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BIO
Alice Hoffman is the bestselling author of twenty-five acclaimed novels, including The Third Angel, The Ice Queen, Practical Magic, and Here on Earth, an Oprah Book Club selection. She has also written two books of short stories, and eight books for children and young adults. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages and published in more than one hundred foreign editions. She divides her time between Boston and New York City.
PAST INTERVIEW
August 10, 2001
Now that Alice Hoffman has published her fourteenth novel, BLUE DIARY, The Book Report Network sent Senior Writer Jana Siciliano to speak with her about her long-lived career, her fairy tale worlds and the realities of illness and loss in everyday life.
TBR: Thanks so much for doing this today. I know you're busy but we just want to add a little to our conversation from last year, when THE RIVER KING came out. So I'd like to ask you a few questions, first specifically about BLUE DIARY. Ethan Ford finds himself paying for a crime he committed long ago, when he was "someone else." How did you decide upon this theme of reinvention for BLUE DIARY?
AH: I think that that idea of reinvention originally sprang from the fairy tale of Bluebeard and the idea of someone reinventing themselves or turning out to be not what you think they are. I was reading different versions of that fairy tale and talking about it with other women, feeling that it was a really resonant fairy tale for a lot of people. The original fairy tale was about the youngest sister going into a room in the castle and finding all the bodies of the wives that came before her --- she is confronted with truth, thinking about how often we think we know people and we really don't.
BRC: Do you think in real life it is possible to learn something new about the person you've shared your life with after a long period together, when you think you might have heard everything about their past? Protagonist Jorie certainly learns some new stuff about Ethan, her husband.
AH: I think it happens more than we know and I think it happens at different levels. I think having an affair and being found out is one level, but he's led a life and [everyone] finds out that there were maybe two lives going on at one time. I think secrets often come out. I spoke to a friend who is a therapist and I asked her if there were people who came to her and admitted to doing horrible things and she said, "More than you know."
BRC: BLUE DIARY is about dangerous secrets, passionate love, gossip, unconditional love. Before you mentioned Bluebeard, I was going to say that BLUE DIARY felt like a fairy tale to me --- actually, a lot of your work does . . .
AH: Good! (laughs)
BRC: That is something that you are trying to get into your work? The atmosphere of very intense emotional events that draws us into some very intricate plots?
AH: Absolutely! I feel like those are the stories I was first interested in as a reader, maybe even as a listener before I was a reader. I always felt and still feel that fairy tales have an emotional truth that is so deep that there are few things that really rival [them]. I also like the whole idea of fairy tales and folk tales being a woman's domain, considered a lesser domain at the time they were told. After I wrote the book and had given it its title, it was interesting that I was reading it in France, where fairy tales were called "calle bleu", which means 'blue notebooks.'
BRC: Oh my god! That's amazing!
AH: Isn't it? They were written on cheap blue notebooks bought by poor women. I'm interested in folk tales in the way that medicine and magic in women's stories are all kind of combined.
BRC: Speaking of magic, I always associated nature with magic in your books. It's such a vital character in your work. Do you see yourself as an heir to the tradition of some well-known New England writers, like Thoreau or Dickinson, who also used nature as an inspiring force in their own work?
AH: No, I've never really thought about it that way. I do agree with you about nature being almost a character. And I think in a way it's a family trait. When I was growing up, my grandmother and my mother were always talking about the weather --- it would add an emotional dimension to things. They would call and say, "is it raining there?" And I have to say that one of my brothers became a meteorologist.
BRC: No way! My mother would be in her glory if one of us had ended up on The Weather Channel!
AH: Isn't it funny because it affects you so intensely!
BRC: It's such a driving force in your everyday life, helping you make plans, what to do when . . .
AH: Yes!
BRC: I also wanted to ask you about children in your stories. Children are always suffering heart-wrenching, soul-altering pain in your stories, whether because of their parents' actions or their own. In BLUE DIARY, Collie is having a hard time with his father's secret and Rosarie experiencing first love --- everyone is having an emotional roller-coaster ride that takes them to a different existence by the end of the story.
AH: What you're saying is true --- it's almost shorthand for the process of growing up.
TBR: Is that why you always have kids going through such difficult experiences?
AH: I think growing up is difficult and it's a process that I'm always interested in, with kids and adults, they are often on two different universes. The adults don't know what's happening on the kids' universe and the kids don't know what's happening on the adults' universe. I also have the feeling that twelve or thirteen-year-old kids have such vision when they are looking at things and can see the truth of such situations better than adults can.
