|  As
I started to prepare for this column, I had to
pull out my huge manila folder containing all
of my past book club fliers. According
to my files, it was just over a year ago that
I first met Laura Pedersen. Her book, Heart's
Desire, was our January 2006 Book Club pick. The
club was also lucky enough to be selected for
an author phone chat from Ballantine Reader's
Circle. When we spoke to her, we all were
amazed at her story of how she became an author. I'm
not going to steal her thunder. I'll
let her tell you, but let me just say, she's
something else.
W hat I did want to share with you is why I like Laura's books so much. Let
me start by saying: February is most certainly the month of love. An
obvious question is why didn't I choose a hot, steamy romance novel instead
of a book about a young woman and her dysfunctional family? Good question! The
answer is simple. I chose The Big Shuffle because it is a
book about love, not the romantic kind, but of a familial kind. There is
no stronger bond than that of family. Whether you like yours or not, the
old saying is true. Blood is thicker than water. Laura weaves a tale
of family love as you have never read before. Frankly, I don't know
how she does it. With each book in her Hallie Palmer series, the
stories just get better and better. Find this book in our catalog.
By the time you read this column, I will be home recovering from a hip replacement. With
the support of my family (and my friends), my life will soon be back to normal. For
that, I am thankful. So as you celebrate Valentine's Day this year,
perhaps you can stop what you are doing and tell your family how much you love
and appreciate who they are. I bet you they'll think it's the
best gift you've ever given them.
As part of this interview, Laura has graciously agreed to give five lucky readers
a copy of The Big Shuffle. So you know what to do! Read the column
and then look for the trivia question at the end.
Go grab a cup of coffee and get to know my friend,
Laura Pedersen.
JEN: Please tell us a
little bit about your educational and professional
background.
LAURA:
I went to local overcrowded public schools from
kindergarten through high school. My
mother worked as a community mental health
nurse and believed that you have to deal with
all sorts of people in life and so you may
as well get started early on. After graduation
I moved from a small town outside of Buffalo,
NY, to Manhattan, and took an entry level job
at the American Stock Exchange. New York
University was only a few minutes away and
so I picked up a finance degree there. On
Friday and Saturday nights I'd sometimes
do standup comedy at clubs like The Improv,
Catch A Rising Star, and Comedy Cellar. After
a number of years on Wall Street I became a
columnist for “The New York Times.” It
was fun, but also a lot of research and meeting
deadlines, so I transitioned into writing novels.
JEN: At what juncture in your life did you decide
to take the plunge and write a novel? Who was
the most surprised by this turn of events and
why?
LAURA:
I decided to start writing novels
when I became bored with standup comedy, creating
jokes just for the sake of getting laughs, especially
since I didn't particularly enjoy performing
or aspire to have a TV sitcom, like most of those
working the circuit in the 1980s. But I've
always loved stories, and so the idea of weaving
humor into a story appealed to me. I was
impressed by the way the movie “When Harry
Met Sally” made such clever use of Billy
Crystal's standup comedy routines.
I'd have to say that I most surprised
myself by becoming a novelist, because I was
a late reader and very much in doubt as an English
student. I believe that when the principal
suspended me for writing sonnets as absence excuses
that his exact words were, “laugh a minute,
thought an hour.”
My parents aren't surprised by much at
this point. I'm an only child and
had already cracked my head open five times by
age thirteen. I tend to lead with my skull. Anyway,
they've warned me: “No more surprises!”
JEN: About how long did it take for you to write
your first book and what was the most difficult
part of the process?
LAURA:
It took about two years to finish my first novel, Going
Away Party. At the time I was traveling
around the country doing a lot of speaking, and
also writing a weekly column for “The New
York Times,” so I had to chisel away at
it a few hours here and there. Also, since
I'd never taken any writing courses, it
was necessary to figure out exactly how to write
a novel as I went along. I prefer learning
by doing. (Though I can see why this wouldn't
work for brain surgery or engineering.) The
most difficult part was making it so all the
characters don't sound like me. This
is still a big challenge.
