I'm about half-way through a tour promoting my first novel, Love Walked In. Book tours are very interesting things. The readers I've met so far have all been kind. Many have also been curious, articulate, and extremely smart. But there's something quirky and even a little spooky about meeting them because until that moment, I have never set eyes on them and they have only met me through the book I've written and, sometimes, through interviews that I've given. What can freak me out a little is how they see not just my book or my characters (both of which now belong to them at least as much as they belong to me), but how they see me.
One of the unexpected consequences of publishing a novel called Love Walked In is that people assume I know about love.
During one of my first stops on this tour, a woman told me that she'd found an online interview I'd done. "You gave this answer to a question about love, and it was so amazing," she told me, "I emailed it to everyone I know, called my husband and read it to him, called my mother and read it to her. I printed it out and put it up on my bulletin board. It expresses what I've felt and haven't ever been able to say about what it means to love someone." Obviously, this is lovely (she was lovely and utterly gracious), and it meant a lot to me. But things like this happen to me quite often, and it startles me every time. People ask me about love. They quote what my characters have had to say on the subject of love. They quote what I have had to say on the subject. They tell me their own love stories.
Maybe I should have seen it coming. I did write a book full of love-relationships (maternal love, paternal love, friendship, romance, friendship-becoming-romance, maternal-love-becoming-friendship, to name a few) and that has at its heart the love that develops between two strangers, a woman in her 30s and an 11-year-old girl. But, as I've protested to my friends, my parents, my sister, my husband, I am not an authority on love. Dr. Phil? Yes. Marisa de los Santos? No.
But when I looked up the interview to which the woman at the book signing had referred, I saw that, while I might not consider myself an authority, I sure spoke like one or at least like someone who thinks she's an authority. Here's what I said:
Love is untidy and surprising and inconsiderate. It blindsides you, more often than not. Not just romantic love, but all love. You fall in love with your oldest friend. You meet the man you think is made for you and then fall in love with his daughter instead. You go home one day only to discover that your family's love is far more complex than you'd ever understood. Even when you anticipate the onset of love, it never takes quite the form you'd imagined it would. Having children is a perfect example of this. You're pregnant for nine months, falling more in love every minute, waiting for the baby, and then, he's born, and you realize what boundless means; you realize that you weren't even close to being prepared. All those movies in which people tell other people, "I would die for you"? You realize that there's nothing special about that. It's an automatic, the bare minimum.See what I mean?
And then there's Cornelia. When I look back at my main character, I see that she, too, talks as though she knows what she's talking about when she talks about love. Here's a brief sampling, Cornelia Brown on love:
Not to pontificate or anything, but this I know: there's a kind of holiness to love, requited or not, and those people who don't receive it with gratitude are arrogant beyond saving;and
Yes, it's true, what I said earlier: a real life doesn't mean getting what you want; the achievement, the privilege, too, is knowing what you love.
But getting what you love? Having what you love love you back? Oh, my friend, it's miracle: your one tiny life's head-on collision with divinity.
Cornelia is not a psychologist or a philosopher. Neither am I. We're people (well, OK, Cornelia is a character in a novel, a fact I find surprisingly difficult to remember) whose only knowledge of love comes from having lived in the world, loving people and watching other people love people. We are not experts.
Except that it occurs to me now that maybe we are, as much as anyone can be. Maybe living and loving is as good a way as any to become an expert on love. Maybe it's the only way. I'm starting to believe that there is no last word on love, no single truth, but an ongoing conversation in which we all have a voice.
If my theory is right, then you are an authority on love, too. And I would love to hear what you think. Your expert opinion. ___________________________________________________________________________
You can find out more about Marisa and Love Walked in at http://www.lovewalkedin.com/.
For reading guides, book club recommendations, recipes, and episodes of the Borders Book Club program, go to www.bordersmedia.com/bookclubs/
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Comments: 24
Literature is another way of knowing. I think we can gain as much insight into human nature by reading poetry or fiction as we can in reading psycholgy textbooks or journal articles. The entertainment of it helps it go down better, too.
Think how much we can learn about love by reading Shakespeare's sonnet "Let the marriage of true minds..."
I noticed the favorable reviews of your book, and it is on my list. As a librarian, I have a lot to read, and sometimes it takes me a couple months to get to something I want to read.
I am no authority on love, but I know a good writer when I read one--and you are the real deal! Since I'm an editor, I sent a rave to your editor, here's an excerpt:
Having just read "Love Walked In" and been truly amazed, I am writing the second piece of literary "fan" mail of my life (the first was to Ray Bradbury).
You might enjoy hearing the story: My mother, who finds the best books, recommended LWI, but not just by saying "you've gotta read this", but by handing me the book, when we started an hour-long drive, and saying : "you've gotta read this" and she meant NOW. Out loud. Okay, mom, I thought to myself, but we're friends, and friends humor friends, so I did.
I read, laughing out loud often, she drove, and we were spellbound (she all over again, having just read the book the day before!). By the time I finished the first chapter, I wanted nothing more than to keep reading and damn the family gathering. I didn't. But I did make my brother listen while I read an excerpt (this time just 3 pages).
That night, back home, I made my film-professor-screenwriter husband sit because he just had to listen while I read the first chapter again, out loud, yes, NOW.
All this goes to show how great the first chapter is, but you knew that already—the best part is the rest of the book lived up to it, and didn't cop out or go soft or get vague or "phone it in".
Thank you!
Jennifer Silva Redmond
What more could an expert have to offer?!
Marisa, is it true that your book will serve as a basis for a major motion picture starring Sarah Jessica Parker?