BRC: Your books never concentrate on current events. The people could be living in any day, any year, any modern era. Why do you never make concessions to pop culture and include references about it in your work? Do you see your stories as timeless?
AH: I'm so glad you're saying this because, as a reader, I like that feeling when I'm reading . . .
BRC: That sense that you won't open up this book in the future and say, Oh this was 1999 because it mentions blahblahblah . . .
AH: Exactly! It could happen today, yesterday, twelve years from now.
BRC: LOCAL GIRLS, THE RIVER KING and now BLUE DIARY are all books which revolve around small, closely knit communities. It makes me think about my grandmother talking about growing up in Quincy [Massachusetts] or the way you so uncannily captured the essence of Martha's Vineyard in ILLUMINATION NIGHT, a place I'm very familiar with but where you had never been before you wrote the book! That's uncanny! My family was very impressed that you were able to really hook into the essence of the island...
AH: Thank you! I did go there later, but I hadn't been there before I wrote the book. Sometimes I feel like the imagined can feel more real than the real?
BRC: Sure. That speaks well of your ability to hook into these timeless ideas and that overrides the specifics of a place or a time.
AH: That's how I feel when I read a fairy tale --- it could be happening right now.
BRC: It definitely makes for a very visceral reading experience. But all these small towns that you place your characters in --- do you think they still exist somewhere? Do you think of places specific to your memories, places where you experienced the good and the bad of a small community like Monroe in BLUE DIARY?
AH: Any institution becomes a community --- whether it's a high school or a boarding school or a publishing company or a small town where everybody knows certain things about people. It becomes . . . everyone is interrelated and I think it's interesting to see how people react when they are thrown together. And I think there are still small towns that are like this.
BRC: What authors do you find yourself reading at this stage in your career?
AH: I don't really read as much as I used to. A lot of what I was looking for as an escape I find in writing. And the other thing is that I don't want to get into someone else's language when I'm working.
BRC: What part does being a mom play in terms of your life as a writer? Does the rest of your life enhance your work, detract from it, or do these things barely factor in career-wise?
AH: It does affect your writing greatly, which I think you'll find out --- you learn to write much faster! And you can write under any circumstance . . .
BRC: I get fifteen-minute intervals . . . that's the best I can do.
AH: Mothers always find ways to fit in the work --- but then when you're working, you feel that you should be spending time with your children and then when you're with your children, you're thinking about working. It's complicated but I think one thing that happened for me was that I became much more efficient. People could be screaming, the TV could be blaring, dogs could be barking and I could still work.
BRC: In essays you had written about when you were ill. . . and we're hoping that you're doing well now . . .
AH: Thank you. Yes, I am.
BRC: It certainly seemed from those pieces that no matter what was going on, you always found the time to do your work. You were compelled to do it . . .
AH: It was a great escape for me and it was a way to take a break from what was going on in my own world, to go into another world.
BRC: Have you found throughout your career that your writing process changes then, with the circumstances, or are you a good morning person or . . .
AH: I think it changes during different periods of my life. I always get up at 5 AM and worked before the kids got up. I make myself work every day. And I have had periods of blocks where I had to get back into it and then when I was ill, it was easier to do work than most other things. I could lie on my office floor --- I could go back and forth from my desk to the floor and I didn't have to deal with people and it was much easier [than anything else].
BRC: BLUE DIARY contains a subplot about a woman who has cancer and begins treatment just as she happens to fall in love with an old schoolmate who has carried a flame for her all these years. Did your own illness prompt the inclusion of such a story line?
AH: I think it must have. I talked to my oncologist about it and I said I didn't just want to be writing about cancer. And I tried to get rid of [that character] but I couldn't do that --- she kept coming back. In LOCAL GIRLS, the main character had breast cancer. My doctor said well, in the next one you'll find that it's a friend, then it would be the grandmother . . . and I said, in my next book, it IS the grandmother!
BRC: You were one step ahead!
AH: (laughs) Right! Part of the healing process for me was what would I want to read if I was newly diagnosed --- I would want to read a story of possibility and one of those possibilities was to have this woman be a romantic heroine.
BRC: And it balances the Jorie-Ethan story, the couple that got together early and thought they had figured it out and really hadn't and then this other couple that found it out later.
AH: Absolutely! And in the middle of all that, an unlikely thing, love.
BRC: But that's so truthful --- you always fall in love when you least expect it.
