![\"The](\"http:\/\/ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51MexQu5c9L.jpg\")
[\/amazon_link]I’m excited to be previewing “Age of Desire” by Jennie Fields. A review will follow shortly. Meanwhile here is a little about the book and a Q&A with the author.<\/p>\n[amazon_link id=”067002368X” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ][\/amazon_link]I’m excited to be previewing “Age of Desire” by Jennie Fields. A review will follow shortly. Meanwhile here is a little about the book and a Q&A with the author.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Age of Desire<\/strong> transports the reader to Edith Wharton\u2019s life in the Gilded Age: glamorous salons and literary banter in Paris and parties with Henry James and Teddy Roosevelt at her elegant estate in Massachusetts. But, the real heart of the book is Wharton\u2019s relationship with the little-known woman named Anna Bahlmann, Edith\u2019s governess, and the affair threatened her most profound friendship.<\/em><\/p>\n Q&A with the Jennie Fields:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [amazon_link id=”067002368X” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ][\/amazon_link]I’m excited to be previewing “Age of Desire” by Jennie Fields. A review will follow shortly. Meanwhile here is a little about the book and a Q&A with the author. The\u00a0Age of Desire transports the reader to Edith Wharton\u2019s life in the Gilded Age: glamorous salons and literary banter in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[68,53,3,44,80,91,97,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-68","category-arc","category-books","category-historical","category-new-books","category-pamela_dorman_books","category-penguin_books","category-preview"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"[amazon_link id=”067002368X” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ][\/amazon_link]I’m excited to be previewing “Age of Desire” by Jennie Fields. A review will follow shortly. Meanwhile here is a little about the book and a Q&A with the author. The\u00a0Age of Desire transports the reader to Edith Wharton\u2019s life in the Gilded Age: glamorous salons and literary banter in…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2085"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2589,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085\/revisions\/2589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The relationship between Edith and Anna is very complex. Did you always plan on making their troubled friendship central to the book, or did it grow out of your research?<\/strong><\/div>\n
\n<\/strong><\/div>\n <\/strong><\/div>\nIt wasn\u2019t until three months into the writing of the book that I decided to add a secondary protagonist, someone who could view Edith objectively.\u00a0\u00a0Anna Bahlmann seemed the perfect character as she was with Edith on and off since her days as Edith\u2019s governess until the year Anna died in 1916.\u00a0\u00a0To have kept Anna with her so long, I assumed they must be very close, but biographers had hardly mentioned her.\u00a0Then after I\u2019d already written many chapters of the book, a miracle occurred.\u00a0\u00a0Over 100 letters from Edith to Anna which had been moldering in an attic came up for auction at Christies! Everything I supposed about their relationship was true.\u00a0\u00a0They were loving and close since Edith\u2019s childhood, and she trusted Anna with a great deal.\u00a0\u00a0I grew more and more intrigued with this shadowy figure.<\/div>\n <\/strong><\/div>\nQuestions began to arise.\u00a0\u00a0Why, for instance, during the summer after the onset of Edith\u2019s affair with Morton Fullerton, was Anna suddenly sent to Europe on a trip that was considered a gift from Edith?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Earlier, in letters to other people, it was clear Edith was upset and even annoyed when Anna wasn\u2019t around to help her, so why was it arranged for them to be suddenly so much apart? Though I have no hard evidence that Anna was disturbed by Edith\u2019s relationship with Fullerton, many events suggested she\u2019d been sent away.\u00a0\u00a0I wanted Anna to be the book\u2019s conscience.\u00a0\u00a0If Edith was unhappy, disturbed by her splintering relationship to Morton, it made sense she\u2019d send Anna off on a trip.<\/div>\n <\/strong><\/div>\nAnother intriguing coincidence is that I had created a warm alliance between Anna and Teddy.\u00a0\u00a0After I\u2019d written most of the book, I found letters from Edith to others that said that Anna was a calming influence over Teddy on his worst days, the only one patient enough to sit with him, that he was asking for her\u2014exactly as I had written it.<\/div>\nAnna supports Edith\u2019s writing as a typist, early reader, and\u2014in a way\u2014editor. Did Edith ever include Anna in her Acknowledgements? How did Anna\u2019s involvement in Edith\u2019s work complicate their relationship?<\/strong><\/div>\n
