How scary do you think it would be if you were the highly respected book editor of Glamour and then you wrote your debut? Not so terrifying after it becomes a smash! Elisabeth Egan talks about her acclaimed debut: A WINDOW OPENS, her bronze Addidas sneakers, Cheez-Its, and so much more!

 Elisabeth Egan is the books editor at Glamour. Her essays and book reviews have appeared in Self, Glamour, O, People, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Huffington Post, The New York Times Book Review, LA Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times; and Newark Star-Ledger. And like me, she's a Jersey girl. and loves Cheez-Its. I'm thrilled to have her here to talk about her debut, A WINDOW OPENS. Thank you so much, Elisabeth!


I have to ask you the “why now” question that I always ask authors because I always think that something is prodding at them, or haunting them, so they have to write a particular book at a particular time. Was there anything like that for you?

I was about to turn forty and writing a book was at the top of the list of things I’d always wanted to do but never had the guts to try. Also, like many writers, I wrote the book I wanted to read. I kept coming back to the idea of the middle-aged coming of age—the possibility of reinvention long after your life is supposedly “set.” My life never feels that way, which is both liberating and maddening, so I wanted to explore the world of another woman who felt that way, too.

I ALSO have to ask because you’re the Books Editor at Glamour—how scary was it to write your own novel? 

Scary is an understatement. Other words that come to mind: humbling, humiliating, embarrassing, exasperating. It’s so much easier to read other peoples’ books than it is to write one of your own! But I think the experience of writing one made me a more careful reader. This is a weird parallel, but when I was a babysitter, I remember looking at frazzled, exhausted parents and thinking: why is this so hard for them? How hard is it to keep decent junk food in the house, or to teach your kid not to draw on the walls? Then I had kids of my own and I got it: loving and launching a human being requires gumption, courage, a sense of humor, an endless reservoir of patience. It’s a leap of faith, just like writing a novel. Now when I pick up a new book, I know I’m holding someone’s dream in my hands. I approach with kindness and respect (and also, hopefully, with Cheez-Its).

So much of this funny, smart book is about trying to do it all, especially in a city as complex as New York City (where I was once actually stopped by someone because I “was wearing last year’s boots.”) What I especially loved was how Alice’s plans always go into reverse, and what she thinks is going to happen, doesn’t—but sometimes, something better does. Do you try to operate that way, as well, taking things easy and seeing where they go, or do you feel a need to have at least some control? (I’m totally obsessive compulsive and I over-organize everything.)

I’m the worst kind of person: I’m a control freak, but I never quite manage to get things under control. Does that make sense? Like Alice, I have big dreams and grand plans…and I tend to botch the very things I’m most excited about. I’ve ruined more than one surprise party by showing up a week early. However, I definitely subscribe to the theory of “When a door closes, a window opens.” (Hence, the title of my book.)

Scroll, the hip new bookstore that is going to change “the future of reading” was hilariously depicted, as was Alice’s job at the magazine. Why do you think business people sometimes get things so weirdly off?

This is a good question! I think the world needs less of thinking like a Business Person and more thinking like a Person. No need to hide behind weird lingo; just talk to me in a language I understand.

When you discover what it is you want, do you think you can have it—even if it is a four-part answer?

I believe if you want something badly enough, it’s possible that you might be able to make it happen. There’s no guarantee, of course, but the experience of writing A Window Opens  taught me a little bit about breaking a big goal into small parts. I felt overwhelmed by the idea of writing 80,000 words, so I focused on writing 500 words. I couldn’t imagine telling a big, important story, so I started thinking in terms of small moments that were important to me. I didn’t have eight hours a day to write, but I did have 45 minutes while I was commuting to work. I boarded the train, laptop in hand, and plowed ahead from there.

What kind of writer are you? Did you know how Alice’s story was going to end up when you started? Do you map things out or just beg the Muse to help you? And what surprised you in the writing of this novel?  Did you have a moment when what you thought you were writing about began to turn into something else? What did you learn about yourself?

I’m a disciplined writer in the sense that I know how long I have to work every day, and I stick with that plan as if I’m a runner training for a marathon. I won’t go out for coffee, I won’t return my mom’s phone call, and I won’t fold the mountain of laundry on the dining room table even if that task is infinitely more appealing than stringing together uninspired words. So I’m disciplined about my schedule, but not about the story I’m writing. I don’t do an outline or a storyboard. I knew where Alice would start and where she’d end up, but how she’d get there was murky at the start. I like to be able to follow a tangent—sometimes it’s a gigantic waste of time, but otherwise, you end up somewhere unexpected and fun. What surprised me: that I stuck with it (I’m the doyenne of the unfinished knitting project). What I learned about myself: you can teach an old dog new tricks.