I truly enjoyed your book, and am glad to see you recognized for this book. I can't tell you how many people I have passed it along to since first discovering it at my Borders in Bailey's Crossroads, VA.
What I find just a little bit confusing is this book getting categorized in the Chick Lit category. I have nothing against this genre (if it truly can be called such) but the category as I see it seems too confining for your story.
Yes, yours is a story about love, Yes, it is wonderfully romantic. But Love Walked In is not satisfied with the silly love of so many novels being written under the new label of chick lit. Rather, it explores the nature of love, the need for love, the lack of love, and about finding love in unexpected places.
I became quite attached to Clare, the wonderful 11-year old girl struggling with her mother's behavior. Cornelia took me more time to embrace, but her story slowly sucked me in as well. It's a lovely, even magical book.
What are your thoughts on how books are categorized and marketed? Do you care? And what are your opinions about the ever-expanding definition of the book category known as "chick lit"?
Liz K., I understand the thinking behind the adage "Actions speak louder than words," i.e. "You should know I love you without my having to say it." However, I think no one would deny that language is a very powerful thing. We are language-animals, aren't we? Language structures our world to such a large degree; it can be a form of action. It can be a way of not just expressing truth but coming to truth. I've found many times that I don't know something is true until I put it into words.
Also, while I know that some people just have difficulty articulating feelings, I think there are also those who make "I love you" about power. As though witholding those words deliberately makes you the one with the power. But that thinking seems to suggest that the person who is loved is the lucky one. I think it's at least as much of a gift to be the one who loves.
By the way, how wonderful to be a librarian. Lucky you!
In any case, please forgive me if you didn't get my response and please accept my heartfelt thanks for your gracious and generous words about my book. They mattered to me when I read them the first time, and they matter to me now!
I should also say that I feel this way without fully understanding the criteria for the category. This is perhaps because when a term has been applied as liberally as this one has, it loses its meaning. Is any book about love relationships chick lit? Is any book with an upswing ending chick lit? Does it have to do with cover art? Humor? Multiple mentions of shoes and handbags? Is any book that women love and that sells well chick lit?
But what I do know is that most of the time when I see the term "chick lit" it's being used to dismiss a book as ephemeral and trivial; it seems to imply that the book was written solely for the purposes of "dumb fun," that it's devoid of complex characters, and inventive language. The term suggests, much of the time, soullessness. And it's almost exclusively applied to books by women. And, yes, all of this bothers me.
Having said all of that, I need to also say that there are many writers whose books have, at one time or another, been placed in the chick lit category in whose company I am honored to be. Joshilyn Jackson, Lolly Winston, Melissa Bank, Julianna Baggott, Sarah Dunn. There are lots of others: all smart and gifted women (that Joshilyn has the writer's equivalent of perfect pitch), all writing books with soul and heart and substance.
It's all pretty confusing. Luckily, I don't have to market books, just write them. Also, I think readers, real readers, know that a good book is a good book regardless of labels.
I'd love to hear what you all have to say on the subject of chick lit. What do you think?
Thanks for your eloquent reply! It would be wonderfult to host you at my library, but that probably would be difficult, as it's in Virginia and our next author talks are not scheduled until September and October.
I noticed in the discussion the story element in your novel involving love between a woman and a child who is not biologically related to her (if I understand correctly in advance of reading your novel). I wondered, hav you ever read "The Bean Trees", the first novel by Barbara Kingsolver? I always thought that the way the lead character fell in love with "Turtle" was very authentic and moving.
And yes, i agree with your point about "To Kill a Mockingbird". We have discussed that novel in book groups and it never works very well- because everyone is so much in awe of it that there is no disagreement and therefore not much to say!
Mockingbird is wonderful- I read it again recently and noticed that she is so sneaky in getting you to fall in love with everyone before the courtroom scene so that there is no way you can avoid being on the right side. I have never written a novel, but I think it is unavoidable that if you want to do something well, you have to look at the best first. Then you have to try to be as good, but use your own voice. That is more of a challenge than I am up to. But hey, writers need readers, and that is where i come in.
Speaking of authors I like, I enjoyed two fiction books that were published in the fall of 2006. "All Aunt Hagar's Children" by Edward P. Jones is an amazing set of short stories on the African American community of Washington D.C. "On Agate Hill" by Lee Smith is a novel about an orphan girl who grows up in Reconstruction North Carolina and manages to have a real life against trmendous odds. That one sort of made me think of "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte by virtue of the gothic thread. But I also looked at it as a more accurate telling of the horrors of Reconstruction than you get it "Gone with the Wind"- the KKK is portrayed in a truthful and unromantic way. Both these books have quite a bit of heartbreak in them, but it is honest heartbreak.
Chris W., thanks for the book recommendations. One of the greatest joys ever is recommending (or, as I usually do, bossing people into reading) books that you love, isn't it? I always relish the moments in a book tour when someone asks, "What books have rocked your world lately?" This go-round, I told everyone about Monica Wood's ANY BITTER THING, which is just perfection. I met her when I was in Portland, Maine, and she was as generous and lovely as anyone who'd read her books would suspect.
Raymond W., thanks for your kind congratulations, and here are some for you: congratulations on what sounds like a terrific book for writers and readers, both! I look forward to reading it when it launches in the fall.
And heartfelt congratulations to you, Patry Francis! I've seen your book absolutely everywhere, and now that my time is more my own, I can't wait to read it. Your cover is wonderful, and I've read a bit about those book "Tupperware" parties of yours. What a really splendid idea; it sounds so intimate, a chance for real conversation. I hope it's going well. Thanks for your kind words about LOVE WALKED IN.
FYI I wrote a review of "Love Walked in". I enjoyed it. If you are interested in reading it just search "love walked in"