JEN: We first met when you graciously agreed
to call in for my book club discussion of Heart's
Desire, which you know I loved. The
Big Shuffle is the third book in this series.
For those readers who are not familiar with it,
would you mind giving us a little background
information about the series?
LAURA:
Beginner's Luck was my second
novel and the first installment of the Hallie
Palmer series, which now has a total of four
books (the final one, titled Best Bet or The
Long Shot, you decide, will come out in
2007). It's about a teenage girl
with a talent for gambling who must decide what
direction her life will take, and the ensuing
adventures that lead her to a decision. When
I was growing up, I adored Huckleberry Finn and
Tom Sawyer, and I suppose it was in the back
of my mind that I'd love a story where
a girl gets the really good parts. Since Beginner's
Luck turned out to be very popular, people
regularly asked what happened to Hallie after
the last page. The book had a conclusion,
but as to the rest of Hallie's life, it
was rather open-ended. Thus followed Heart's
Desire, another series of escapades starring
Hallie, though this time involving her love life. And
now we have The Big Shuffle, where a
family crisis sends our plucky protagonist hurtling
into adulthood at warp speed.
The question of whether these novels should
be classified as “young adult” has
arisen from the start, because they feature a
girl going from age 15 to 21. However,
as much as we've been enjoying crossover
with teenagers, and the books are on high school
reading lists, we've decided to stay with
mainstream fiction. For one thing, the
stories aren't written with the teen market
in mind, and second, the other two most popular
characters, Olivia and her son Bernard, are sixtyish
and thirty-something, respectively, and I believe
they have strong plotlines with which older readers
can identify.
As a result, I think the books can be read individually
or out of order, but it's probably more
fun to start with Beginner's Luck and
work forward.
JEN: An obvious question but, how did you come
up with the lead character, Hallie Palmer and
what makes her so special to you and to the readers?
LAURA:
Hallie is a creative rebel -- no drugs, alcohol,
rehab, tell-all memoir, and then the talk show
circuit for her. I think Hallie is faced
with the same daily dramas and questions about
her future as most teens, but she's willing
to engage fully with life and give all the
different possibilities a chance. I was
also intrigued with the idea of an intelligent
girl who no longer feels that school is the
best way for her to learn, and yet her parents
and teachers are flummoxed by this. In
my experience as a teacher, traditional schooling
works for about 90% of kids. Most thrive
on the structure and enjoy the society. But
the big question/problem is what to do when
regular classroom instruction isn't the
answer.
JEN: Comparing the first book to the third,
how have you grown as a writer?
LAURA:
I'm still worrying about the same things
I was when writing the first book – trying
to show an emotion rather than just saying it
(i.e. she suddenly became very angry!), finding
variations on words so that paragraphs don't
read like legal documents, and trying not to
use characters or storylines that feel familiar. It's
a nice compliment when people say that the books
are original. And I rather like it that
booksellers and librarians find them hard to
classify, not really fitting into specific categories
such as teen or chick lit. My great hope
is that they're somewhat timeless and can
still be enjoyed twenty years from now -- that
the circumstance and emotions are sound enough
so that it doesn't matter what kind of
cars people are driving or whether they have
dial up or Wi-Fi Internet access. Best
of all would be for the books to get banned entirely. That
seems to be the ultimate marketing trick. (Which
actually happened to Huckleberry Finn,
starting in Concorde, MA. Plus I just found
out that Louisa May Alcott of “Little Women” fame
was on the board and voted to remove that racy
text forthwith. Oh Lou, we hardly knew
ya!)
JEN: I have to admit, what attracts me most
to this series are your quirky, lovable characters
like Bernard and Gil, for example. Besides Hallie,
who is your favorite character and why? Whose
lines are the most fun to write and why?