What’s obsessing you now and why?

My new bronze Addidas sneakers. I feel like I’m really going places when I wear them.

What question didn’t I ask that I should have?

You forgot to ask about my cats, Kevin and Arthur. They’re a handsome duo, and the best writing partners I know. Pictures provided upon request.

And now, reason 9 million why I love Algonquin Books and Mary Laura Philpott at the amazing Parnassus Books

Five Reasons to Read & Recommend Caroline Leavitt's Cruel Beautiful World

by Mary Laura Philpott, Parnassus Books

That Smokin' Hot Cover

The front of this book pretty much says, “Welcome to the time machine. Splash on a little Love's Baby Soft and step inside.” Detail after sensory detail, Leavitt holds readers in thrall to her story and keeps us immersed in the era of peace, love, and simmering danger.

A Family Both Recognizable and Unique

The relationship between sixteen-year-old Lucy and her older sister, Charlotte, epitomizes the big sibling–little sibling dynamic: deep love mixed with jealousies and misunderstandings. The family structure here is a little unusual—the girls are parented by a much older woman named Iris, and there's a backstory as to why, of course—but the ties that bind are universally relatable.

Get Out of Unwanted Weekend Plans!

Cancel brunch. You're not going anywhere until you find out where Lucy went and what happens next. The plot unfolds at a pace that hooks you from the first page to the last.

The Writing—Oh, the Writing

The story itself is entertaining enough—who doesn't love a disappearance drama?—but if you're a reader who writes (or just one who digs good prose), you'll appreciate this book on multiple levels. Don't be surprised if whole sentences stick in your brain.

It's a Crowd Pleaser

I read it. My husband read it. My younger co-workers read it. My older colleagues read it. Everyone loved it. Keep Cruel Beautiful World in mind as a go-to when a reader comes in and asks, “What's something good I don't know about yet?” Hand this over and rock their world.

Cruel Beautiful World by Caroline Leavitt * October 2016 * 978-1-61620-363-4

What if you discovered that your parents were the true-life love triangle in Graham Greene's The Quiet American? Danielle Flood did, and turned it into THE UNQUIET DAUGHTER

Danielle Flood  is an extraordinary journalist who has written for the New York Times, New York magazine, the Associated Press, the Daily News and so many other outlets. In her memoir, The Unquiet Daughter, she turns her journalistic skills to finding the truth about her past. I'm honored to host her here. Thank you so much, Danielle.

Danielle Flood, --circa 2012 -- rests in Aix-en-Provence, France, not so far from the area where her mother’s family came from, documented for some 250 years from about 1700 to the mid-twentieth century as the owners of a huge old limestone farmhouse – called in the South of France a mas – and surrounded by grape fields in St. Paulet de Caisson; it’s called Mas de la Prade. Photo by Jim Morin.

The Unquiet Daughter has been called a new version of Graham Greene’s The Quiet American. Can you talk about this please?

It has been a delight after working alone for some eleven years on a story, that so affected my life, to have a Graham Greene expert of several decades read it and come along and stand by me, along with Kurt Andersen, the novelist and host of NPR’s Studio 360. The expert is Michael Shelden, a Pulitzer finalist and author of a masterful Graham Greene biography and several others. Of The Unquiet Daughter, he has written:

"Passionate and unflinchingly honest, this is a fascinating memoir that explores the tangled connections between Graham Greene’s fictional version of wartime Indochina, and the real people there whose actions have haunted the author for most of her life. Danielle Flood is the child of an affair so much like the one described in the love triangle of Greene’s novel, The Quiet American, that she is perfectly right to make her startling claim, ‘I am a sequel he never wrote.’”

Frankly, when I first read his comment, I danced around the room with relief.

So you ask: is The Unquiet Daughter a new version of The Quiet American? It would be more accurate to say that The Unquiet Daughter includes the original version – i.e. the original story – upon which The Quiet American was based and its sequel: me. I am, and what happened to me, the child from the original love triangle, the sequel that Graham Greene never wrote; but he knew about me.