\n<\/strong><\/div>\n <\/strong><\/div>\nThough she never acknowledged Anna publicly as far as I know, in letters directly to Anna, she thanked her.\u00a0\u00a0In fact, in one letter early in Edith\u2019s writing career, she sent Anna the check she received for a story saying, \u201cThe story is so associated in my mind with the hours that we spent in writing it out together, & I owe its opportune presentment & speedy acceptance largely to the fact that you were here to get it written out at a time when I could not have done so, that I have a peculiar feeling about your having just this special cheque & no other as a souvenir of our work together.\u201d\u00a0 <\/strong><\/div>\n <\/strong><\/div>\nIn her published biography,\u00a0A Backward Glance<\/em>, she spoke warmly about her relationship to Anna when she was a child\u00a0\u201cmy beloved German teacher, who saw which way my fancy turned, and fed it with all the wealth of German literature, from the Minnesingers to Heine.\u201d<\/div>\nBut in a later autobiographical fragment that was never published she said, \u201cMy good little governess was cultivated & conscientious, but she never struck a spark from me, she never threw a new light on any subject, or made me see the relation of things to each other.\u00a0 My childhood & youth were an intellectual desert.\u201d<\/div>\nIf she is referring to Anna in this sentence, (I hope she is not) it saddens me a great deal.\u00a0\u00a0In any case, I believe Edith saw Anna as something of a servant.\u00a0\u00a0She certainly did straddle Edith\u2019s world and the world of the household staff, as beloved and essential as she seemed to be.\u00a0\u00a0At the same time, Edith generously took Anna on foreign trips, out to dinner and to the theatre with her.\u00a0\u00a0Without Edith, her life might well have been merely that of a teacher.\u00a0As I have written Anna, she sees her place in life as a helpmate and accepts that Edith is the chosen one.\u00a0\u00a0She is proud of her association with Edith and content with her place in life.<\/div>\n <\/strong><\/div>\nEdith Wharton is one of your favorite writers. How did that influence your writing?<\/strong><\/div>\n
\n<\/strong><\/div>\nWell, I must say, I felt very conscious of the language I used.\u00a0\u00a0I wanted it to be appropriate to the era, hard-working and beautiful all at once.\u00a0\u00a0I could never dream of writing as exquisitely as Edith.\u00a0\u00a0I often get chills when I read her writing.\u00a0\u00a0If angels could write, they\u2019d write as she did.\u00a0\u00a0The music of her language is instructive and breathtaking.\u00a0\u00a0But I tried to write in a way that I felt might please her.\u00a0\u00a0Also, I often started my writing sessions by reading a few pages of one of her books.\u00a0\u00a0I never get tired of her books, no matter how often I read them.<\/div>\n <\/strong><\/div>\n <\/strong><\/div>\nThe book follows Edith\u2019s sexual awakening. What was it like writing sex scenes for such a well-known writer?<\/strong><\/div>\n
\n<\/strong><\/div>\n <\/strong><\/div>\nNot many people know this, but when Edith died, among her effects, her literary executor found some pornography that she\u2019d penned.\u00a0\u00a0There was nothing shy about this work.\u00a0\u00a0It was bold, shocking, and also, of course, exquisitely written.\u00a0\u00a0While I did not use any of the language of this piece (named Beatrice Palmato, for those who are curious\u2014and yes, it\u2019s on the internet) it did instruct me as to how she viewed sex and passion, and gave me insight into what excited her.<\/div>\nParis<\/strong> <\/strong>figures heavily into the book. What did the city mean to Edith? What\u2019s your relationship to<\/strong> <\/strong>Paris<\/strong> <\/strong>and did it figure into the writing of the book?<\/strong><\/div>\n