LAURA:
Olivia is the most fun for me. She's
a voice inside my head that oftentimes comes
up with her own lines and regularly makes me
laugh out loud or roll my eyes. I grew
up attending the Unitarian Universalist Church
of Amherst in upstate New York and as an adult
I belong to All Souls Unitarian Church in Manhattan. Olivia
is a composite of all the wonderful women I've
known over the years who have fought so many
important battles -- equality for women, tighter
drunk driving laws, improvements in healthcare
through the settlement movement and other outreach
programs, and the list goes on and on. This
character gives me an opportunity to include
the idea of having the courage of one's
convictions, though yours certainly don't
have to be hers, and also to make lots of Unitarian
jokes, which are basically a win-win since Unitarians
laugh hardest at themselves while everyone else
is laughing at us.
JEN: Unlike the first
two books in the series, I would say that this
book is a little heavy, meaning it's not an upbeat novel. That's
not to say it's not enjoyable, but it's
overshadowed by death. Why did you choose to
write about this theme?
LAURA:
To me, moving from childhood to adulthood
means developing the capacity to think more about
others than yourself. This happens in all
sorts of ways – entering relationships,
having children, caring for aging parents. People
in their twenties and thirties can be very focused
on their careers, but when they reach fifty and
sixty they tend to be much more concerned with
contributing something to society and what kind
of world they'll leave behind.
So this family crisis was meant to be Hallie's
moment, where she really has to put all thoughts
of herself and what she wants aside for the time
being, not even knowing how long it might last.
JEN: The addition of Pastor Costello to the
plot is delightful and quite entertaining, especially
the way in which he interacts with the family.
What is his significance to the plot and will
we be seeing more of him in book four?
LAURA:
I'm drawn to religion, I suppose because
most people can get so passionate about the subject,
and have such an enormous variety of ideas on
what is right or wrong, true and false. Then
you have the fact that more wars are fought over
God than anything else. I took on the subject
of theology in a big way in my novel Last
Call. But it tends to be an undercurrent
throughout all the stories, and I try to represent
different groups and perspectives, usually the
more popular ones in our society. For
me, Pastor Costello is an example of a Good Christian
in the truest sense of the words. He interprets
his faith to mean that we should love thy neighbor
and do unto others. Pastor Costello leads
by example, through performing good deeds and
by not being judgmental.
JEN: What do you like best about this book and
why?
LAURA:
I hope that none of the characters are perfect,
and that through helping, listening and learning
that they compliment, and in a sense, complete
each other. By the time we get to The
Big Shuffle, Bernard knows Hallie so well
that he can almost always offer some good advice
and assistance in a difficult situation, such
as when the two hold a tête-à-tête
in the front hall closet right after her father's
funeral. Maybe it's odd that a
gay man in his thirties who is no relation
to 18-year-old Hallie is the one she turns
to at this moment, but life is full of surprises,
especially if you give it a chance.
JEN: Is there a general theme or message that
you are trying to convey with the Hallie Palmer
series and if so, please explain.
LAURA:
I like the idea that people can get to know the
characters and stories and develop their own
themes. Or consider how they might react
in such circumstances. But if pressed
to come up with something I'd say the
series is about belonging -- with regard to
friendships, families, and relationships --
and how sometimes camaraderie and understanding
isn't in the places you expected it to
be, but then suddenly turns up in another place,
perhaps even a rather strange corner of your
life. The last page of every book contains
a statement that's almost a narrator
speaking rather than Hallie, where I present
the one main idea I was working off of for
that particular novel. However, it's
not really supposed to stand out.
JEN: What has surprised you most about the publishing
business?
LAURA:
There are a tremendous amount of books out there. In
the olden days if a person had an idea for a
novel they actually had to sit down at a typewriter
and pound it out, which took a certain amount
of dedication, especially if Wite Out, or worse,
carbon paper, was involved. It's
much easier to produce a manuscript on a word
processor, so more people seem to be keyboarding
away and looking for agents. On the bright
side, this technology allows writers to make
their work available to the general public without
having to go through intermediaries, if they
wish.