My parents were in Saigon before Greene got there. He arrived in early 1951. My stepfather, Jim Flood, arrived about a week before Greene; things happened; there was a love triangle; Greene heard about it and the marriage. For him to have known about that, the marriage, he had to have followed the story – some of the time from abroad – for about 18 months because for a U.S. Foreign Service Officer to marry a foreign national when posted overseas, he had to get permission and that took a while, and in this case, a long long while. That was such an interesting nugget. Of course there’s much more to the story. 

What event made you search for your father?

The Unquiet Daughter is a memoir but written also as a mystery story. The answer to your question would be a spoiler. But I can say it was something that made me more angry than I had ever been in my life; it made me understand how people could do murder, though I could never do that; I understand it to my core.

What made you need to write about it?

First, I felt I needed to respond to Graham Greene’s authorized biographer, Norman Sherry, who described my parents’ love triangle in The Life of Graham Greene Vol. II (of three), but then I thought about it for a while.

Then, I am an obstinate sort, I suppose. The moment that I realized it was possible that I might never be able to get the information I needed to write it, I knew I had to go get it. That moment came in the wake of 9/11. I had three uncles, part French and part Vietnamese, living in France and they had information and historic photos from French Indochina where they were born and grew up with my mother that I needed.

I really think you had to remember the fear some of us had in the first few weeks after 9/11. Some of us realized that it was possible we might never be able to travel freely to Europe again. I expressed this to my daughter and she said, “Mommy, Go.” And I did. I remember I was sleeping during that trip in Marseille airport for a bit, half an hour or more, waiting for a plane when I woke up and said, “Osama Bin Laden.” My saying his name woke me up. And the security people were really hyped – they took away my lavender soap, saying a bomb could be made with it. So that was the beginning of the massive work involved in investigating why my mother didn’t want me to know what I found out.

The pain involved in realizing – which took years – that I was/am illegitimate, born out of wedlock, caused me to prevail, persist in the getting the words down; it took years; also, I wanted to share with others – others who were born out of wedlock and others who take their mothers and fathers for granted – what happened to me so that others under similar or related circumstances would not feel so alone. The subject needs to be talked about. The number of single mothers has been rising significantly for the last fifty years. In The Unquiet Daughter I say the following, at a certain time in my life, which was a large period of years -- decades -- when I had no father:

“I know it shouldn’t matter that I have no father in my life, but it does: To have someone stand up to the world and say: she’s mine, I love her, someday she’s going to do something that matters and I care about it. The biggest luxury would be to have a father – and a mother – who says: I care about her even if she doesn’t make a big mark in the world; I just want her to be happy."

Imperial Citadel, Hue, Annam, French Indochina, circa 1951. – The author’s stepfather, Jim Flood, right, was compared to The Quiet American character
by Graham Greene’s authorized biographer. Another Greene expert, Michael Shelden, says Flood, and the author’s mother, Suzy Jullien, and her lover were in a triangle “so much like the one described in the love triangle of Greene’s novel that she is perfectly right to make her startling claim, ‘I am a sequel he never wrote.'" Here, Flood is with his boss, U.S. Legation attaché Leslie Snowden Brady, center, and Tran Van Tuyen, at the time he was secretary of state for information in Emperor Bao Dai’s cabinet. From the collection of Danielle Flood.

You’ve been a staff writer for various newspapers, and I’m curious how your journalistic skills helped you in your quest to write this book and to find answers?

Journalists are taught techniques of the interview. There is an interviewing device, which is to ask the same question twice, even thrice, to see if the interviewee answers it the same way, or not, possibly indicating that the interviewee is lying. I think insurance people, lawyers and the police also use it when asking someone to retell a story. When I used this on my mother one time, she answered the same question with two different responses. I knew she wasn’t telling me the truth that time due to that device. It made me furious.

There is a great deal of information that is available in the public record. Journalists know this. I wish non-journalists were more aware of that fact. I guess we are trained from the outset as journalists to befriend librarians. They are researchers’ or writers’ or investigators’ best friends. Being familiar with public records helps, and some family records are similar in foreign countries, though some give more or less details than others. I had to do a lot of international reportage. I was grateful when email existed in order to have documentation of some records, such as the curator of the French archives stating that not only did the French authorities not have the details or documents surrounding the double-car bombing that happened in Saigon on January 9, 1952, but she stated, she didn’t know where they are if they still exist.

I was taught by my mentor at a young age 19, 20, that you know when a story hangs together. And it’s true. And you know when there is a hole or there are holes in it. It’s instinctual some of the time and some of the time you figure things out because of logic.

