Everyday I Write the Book

Q&A With Susan Barr-Toman, Author of "When Love Was Clean Underwear"

First things first. Congratulations to the winner of Meg Wolitzer's The Uncoupling, which I reviewed on Monday: Tawnya at Drawn to the Flame!

Earlier this week I reviewed an excellent debut novel by Susan Barr-Toman called When Love Was Clean Underwear. Susan was kind enough to answer some questions for me, and her answers were very interesting to read. (I recommend reading them now, then reading the book, and then coming back to read them again. Just don't read the spoiler question before you read the book!)

Here is the Q&A. Thanks, Susan!

Q:  Do you know someone like Lucy? What was your inspiration for her character?

A: I do know people like Lucy, and I have had many people come up to me after readings to tell me the same. When I was writing the novel, people kept saying, “you have to make Lucy younger,” or “something terribly must happen for her to be a virgin at 30.”  People assume everyone is like them or like characters on sitcoms.  There are people who live with their parents.  There are people who hold on to their virginity for many reasons.  In this case Lucy is a practicing Catholic, and thanks to her mother she also has poor self-esteem.  And as you know, her mother has issues.

However, this is not an autobiographical novel.  My mother is alive and well and never smoked a cigarette in her life.  I was not a virgin at 30.  I was married at 27, and no man is that patient. 

Q: The South Philadelphia neighborhood that Lucy lives in plays a large role in your book. How did you pick the setting?

A: Actually South Philadelphia was the inspiration for the novel.  I heard this story about a young couple who weren’t from South Philadelphia, but had bought a row home there.  Since the house had been in the family for generations and had not been updated, they bought it for a low price with the plan to gut it.  What they didn’t know is that they had bought the house of a deceased woman whose sisters lived on either side.  So they were constantly harassed by the sisters each time they changed anything. 

I began to wonder who could move into that house and be intimidated by these women. That’s where Lucy came from.  She’s a woman who grew up in a nearby neighborhood and understands tradition.  She has lived in the same house her whole life, the house her father was raised in, and only moves out against her will.

I wanted to capture the family feel of the neighborhood – the nosiness, the unsolicited advice, but also, the eagerness to know, to help. 
 
Q: I am in awe of people who write novels - it seems so overwhelming to me. When do you write, and how do you stay disciplined? How long did When Love Was Clean Underwear take to write?

A: I began writing in earnest when I was pregnant with my first child and I took a continuing education class called “Write Your Novel Now.”  At the beginning of the class, the instructor asked why each of us was there.  My reason - I didn’t want to be a stage mom.  I’d always wanted to write and always found reasons not to.  I didn’t want to be one of those people who pushed her child to fulfill her dreams.  I wanted to be able to say, pursue your dreams, follow your bliss, and actually be an example of that. 

WLWCU was written when I had two young children at home. In the beginning, I would write during my son’s morning nap, and he was a wonderfully consistent napper.  During his afternoon nap, I would take care of the household tasks.  When he switched to one nap a day, let’s just say, we didn’t have company over much. 

There was something about having that limited time to get it done.  Before kids, I always thought I needed large spans of time to do any kind of real work.  For most of us, those long spans never come, and you have to learn to squeeze in the work.   When I was expecting my daughter, I was very motivated to finish a draft of the novel, knowing that with two my time would be even more limited.

All and all, it took about eight years.
 
Q: Are you writing a second novel now?

A: Yes.  I’m working on my second novel and hope to finish it this year.  It’s the story of a friendship between two couples who met in college.  Ten years later as they are about to start families, secrets come out and loyalties shift. 

I also continue to write short stories. My story “Town Watch” will be published in an anthology called South Philly Fiction this fall.   But really, I do venture into other parts of Philly in my fiction.

Q: There are so few redeemable characters in the book, yet it was such a pleasure to read. Are you generally optimistic or pessimistic about human nature?

A: I don’t see the characters as unredeemable, so much as flawed. Lucy is so malleable and the other characters recognize that.  They see an opportunity to turn her into what they think she should be, into what they need her to be. Flawed as they are, each of them wants to be loved and to love.  Just like Lucy.  Just like all of us.  So yes, I am optimistic about human nature. 
 