AH: That's true.
BRC: What great epic stories have most inspired your tales of impossible, earthshattering love --- aside from WUTHERING HEIGHTS, which you have spoken about before?
AH: I feel more influenced in my own work by dreams than I do by other writers' works in a way. Or by popular culture, movies --- what else is there to write about than love and loss?
BRC: That's interesting that you're a movie fan because your books seem very cinematic to me. But the film of PRACTICAL MAGIC didn't live up to the novel. Were you pleased with the adaptation?
AH: I've been a screenwriter for twenty-five years. Every one of my books have been optioned for movies and I have written a few of those screenplays. There were three writers on PRACTICAL MAGIC and I think it's great to have a movie about women's friendships and there are four great actresses in it and it has a strong following. I don't think that it's the book . . .
BRC: I think those of us who like the book were hoping for it to become a better movie. It wasn't what you expected and I know it's hard . . .
AH: Studios only make twelve movies a year but buy hundreds of scripts so you never know what's going to go through. THE RIVER KING --- a British director I admire is working on it. It depends . . .
BRC: What are you working on now?
AH: I wrote a children's book called AQUAMARINE that came out in the spring about a mermaid and this is a chapter book, an older book, so I have another one coming out in the spring. I'm slowly working on a new novel.
BRC: Do you like going from one project to another or when you're working on a particular thing, do you like to . . .
AH: . . . stick with that project. I can't really work on more than one thing at a time.
BRC: You're so prolific . . .
AH: Thanks! You know the funny thing is that I feel like I work so much less than my friends who have real jobs.
BRC: That can't be true --- you write a book a year, and children's books, and screenplays. That's a hefty workload!
AH: I don't know --- I always quit at three when my kids come home from school so I feel pretty spoiled.
BRC: But writers are always in the midst of their work --- they can't leave it at the office. You worked while you were sick even and while taking care of other people in your family!
AH: Well, thank you. I think it comes down to obsession --- there are good ones and bad ones, like bad love affairs. Or you could end up with fourteen novels!
BRC: I guess that's a good place to stop.
AH: If it's okay, I'm going to put this up on my website, with the copyright, of course, after it's done. I liked the last interview so much that I posted it. You really ask the questions readers want to know!
BRC: We appreciate hearing that. We at Bookreporter.com take enormous pride in our interviews and feel that our conversations with authors give the website much of its personality. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk.
AH: Well, thanks for taking the time away from your daughter. Good luck with her. And thanks for talking . . .
BRC: Thank YOU! And take care!
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PAST INTERVIEW
August 4, 2000
Alice Hoffman spins yet another magical tale in her latest creation, THE RIVER KING. Set in the small New England town of Haddan, the characters who attend the private school and the townsfolk are at the center of this moving story. Bookreporter.com's Jana Siciliano and Dana Schwartz explore the rose scented hollows of Hoffman's Haddan in this interview. Find out what inspired Hoffman's new gem, hear about her intense rose research --- all forgotten after the fact --- the fairy tales she loves, the controversial book she is in the midst of writing, and more. As with her fiction, Hoffman will not disappoint.
BRC: Nature is a strong factor in your new novel THE RIVER KING. The thick scent of roses lingers in the air long after the blooms die, little minnows show up in the pockets of a dead boy's jacket, frogs appear in bed linens long after the flood waters have subsided. Are the people living in this small town completely at the mercy of nature? What led you to create such a strong tie between humans and nature?
AH: I think we are bound to, and by, nature. We may want to deny this connection and try to believe we control the external world, but every time there's a snowstorm or drought, we know our fate is tied to the world around us.
BRC: THE RIVER KING focuses on characters who are the outcasts, the "others", in the fictional New England town called Haddan. Carlin is beautiful, athletic, but untamable. Gus is long-limbed and coltish, but inside his awkward body his mind swirls with creative genius. Betsy is a wild photographer who is oddly stuck in a rather passionless engagement. All are feared and sometimes revered because they are on the fringe of society. Many of your books are centered on people like these who are strikingly different --- what draws you to this type of character again and again?
AH: My theory is that everyone, at one time or another, has been at the fringe of society in some way: an outcast in high school, a stranger in a foreign country, the best at something, the worst at something, the one who's different. Looking at it this way, being an outsider is the one thing we all have in common.
BRC: The book is very complex and multilayered, obviously you put a lot of thought into all the various characters and their histories. What came first --- the love stories, the rose lore, or Haddan --- when you were first sparked to write THE RIVER KING?