I’m grateful that I had had a lot of experience interviewing people by the time I slammed straight into this story. Because no matter how emotional you feel about the subject matter, as a journalist you have to produce, so there’s still that bothersome bird on your shoulder saying: Did you get everything? What’s your lead? What’s your ending? What’s the feeling you want to convey in the beginning? What’s the feeling at the end? Does this make sense? What’s missing? What colors are there in the story? Smells? You have those things bothering you until you get everything you need. I can’t sleep until I have as much as I can get for a story. Finally, you get that quiet, digested feeling so you can write.

To be accurate, though, I should mention that I was trained to be eyes and ears in the walls; as a journalist I was trained to stay out of any story I was covering unless it was absolutely necessary for me to be in it to tell it. I am not alone in such training. Many other journalists have been trained this way. So it took a long time and it was very difficult for me to write this story. And I think I edited or proofread it around 25 times over eleven of the last 15 years. 

What surprised you while you were writing this book?

There were lots of surprises, details that all three parents withheld from me, though some of them were the result of an investigative journalist having been exhaustive; I think it’s normal for people to edit their lives for their children or families. I was especially surprised to learn that my mother was a mistress, and before that a sergeant chief grade in the French army, though delegating work seems to have been second nature to her anyway. I was surprised to find how much violence played out in Saigon after World War II and before the French lost Indochina at the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. I grew up a great deal of time in America, in New York, so I had the perception that Vietnam was full of violence during the American Vietnam war, but not before that, during the French war for Indochina. But there was a great deal of violence between 1947 when my mother got to Saigon as a young sergeant and 1953 when she left; there was a great deal of terrorism; a shopping trip on the rue Catinat could end your life.

Did it change how you thought about your past?

Yes, Who I was and who my parents were became more clear and more complicated and more interesting, with many more shades of gray.

Do you see things differently?

Yes. They are not as nebulous anymore. I am a quarter Scottish and a quarter English, one-eighth Vietnamese and three-eighths French. In fact, it was brought to my attention that my great grandfather owned and died in a castle in Scotland. I'm going to visit it. Good-looking castle, too. It's called Crossbasket Castle, in Lanarkshire. I'm not blue-blooded; they were just very wealthy, from their textile business.

What's obsessing you now and why?

I'm writing an essay in my head that has become ripe to put on paper. it starts writing itself early in the morning while I'm sleeping and so I wake up with the words frothing and so I need to write them down on paper by the bed. I'm worried about getting what I have to say just right; my stepfather, Jim Flood, used to tell me to fight to be precise and it is a struggle sometimes but it's also beautiful when you win; you feel good about it; you know that. You must know that.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?

How did this story affect my life?  It's thought-provoking to say someone comes of age, or finds himself or herself as the result of a quest because it is as if he or she is being described as someone who holds still, when we are constantly changing, every day, every second. So I changed when I learned each new bit of information about my heritage and who I was, which includes my reaction to my heritage. And I'm still changing. I know because I should have written the essay I mentioned a long time ago, but it wasn't ready and so if I could change, or grow a little more for a few days, it will all come out just fine, I hope.

French Indochina, circa 1939-the children of Aymond Jullien, the author’s grandfather, who left France and went to Asia in 1896 and married the tutor, Marie Jeanne Jarno, who was half French and half Vietnamese. Marie Jeanne usually dressed her children in matching clothes and periodically had them photographed in a photo studio in Hanoi. The author’s mother, Suzanne, is the second from the right. From the collection of Danielle Flood.  

French Indochina, Christmas, 1952 – The author, Danielle Flood, practicing walking at the first Christmas Party the American Embassy celebrated in Saigon; it was elevated from a Legation during the summer, 1952. Flood’s mother, Suzy Flood, is to the right; her friend, the daughter of a career undercover CIA officer at the embassy, is to the left. From the collection of Danielle Flood.

What if you discovered that your parents were the true-life love triangle in Graham Greene's The Quiet American? Danielle Flood did, and turned it into THE UNQUIET DAUGHTER

Danielle Flood  is an extraordinary journalist who has written for the New York Times, New York magazine, the Associated Press, the Daily News and so many other outlets. In her memoir, The Unquiet Daughter, she turns her journalistic skills to finding the truth about her past. I'm honored to host her here. Thank you so much, Danielle.

Danielle Flood, --circa 2012 -- rests in Aix-en-Provence, France, not so far from the area where her mother’s family came from, documented for some 250 years from about 1700 to the mid-twentieth century as the owners of a huge old limestone farmhouse – called in the South of France a mas – and surrounded by grape fields in St. Paulet de Caisson; it’s called Mas de la Prade. Photo by Jim Morin.