JEN: What one piece of advice would you give
someone who wants to become an author?
LAURA:
I know a number of writers who create a story
based on a single idea or character, which
is fine, but then they find themselves pretty
far along when they realize there isn't
an ending. I like to know early on what
the arcs of my main characters will be. If
they lose love will they find it again? If
someone is faced with a big dilemma then how
will it be resolved? The ends don't
all need to be tied up in neat little bows,
but the main characters have to travel from
A to B. Once I know the beginning and
the end, what's commonly referred to
as “the muddle” can be worked out. And
then it's actually quite fun to take
that journey with my characters.
JEN: Of course, we want to know more about book
four! What can you tell us about it? When is
the anticipated publishing date?
LAURA:
Best
Bet (or The Long
Shot) is the final phase of Hallie's
becoming an adult. She journeys out across
the big blue marble for the first time after
having always stayed close to home. Then
she must make some tough decisions that will
set the course for the rest of her life, the
way most of us do. The first chapter
is available on my Website: www.laurapedersenbooks.com
I assume the book will come out in the fall
of 2007.
JEN: Do you have a web site? Blog? Mailing list?
LAURA:
Just the Website: www.laurapedersenbooks.com The
rest of my time is spent e-mailing my mother
and calling my father and telling them where
I am and exactly what I'm doing. From
the age of about 10 to 30 they had no idea what
I was up to, and now that I'm 40 they want
all the details. My dad lives out in New
Mexico and likes to take my itinerary, match
it against the weather forecasts, and then call
me about all the storms. He's 100%
Danish. They have a dark side, but it's
humorous. My mother is Black Irish, and
they can have a dark side that isn't so
funny. If I catch cold she's immediately
looking for signs of viral pneumonia.
JEN: Any upcoming scheduled public appearances?
LAURA:
I
just did some readings down South and that's
always fun because when people ask you how you
are, the first tendency of a New Yorker is to
become suspicious. Why
do they want to know how I am? Are they
going to try and sell me drugs or a beach condo
or something? Then after a few days you
start to become a normal human being -- talking
to people in checkout lines and making remarks
about the humidity.
Next for me is a reading/signing at Barnes & Noble
in Manhattan. I'm envisioning a lot
of people in metal folding chairs who haven't
taken off their coats and scarves, their arms
crossed high in front of them, staring at me
with a look that says, “Make me laugh in
the next two minutes or I'm outta here. I
can't believe I gave up my AA meeting for this.”
The Big Shuffle came out at the end
of October in 2006 and so by the time this runs
I'll pretty much be winding down, just
doing some phone chats with book clubs -- sitting
on my couch in my Tweety Bird pajamas at night
with a box of S'mores Pop Tarts in my lap
and the dogs poised to leap at any crumbs. And
of course telling my parents what my plans are
for the next day.
JEN: I just can't
thank you enough for your kindness and especially
your friendship. It has been such a pleasure
getting to know you. I wish you the best of
luck in your career and always.
LAURA:
Thanks so much for staying in touch. I
am thinking lots of good thoughts for a speedy
recovery from your medical adventures.
I hope you have enjoyed my interview with Laura. If
you haven't thought of a good gift for
someone in your family for Valentine's
Day, why not buy all three books in the Hallie
Palmer series?
Speaking of which, what is the title
of the first book in the Hallie Palmer series?
The first five people to e-mail me at jensjewels@gmail.com will
win a copy of The
Big Shuffle . Good
luck!
Congratulations to our winners, Libby P,Chris F, Stacy B, Donna V,and
Nancy S. All the books are gone.
Next month, I will be bringing to you an interview
with Jennifer Apodaca. Her latest release
is The Sex on the Beach Book Club. Now
there's a title for you! You won't
want to miss it.
Happy Valentine's Day!
Until next month……Jen |
Meet
the Author: featuring Jen's Jewels