AH: Every time I write a novel it begins in a different way. Sometimes with a character, as in SEVENTH HEAVEN, which began with Nora Silk, a woman who arrives in a neighborhood and shakes up the residents' lives. Sometimes with a place, as in TURTLE MOON, where the invented town of Verity came to be all at once, as if a map had been delivered to me in the middle of the night. THE RIVER KING began with the river itself, and with the town of Haddan. Luckily for me, the characters began to populate the town and the school, and with them came their histories, love and roses included.
BRC: What was your inspiration for the Haddan school? Did you ever attend a small private school like that? Why do you think those kind of schools are a hot bed for fiction?
AH: I never attended a private school like Haddan, but I'm always interested in what happens when characters are thrown together in a place from which there is no escape. I often write about islands of one sort or another, and in a way Haddan School is an island. In a situation like that, people are bound to reveal themselves and conflict is bound to rise.
BRC: Too much love or the lack of love is a huge factor in the lives of the Haddan students, faculty, and citizens. Those who love too headily and recklessly are often --- but not always --- the ones who meet the most tragic of ends. Do you find this risk of love occurs more in real life or more often fiction?
AH: I think love is a huge factor in fiction and in real life. Is there a risk? Always. In fiction and in life.
BRC: The characters of Gus, Carlin, and Betsy are all very intricate and intense. Are they based on anyone you know?
AH: All the characters in my books are imagined, but all have a bit of who I am in them --- much like the characters in your dreams are all formed by who you are. After a while, the characters I'm writing begin to feel real to me. That's when I know I'm heading in the right direction.
BRC: Your rose lore and the Haddan School history are deep. It's obvious to your readers that you enjoy spinning and delving into this fictional history. How did you do your research?
AH: I did read quite a bit about roses before writing THE RIVER KING and for a few months was something of an expert on the subject, but that didn't last. Every time I finish a book, I forget everything I learned writing it --- the information just disappears out of my head.
If anything, I think my research centers on Mood, rather than Fact. Before writing THE RIVER KING I reread a good deal of Poe, who is --- there's no other word for it --- awesome. I pay homage to his THE BLACK CAT with a wandering feline of my own in THE RIVER KING. Black, of course, with only one eye, but a very good judge of character all the same.
BRC: Roses are both harbingers of death and a beautiful and prominent prop in THE RIVER KING's past and present. What is it about roses that makes you figure them so prominently in the story?
AH: Roses are important to us all --- in a way the evolution of the rose tells the human story. Certainly, here is one instance where we have been successful in controlling nature --- from the simple came the elaborate, with varieties as different from each other as they are from lilies or peas. The folklore about roses is fascinating; it's a very emotional flower, and often represents the many layers of the psyche, which is probably why it figures so predominately in so many fairy tales.
BRC: I really appreciated the way you wrote Carlin and Sean's relationship. You could have easily made it full blown, but instead you chose to keep it subtle. The passion is there, but it simmers beneath the surface, unlike Betsy and Abel's heated and rose scented nights. Varying in degrees, both relationships really work. How do you determine how much pressure to put on your fictional relationships?
AH: Thank you. It took me a while to figure this out. Originally, in the first draft, Carlin and Sean's relationship was quite different, and then I realized what is most important to Carlin is to take the time to make choices. Maybe that's what is most important to every 15-year-old girl, but in the case of Carlin the mistakes she made in her friendship with Gus are also an opportunity to change the way she deals with the other emotional involvement's in her life. Anyway, the sort of love that will not wait is probably best to pass by.
BRC: The story has many hints of Shakespeare --- the wide range of characters, the vitality of love and death, the forces of nature, the layered plot, the depth --- are you a big Shakespeare fan? What is your favorite work?
AH: The notion that every story about a kingdom is also a story about a king, as well as his wife, his children, his friends, his countrymen, is perhaps what I find most moving, particularly in HAMLET. The ultimate outsider --- who hasn't felt a kinship with Hamlet and his terrors? And I admit that reading ROMEO AND JULIET changed my life and the way I looked at love, which is probably true for every teenage girl who reads the play.
BRC: What does the title THE RIVER KING symbolize? Did you have alternate titles, or was this always the one you had in mind?
AH: I think the title will probably symbolize different things for different people, depending on their reading of the book. Who is the River King? became something of a joke among my initial readers because people had such different interpretations. Some thought the River King was Gus, others thought Abe, or Abe's grandfather, or the unusual species of trout which swim in the Haddan. It's probably best if I keep my own thoughts about this to myself, because I think it's a conclusion every reader has to come to on his own. I will say, for me, it's none of the above.