The Unquiet Daughter has been called a new version of Graham Greene’s The Quiet American. Can you talk about this please?

It has been a delight after working alone for some eleven years on a story, that so affected my life, to have a Graham Greene expert of several decades read it and come along and stand by me, along with Kurt Andersen, the novelist and host of NPR’s Studio 360. The expert is Michael Shelden, a Pulitzer finalist and author of a masterful Graham Greene biography and several others. Of The Unquiet Daughter, he has written:

"Passionate and unflinchingly honest, this is a fascinating memoir that explores the tangled connections between Graham Greene’s fictional version of wartime Indochina, and the real people there whose actions have haunted the author for most of her life. Danielle Flood is the child of an affair so much like the one described in the love triangle of Greene’s novel, The Quiet American, that she is perfectly right to make her startling claim, ‘I am a sequel he never wrote.’”

Frankly, when I first read his comment, I danced around the room with relief.

So you ask: is The Unquiet Daughter a new version of The Quiet American? It would be more accurate to say that The Unquiet Daughter includes the original version – i.e. the original story – upon which The Quiet American was based and its sequel: me. I am, and what happened to me, the child from the original love triangle, the sequel that Graham Greene never wrote; but he knew about me.

My parents were in Saigon before Greene got there. He arrived in early 1951. My stepfather, Jim Flood, arrived about a week before Greene; things happened; there was a love triangle; Greene heard about it and the marriage. For him to have known about that, the marriage, he had to have followed the story – some of the time from abroad – for about 18 months because for a U.S. Foreign Service Officer to marry a foreign national when posted overseas, he had to get permission and that took a while, and in this case, a long long while. That was such an interesting nugget. Of course there’s much more to the story. 

What event made you search for your father?

The Unquiet Daughter is a memoir but written also as a mystery story. The answer to your question would be a spoiler. But I can say it was something that made me more angry than I had ever been in my life; it made me understand how people could do murder, though I could never do that; I understand it to my core.

What made you need to write about it?

First, I felt I needed to respond to Graham Greene’s authorized biographer, Norman Sherry, who described my parents’ love triangle in The Life of Graham Greene Vol. II (of three), but then I thought about it for a while.

Then, I am an obstinate sort, I suppose. The moment that I realized it was possible that I might never be able to get the information I needed to write it, I knew I had to go get it. That moment came in the wake of 9/11. I had three uncles, part French and part Vietnamese, living in France and they had information and historic photos from French Indochina where they were born and grew up with my mother that I needed.

I really think you had to remember the fear some of us had in the first few weeks after 9/11. Some of us realized that it was possible we might never be able to travel freely to Europe again. I expressed this to my daughter and she said, “Mommy, Go.” And I did. I remember I was sleeping during that trip in Marseille airport for a bit, half an hour or more, waiting for a plane when I woke up and said, “Osama Bin Laden.” My saying his name woke me up. And the security people were really hyped – they took away my lavender soap, saying a bomb could be made with it. So that was the beginning of the massive work involved in investigating why my mother didn’t want me to know what I found out.

The pain involved in realizing – which took years – that I was/am illegitimate, born out of wedlock, caused me to prevail, persist in the getting the words down; it took years; also, I wanted to share with others – others who were born out of wedlock and others who take their mothers and fathers for granted – what happened to me so that others under similar or related circumstances would not feel so alone. The subject needs to be talked about. The number of single mothers has been rising significantly for the last fifty years. In The Unquiet Daughter I say the following, at a certain time in my life, which was a large period of years -- decades -- when I had no father:

“I know it shouldn’t matter that I have no father in my life, but it does: To have someone stand up to the world and say: she’s mine, I love her, someday she’s going to do something that matters and I care about it. The biggest luxury would be to have a father – and a mother – who says: I care about her even if she doesn’t make a big mark in the world; I just want her to be happy."

Imperial Citadel, Hue, Annam, French Indochina, circa 1951. – The author’s stepfather, Jim Flood, right, was compared to The Quiet American character
by Graham Greene’s authorized biographer. Another Greene expert, Michael Shelden, says Flood, and the author’s mother, Suzy Jullien, and her lover were in a triangle “so much like the one described in the love triangle of Greene’s novel that she is perfectly right to make her startling claim, ‘I am a sequel he never wrote.'" Here, Flood is with his boss, U.S. Legation attaché Leslie Snowden Brady, center, and Tran Van Tuyen, at the time he was secretary of state for information in Emperor Bao Dai’s cabinet. From the collection of Danielle Flood.

