: Hi Joybeeee, you've got the last question for author Anna Quindlen!
Question: Will you pursue the theme of rebirth in other works in the future?
QuindlenA: I think the theme I am looking at in this novel is the theme of redemption. Which is obviously of some interest to me as a life-long practicing Catholic. But I think it is impossible to ever write about the human condition without writing about our attempts to recreate ourselves. So, yes, I am assume that will be a linchpin of my work for the
rest of my life. I have certainly recreated myself enough to have some perspective on it.
HarpoAce: Thanks for coming everyone! Anna will say a few words in closing.
QuindlenA: One of the very best things about promoting a book is meeting readers, whether in person or online. Most of my life is spent in a little room looking at words on a computer screen, wondering if anyone is out there. It is such a great relief whenever I discover that someone was, and is, and I thank you all for that.
HarpoAce: Thank you Anna Quindlen for joining us tonight! If you missed part of tonight's event, go to keyword: Oprah tomorrow to get the transcript!