Q: ****Spoiler Alert!*** OK, I have to know... Tony or Jack? Or does Lucy reject them both? ***Spoiler Alert!***

A: At the end of the novel, Lucy says she will call Jack the next day.  So it isn’t over.  When I was in the midst of writing the novel, I wasn’t sure exactly how it would end, but I knew Lucy would be alone and it would be a good thing.

But remember, Tony is upfront about what he wants, why he loves Lucy.  He pursues her.  Jack knew Lucy for years and didn’t do anything until Marge died.  Still it’s Lucy, Lucy! who has to make the first move.  So Jack needs to work on being worthy.  Of course, who wouldn’t love a man who wants to do home improvement projects and is a great kisser?

 

"When Love Was Clean Underwear" by Susan Barr-Toman

I recently finished a debut novel called When Love Was Clean Underwear by Susan Barr-Toman. I found it very hard to believe that this was her first novel - it was very good, and she is an excellent writer.

When Love Was Clean Underwear is about Lucy Pescitelli, a thirty year-old woman living with her mother in South Philadelphia. Her mother is sour, domineering, and manipulative, so much so that she convinces Lucy to euthanize her as she is at the end stages of lung cancer. That event jumpstarts the book, which follows Lucy in the months after her mother's death as she tries to make a life for herself on her own.

This is just a beautifully written book. Barr-Toman's writing is understated and quiet (like Lucy), but she tells an engaging, suspenseful story about a belated coming-of age that I couldn't wait to finish. Lucy is passive and timid, but Barr-Toman manages to craft a juggernaut of a book, thanks to witty witing and a strong cast of supporting characters that includes Lucy's bitter, dominant older sister Anne, her spinster neighbors and two suitors. These characters are keenly observed and richly drawn.

I really can't say enough good things about this book. Susan Barr-Toman is a first-time author who worked with a small publisher with no marketing budget. I'd love to help get the word out more about When Love Was Clean Underwear - please give it a try! You will not be disappointed. And you will have a hard time believing that this Barr-Toman's first novel.

Susan Barr-Toman was kind enough to answer some questions for me about her book, her writing habits, and the South Philly setting. I will post them later this week - they are a lot of fun to read.

Thanks to Susan Barr-Toman for the review copy of When Love Was Clean Underwear. (Yeah, FTC, that's where I got it.)

"The Uncoupling" by Meg Wolitzer

The Uncoupling, by Meg Wolitzer, is the second book I have read by this author (here is my review of The Ten Year Nap), and it's an equally observant and witty (though ultimately flawed) commentary on modern domestic life. The story is about a New Jersey suburb and the drama teacher who arrives at the high school and decides to stage the Greek drama Lysistrata, which is about what happens when the women of a community withhold sex from their husbands in order to get them to stop fighting a war.

In The Uncoupling, the women involved in the play, from its actresses to their mothers to the faculty at the school, ultimately find themselves under a spell similar to the one that Lysistrata cast in her play - they lose all physical passion and shut out their husbands both emotionally and physically. They don't talk about it, though, so unlike in Lysistrata, the women in The Uncoupling have no idea what is happening to them, and believe themselves to be alone.

Wolitzer is a beautiful writer - something I learned in The Ten Year Nap. She's astute and observant, and funny too. Here is a passage I liked about how parents take their kids to task for spending too much time online, while they themselves do the same:

All of which forced real-life parents to make curdled and no doubt ignorant remarks about what their kids were missing, even as the parents themselves were drawn to their own screens, where they sat slack every night before a radiant blast.  As the hours disappeared, sometimes they purchased slippers; or read about a newly discovered species of lizard; or about a disease they feared they had; or about the unmysterious wars that quietly continued in Iraq and Afghanistan, as unseen as fires burning underground.  Leanne had recently remarked that if you wanted to get to know someone's unconscious, all you had to do was take a look at everything they had looked at and done on the Intenet over the course of a couple of hours when they were all alone.