\n<\/strong><\/div>\n <\/strong><\/div>\nEdith adored Paris.\u00a0\u00a0It was everything that New York wasn\u2019t: culturally oriented, worldly, beautiful.\u00a0\u00a0She found New York society closed and stifling.\u00a0\u00a0She blossomed when she finally moved to France full-time, and her devotion to France is clear in how she helped the women of France during World War I with her workrooms and charities. (France awarded her the Cross of the Legion of Honor for her work during the war.) She had loved Paris as a child, and even more as an adult.\u00a0\u00a0And of course, she fell in love with Morton while in Paris. That would forever insure a place for Paris in her heart.<\/div>\nThere was a period where I did not like Paris.\u00a0 I found it jostling and sad.\u00a0 But about the time I began the book, I also began a new relationship to Paris, and fell in love with it all over again.<\/div>\nBy the end of the book, Edith\u2019s husband Teddy is not a very sympathetic character. Did you know much about Teddy when you began this project? Did you find yourself taking sides?<\/strong><\/div>\n
\n<\/strong><\/div>\n <\/strong><\/div>\nI knew nothing of Teddy when I took on the project, but it wasn\u2019t long before I discovered that he suffered in later life from Manic Depression at a time when people didn\u2019t know what to make of that or how to treat it.\u00a0\u00a0Truthfully, I see Teddy as a very sympathetic character who married a woman unsuited to him, and then, distraught, fell victim to mental illness (which seemed to run in his family.)\u00a0\u00a0If Teddy could have spent his later years at the Mount with his pigs and horses, he might have been a much happier man.\u00a0Edith was an intellectual.\u00a0\u00a0Teddy was anything but.\u00a0\u00a0Yet,\u00a0\u00a0he adored Edith.\u00a0\u00a0And for a long time, he was a kind and patient husband to her.\u00a0\u00a0Thinking of Teddy\u2019s life saddens me.<\/div>\nYou were an advertising creative director before becoming a novelist. Both are creative, but in different ways. How did your past career help in your current one?<\/strong><\/div>\n
\n<\/strong><\/div>\n <\/strong><\/div>\nMy advertising career has affected my fiction writing in myriad ways.\u00a0\u00a0For one thing, I am always conscious of trying to tell a story in the least words possible.\u00a0\u00a0After years of cramming twenty thoughts into thirty seconds, one gets pretty good at writing minimally!\u00a0Advertising also taught me to be disciplined, to work well under strict deadlines, and to work every day.\u00a0\u00a0What I loved in advertising also interests me in my fiction:\u00a0\u00a0to solve puzzles.\u00a0\u00a0The tighter the strictures of the assignment, the more intrigued I am. I love being creative in a small box. This came into play with this book.\u00a0\u00a0I had to tell a story that already existed but I had to shape it into a book.\u00a0It was a Rubik\u2019s Cube.\u00a0\u00a0The elements were all there, but they needed to be twisted into the right order to create a satisfying pattern.\u00a0Also, I was forced to read between the lines.\u00a0\u00a0Edith kept such clear diaries; her life was mapped out almost daily.\u00a0\u00a0But what\u00a0really<\/em>happened at the theatre that night?\u00a0\u00a0Why did Anna leave at that time for New York?\u00a0\u00a0Why did Morton act the way he did?\u00a0\u00a0It was a delicious puzzle and I very much enjoyed solving it to my satisfaction.\u00a0\u00a0I hope I\u2019ve done Edith\u2019s life justice.<\/div>\n <\/strong><\/div>\nWhat\u2019s your writing regimen?<\/strong><\/div>\n
\n<\/strong><\/div>\n <\/strong><\/div>\nGenerally, I walk in the mornings and do errands.\u00a0\u00a0I write in the afternoons.\u00a0\u00a0Usually I read starting at 1 or 2 pm.\u00a0\u00a0(While I was working on\u00a0THE AGE OF DESIRE<\/strong> I always read something by Edith). Then, with a strong cup of tea I get down to work by three.\u00a0I write in my writing room, a large old sleeping porch with windows on three sides overlooking my backyard.\u00a0\u00a0I sit in a comfortable chair with an ottoman, my MacBook Pro on my lap.\u00a0\u00a0I rarely write more than three hours at a time, usually less.\u00a0\u00a0But it\u2019s extraordinary what three dedicated hours can generate as far as pages.\u00a0\u00a0If I get five good pages a day, I\u2019m thrilled.\u00a0\u00a0But not every day can be a successful day.\u00a0\u00a0I always take weekends off\u2014perhaps a holdover from my years in advertising.\u00a0\u00a0My brain needs time to recharge!<\/div>\n <\/strong><\/div>\nWhat\u2019s next for you?<\/strong><\/div>\n
\n<\/strong><\/div>\n <\/strong><\/div>\nI am writing a book about a woman caught up in the radical anti-war movement of the 1960s.\u00a0\u00a0She is a woman in her late thirties who married young and had no youth.\u00a0\u00a0She goes back to college, and gets drawn into the Weather Underground.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ve always been intrigued with how people who were advocates of anti-violence could justify their increasingly violent activities.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"