BRC: I read in an article recently that you adored fairy tales as a child. What are some of your favorite stories? Do you prefer Grimm or Andersen --- or do you have a more esoteric favorite?
AH: Oh, I much prefer Grimm. I also grew up with Russian fairy tales, from my Russian grandmother, and have always had a particular fondness for Baba Yaga.
BRC: In that same piece you explained how your books can be viewed as fairy tales for adults. But even with the natural and, at times, supernatural aspects of THE RIVER KING; it's based more in reality than fantasy. How do you balance these opposite forces in your writing? How do you determine how much fantasy to include in a story, or does it just happen naturally?
AH: I never plot out my novels in terms of the tone of the book. Hopefully, once a story is begun it reveals itself. But frankly, I don't think I make much of a distinction between the "real" and the "fantastic." They both seem to be threads in the same cloth as far as I'm concerned.
BRC: Would you ever consider writing a collection of contemporary fairy tales?
AH: How did you know? I am writing a collection of modern fairy tales at the moment! I'm also working on a novel based on a classic fairy tale --- a very controversial one. And in the spring Scholastic will publish AQUAMARINE, a little novel of mine about a teenage mermaid at a beach club. Aquamarine, by the way, is definitely not an Andersen mermaid.
BRC: Do you look to New England writers when conjuring up the Northeastern magical experiences in your books? If so, who? And what draws you back to Massachusetts again and again?
AH: Hawthorne has given us a tradition that some people refer to as Yankee Magic Realism, and I do think there is a certain quality to the landscape that definitely leads into the dark woods. Maybe it's how close we are to history here that makes Massachusetts such an interesting place to write about, or the sense that this was the initial American frontier, or the literary legacy of so many great Massachusetts writers. Maybe it's just those long, white winters which cause the imagination to wander into that territory.
Although it seems, even to myself, to be more, I've only written about Massachusetts in five books --- ILLUMINATION NIGHT, AT RISK, PRACTICAL MAGIC, HERE ON EARTH, and THE RIVER KING. Many of my books are set in New York, where I grew up (SEVENTH HEAVEN, SECOND NATURE, ANGEL LANDING, THE DROWNING SEASON, PROPERTY OF and LOCAL GIRLS) or in California, where I went to school (WHITE HORSES, FORTUNE'S DAUGHTER) or in Florida, simple because I love the landscape (TURTLE MOON).
BRC: Your book PRACTICAL MAGIC was made into a movie a few years back. Do you see THE RIVER KING as a potential film?
AH: I never see a novel as a film while I'm writing it. Mostly because novels and film are so different, and I'm such an internal novelist. I've been a screenwriter myself for twenty years, so I do think of a film at some point, and I do think THE RIVER KING would make a good film. But, of course, different from the book. All that information could never fit into an hour and twenty minutes. Yikes! That was the reason I couldn't write the screenplay for PRACTICAL MAGIC. I wouldn't have had the heart to chop up that book, and I suppose someone had to do it to fit it onto the screen.
BRC: Has being a mother affected the way you write, throughout your career? And if so, how?
AH: I'm much faster now. When you only have a certain amount of time to write, after a while you learn to use your time well or you stop writing. Still, as every mother knows, it's a difficult balance, and most of us wind up feeling guilty no matter what we do. (I should be working more, I should be with the children more. No win. No way.) Ironically, now that my children are older and gone quite a bit, I find it harder to work when they're not around. Too much free time!
BRC: Have you begun working on your next book? If so, can you tell us a little about it?
AH: My next book is the novel I mentioned, based on a fairy tale, but far away from the original. I can't really tell you about it, because the story is still revealing itself to me. And, in the process, so much changes.
BRC: What are you reading this summer?
AH: This summer I'm reading Lance Armstrong's incredibly courageous and moving book IT'S NOT ABOUT THE BIKE, the story of his battle with cancer and his personal triumph in sport and life. I'm also reading Nicholas Shakespeare's biography of Bruce Chatwin, whose ON THE BLACK HILL is one of my favorite novels; along with a first novel, BY THE SEA, by Galaxy Craze, a very original, lovely book. I'm waiting for the next Anne Tyler novel and wish it was out this summer!
BRC: What one sentence of advice would you impart to aspiring writers?
AH: No one knows how to write a novel until it's been written.
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