Wolitzer's cast - a fortysomething couple who both teach at the high school, their daughter and her boyfriend (the son of the drama teacher), the beautiful and many-partnered guidance counselor, the overweight and long-married college advisor, just to name a few - is richly textured. The first half of the book, when these characters were introduced, was my favorite. Later, as Wolitzer injected magical realism and the drama teacher's spell took hold, I started to enjoy the book less. I found a subplot involving the play's star and her own use of Lysistrata's methods to protest our current war to be unconvincing and unncessary, and I agree with other reviewers that the end of the book tied up too neatly. There was enough to go on here, just in the depiction of the relationships and the ways in which the play affected them, that the extras were unnecessary and, in my opinion, took away from the book.

I am also not a big fan of magical realism - I like my books very literal. I don't think the magical realism was necessary here, and was instead a distraction for me.

While I was disappointed in the book when I finished it, due to the unsatisfying ending and the needless flourishes, I am still glad that I read it. I love Wolitzer's writing, and thoroughly enjoyed these characters and the suburban life Wolitzer created for them. I'd recommend The Uncoupling despite its flaws.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for selecting me to be a part of The Uncoupling book tour and to Riverhead Books for providing me a review copy of the book. I am the second to last stop on this book tour - here's a full list of all of the blogs that have reviewed The Uncoupling on the tour.

Are you interested in reading The Uncoupling? I have a copy to give away, thanks to Riverhead. Leave me a comment here and I will pick a name at random on Friday, April 29.

"Cozy's Complete Guide to Girls' Hair" by Cozy Friedman

I saw a promo for Cozy's Complete Guide to Girls' Hair at BEA last May, and had an eye out for it ever since. It is finally available, and I highly recommend it to anyone who needs to style his or her daughter's hair. I have two almost 7 year-olds with long, mostly straight hair, and I am pretty helpless when it comes to styling it. Cozy's Complete Guide to Girls' Hair has been a great resource.

There are chapters on hair types, styling tools, accessories, and basic haircuts, and the last five chapters are devoted to different hairstyles - ponytails, ballet buns, braids, and special occasion hairdos. I do recommend that if your daughter wants a particular hairstyle, wake up a little earlier in the morning... these instructions are not complicated, but it sometimes takes a few tries to get it right.

Thank you to Artisan for sending me a review copy of Cozy's Guide to Girls' Hair. (Hi FTC!) My daughters and I love it. Here is the one of my first tries - it's called the 'Flip Tail':

 

Why I Keep My Books

I have a post up on TLC's Parentables blog today about why I don't recycle books. Do you keep books or pass them along after you've read them?

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon, is a story told through the eyes of Christopher Boone, a teenager with autism who discovers his neighbor's dog dead one evening. He decides to write a book about the mystery behind the dog's death, using Sherlock Holmes (one of his favorite characters) as a model. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is nominally about Christopher's attempts to solve the mystery of the dog's murder, but his investigation leads him to much larger discoveries about his parents and their relationship with each other, and him.

Haddon narrates this book through Christopher's voice, which gives remarkable insight into the autistic mind. The story is told very literally and in a matter-of-fact tone, but the chapters advancing the plot are interpersed with ones about math, geography, biology, vocabulary and other topics that soothe and comfort Christopher's oversensitive brain. He has many patterns typical of autistic kids: he only eats foods of particular colors, he cannot stand to be touched, he is frightened of places and people he doesn't know, and he cannot process too many sensations at one time.

Most notably, Christopher is incapable of empathy. He cannot relate to what others might be feeling or how his actions may affect them, particulary his parents. He is in touch with his own feelings of anxiety, fear, or even pride, but he cannot seem to feel love or affection for other people.

While this book is very well-written and is at times quite funny, it's also very sad. One of Christopher's favorite dreams is one in which a virus has killed everyone on earth except for "special people like me" "who don't look at other people's faces and who don't know what these pictures mean" (insert pictures of sad/happy/angry faces). In the dream, Christopher knows that:

[N]o one is going to talk to me or touch me or ask me a question. But if I don't want want to go anywhere I don't have to, and I can stay at home and eat broccoli and oranges and licorice laces all the time, or I can play computer games for a whole week, or I can just sit in the corner of the room and rub a coin back and forth over the ripple shapes on the surface of the radiator.

Christopher's greatest joys in life do not have to do with other people, but with activities that he finds reassuring or comforting, or in contemplating difficult scientific and philosophical problems. Haddon beautifully paints the difficulties his parents face in raising him, and why their relationship fell apart.

I listened to most of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time on audiobook. While the narrator was excellent, I recommend reading over listening to this book. The print version is filled with diagrams, drawings, equations, symbols, and even handwriting, which the listener misses out on. Also, when Christopher's mind goes into overdrive, or he tries to explain something complicated, it's easy to get distracted.

This is a very good book - highly recommended.

(Relax, FTC - audiobook came from the library and the paperback was in my personal library already.)

iPad App: Nosy Crow's "Three Little Pigs"

I have been AWOL here for a few days. I was at the Mom 2.0 Conference in New Orleans from Thursday until today. I got to see a lot of my blogger friends, went to some interesting sessions, and had some great conversations about blogging, social media, and motherhood.

My reading is all messed up because I forgot to bring my current book with me - THE HORROR! So I am now currently reading three books and listening to one on audio - very unlike me. I am usually a monogamous reader. I started Meg Wolitzer's The Uncoupling on my way home, having left Susan Barr-Toman's When Love Was Clean Underwear at home (and I also started Wench a week ago). Sigh. And I am halfway done with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time on audio. Hopefully I will finish these books soon and get some reviews up. I am on vacation this week, but with Passover and a trip to the west coast, my blogging may be sporadic again.

And now for something a little different... I would like to occasionally review iPad apps for kids here on EDIWTB. I am starting off with The Three Little Pigs, an interactive storybook from Nosy Crow. The Three Little Pigs is adorable. The illustrations are bright and detailed, and kids can opt to read the book on their own or have the book read to them. My daughter is a pretty advanced reader and she chose to read it on her own.  If you tap on the different characters, they say new things, so it's fun for kids to explore and find all of the different text on the page. Also, the animals do different actitivies when you tap on them, like build their houses, jump, flip, etc. so the book is very interactive.

When I asked my daughter how she liked the app, she said, "It's very cute! I liked it a lot." It probably kept her interested for about 20 minutes. The downside is that once you've gone through the whole app, kids may lose interest. Perhaps emerging readers can toggle between having the book read and reading themselves, but advanced readers may be done with it after one or two readings. At $7.99, the app is too expensive to use just once or twice.

Overall, I was impressed with the quality of this app and its visual appeal. I also liked the British accent on the narrator. My daughter was thoroughly engaged and entertained while she was using it. I recommend this app to anyone with emerging to solid readers, and look forward to what Nosy Crow comes out with next. I do think that the price is steep for a kids' app (but it is in line with a good kids' book).

FTC disclosure: thank you to Nosy Crow for giving me a free download of this app for review purposes.

 

"The Unnamed" by Joshua Ferris

Reading The Unnamed, Joshua Ferris' second novel, is an intense, exhausting experience, just as living is for Tim Farnsworth, Ferris' main character. When the novel opens, Tim is a partner in a prestigious New York law firm who has just suffered a third recurrence of a strange affliction: periodically, he starts walking and cannot stop. The prior bouts of his disease - one that myriad specialists and scientists were unable to diagnose - wreaked havoc on his life for long periods at a time, but he eventually recovered and was able to resume his professional and personal lives.

The third recurrence of Tim's compulsion to walk is even more disruptive and debilitating than the others, and Ferris sets his novel at the start of the downward spiral that Tim follows when the walking comes back. Ferris shows how Tim loses his ability to work and how his relationship with his wife Jane and teenage daughter Becka are tested - to an extreme - by his erratic behavior and tendency to go missing for days - and eventually months - at a time.

The Unnamed explores the nature of mental illness (and in this case, its relationship with the physical body), as well as the limits of marital love and commitment. As Tim's condition gets more severe, he ultimately leaves Jane and Becka and just sets off walking, literally across the country, unable to stop or control his direction. Needless to say, exposure to extreme elements takes a serious toll on his body over the course of months and years, and he is periodically hospitalized for a range of organ failures, infections, and pscyhoses. His grasp on reality comes and goes, and he stays in intermittent touch with his wife and daughter, which tethers him tenuously to reality and his former life.

The Unnamed is a gripping read. It's not a consistent read, though. The first part of the book is almost like a thriller, while the middle gets repetitive with details of Tim's arduous journeys through physical and mental hell. The final third, where Tim tries to reconcile at last his condition with the life he left, is slightly easier to experience but no less sad.

I was one of the few who didn't like Ferris' first novel, Then We Came To The End. I liked The Unnamed better. I found Ferris' statements about modern work and family life more compelling this time around, and I do love his writing. I think I am still digesting The Unnamed. It's unrealistic in many ways (how could Tim walk that many miles and sleep in so many public places without being killed, attacked, mugged, etc.? for starters...), but I don't think Ferris was shooting for realism here. Here's a passage I liked about the mind-body tension:

At first his body was subject only to little local breakdowns, to infections and inflammations, to aches, cricks, tweaks, cramps, contusions, retentions, swellings, fevers, tinglings, hackings, spasms, limps, displacements, dizziness, stiffness, chafing, agitations, confusions, staggerings, spells of low blood sugar, and the normal wear and tear of age.  Yet it persisted to function more or less with an all-hands-on-deck discipline. He was certain that it had a mind of its own, an unassailable cellular will.  If it were not him that needed sleep, and a bit of food, it would not need him. It would walk without him, after his mind had dimmed and died. It would walk until it collapsed into a pile of whitened and terrigeneous bones.

I mostly listened to The Unnamed on audio, which I highly recommend. It was narrated by Ferris, and he's a great reader. I love listening to authors read their own works - who understands the words better than they do? Who else knows exactly where the emphasis lands in a sentence, and the tone of voice a character should take when talking to someone else?

So The Unnamed was kind of a mixed bag for me, but I am definitely glad I read it. (Oh hi, FTC! I guess that since the budget was sort-of-approved, your guidelines are still in effect. Since you asked... both the hard copy and the audiobook were courtesy of the DC Public Library).

News Flashes from EDIWTB

Some quick bookish news here on EDIWTB...

First, congratulations to Tena R., who won my audiobook of I'd Know You Anywhere, by Laura Lippman. Enjoy!

Second, some exciting news from HarperCollins. Jennifer Haigh has a new book coming out in May called Faith! I have very heard good things about it, and have requested a review copy. Can't wait! I am a huge fan of Jennifer Haigh - I loved Mrs. Kimble, The Condition, and Baker Towers.

Finally, I have another reading-related post up at TLC's new Parentables blog. Today I write about why I don't read sci-fi or fantasy anymore.

"Reading Lips: A Memoir of Kisses" by Claudia Sternbach

Today is the publication date and my Unbridled Books blog tour stop for Reading Lips: A Memoir of Kisses, by Claudia Sternbach. Reading Lips is a collection of essays by Sternbach about different pivotal moments in her life, around the loose theme of kisses (whether real, desired, or forced). The essays cover topics like Sternbach's father moving out of the house when she was little, a middle school crush on a boy who later died in a freak accident, her brief career as a stewardess, some disastrous early marriages, and her (and her younger sister's) cancer diagnosis. They are funny, wistful, sad, and bittersweet, and Reading Lips is a quick and entertaining read.

Oddly, Reading Lips was almost a mishmash of the last two books I read - Girls in Trucks and History of a Suicide. Like Girls in Trucks, Reading Lips jumps quickly from event to event, covering a lot of ground with many gaps. While Claudia isn't slow to mature like Girls in Trucks' Sarah (and of course, she's a real person), I recognized some of the same themes in Reading Lips, as well as the same wry humor and sparse, powerful prose. Like History of a Suicide, Reading Lips is a memoir about the power of sisterhood and the vaccum left by an absent father.

I am not sure Sternbach needed the kissing theme - these essays are strong enough to stand without it, and at times it felt forced. But I enjoyed reading about her circuitous route to stability and happiness, and her writing kept me engaged and interested. She has a conversational tone with the reader that establishes a tone of intimacy and inclusion, especially in the later chapters.

I enjoyed this one and am glad that Unbridled Books invited me to participate in the blog tour. (And yes, FTC, they also provided me with the review copy.)

If you'd like to read more about Claudia Sternbach and Reading Lips, check out Style Substance Soul's interview with Sternbach, which was posted yesterday.