You’ve been a staff writer for various newspapers, and I’m curious how your journalistic skills helped you in your quest to write this book and to find answers?

Journalists are taught techniques of the interview. There is an interviewing device, which is to ask the same question twice, even thrice, to see if the interviewee answers it the same way, or not, possibly indicating that the interviewee is lying. I think insurance people, lawyers and the police also use it when asking someone to retell a story. When I used this on my mother one time, she answered the same question with two different responses. I knew she wasn’t telling me the truth that time due to that device. It made me furious.

There is a great deal of information that is available in the public record. Journalists know this. I wish non-journalists were more aware of that fact. I guess we are trained from the outset as journalists to befriend librarians. They are researchers’ or writers’ or investigators’ best friends. Being familiar with public records helps, and some family records are similar in foreign countries, though some give more or less details than others. I had to do a lot of international reportage. I was grateful when email existed in order to have documentation of some records, such as the curator of the French archives stating that not only did the French authorities not have the details or documents surrounding the double-car bombing that happened in Saigon on January 9, 1952, but she stated, she didn’t know where they are if they still exist.

I was taught by my mentor at a young age 19, 20, that you know when a story hangs together. And it’s true. And you know when there is a hole or there are holes in it. It’s instinctual some of the time and some of the time you figure things out because of logic.

I’m grateful that I had had a lot of experience interviewing people by the time I slammed straight into this story. Because no matter how emotional you feel about the subject matter, as a journalist you have to produce, so there’s still that bothersome bird on your shoulder saying: Did you get everything? What’s your lead? What’s your ending? What’s the feeling you want to convey in the beginning? What’s the feeling at the end? Does this make sense? What’s missing? What colors are there in the story? Smells? You have those things bothering you until you get everything you need. I can’t sleep until I have as much as I can get for a story. Finally, you get that quiet, digested feeling so you can write.

To be accurate, though, I should mention that I was trained to be eyes and ears in the walls; as a journalist I was trained to stay out of any story I was covering unless it was absolutely necessary for me to be in it to tell it. I am not alone in such training. Many other journalists have been trained this way. So it took a long time and it was very difficult for me to write this story. And I think I edited or proofread it around 25 times over eleven of the last 15 years. 

What surprised you while you were writing this book?

There were lots of surprises, details that all three parents withheld from me, though some of them were the result of an investigative journalist having been exhaustive; I think it’s normal for people to edit their lives for their children or families. I was especially surprised to learn that my mother was a mistress, and before that a sergeant chief grade in the French army, though delegating work seems to have been second nature to her anyway. I was surprised to find how much violence played out in Saigon after World War II and before the French lost Indochina at the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. I grew up a great deal of time in America, in New York, so I had the perception that Vietnam was full of violence during the American Vietnam war, but not before that, during the French war for Indochina. But there was a great deal of violence between 1947 when my mother got to Saigon as a young sergeant and 1953 when she left; there was a great deal of terrorism; a shopping trip on the rue Catinat could end your life.

Did it change how you thought about your past?

Yes, Who I was and who my parents were became more clear and more complicated and more interesting, with many more shades of gray.

Do you see things differently?

Yes. They are not as nebulous anymore. I am not maybe a half British person and part Vietnamese and French. I am half Scottish and half English, one-eighth Vietnamese and three-eighths French. In fact, it was brought to my attention that my great grandfather owned and died in a castle in Scotland. I'm going to visit it. Good-looking castle, too. It's called Crossbasket Castle, in Lanarkshire. I'm not blue-blooded; they were just very wealthy, from their textile business.

What's obsessing you now and why?

I'm writing an essay in my head that has become ripe to put on paper. it starts writing itself early in the morning while I'm sleeping and so I wake up with the words frothing and so I need to write them down on paper by the bed. I'm worried about getting what I have to say just right; my stepfather, Jim Flood, used to tell me to fight to be precise and it is a struggle sometimes but it's also beautiful when you win; you feel good about it; you know that. You must know that.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?

How did this story affect my life?  It's thought-provoking to say someone comes of age, or finds himself or herself as the result of a quest because it is as if he or she is being described as someone who holds still, when we are constantly changing, every day, every second. So I changed when I learned each new bit of information about my heritage and who I was, which includes my reaction to my heritage. And I'm still changing. I know because I should have written the essay I mentioned a long time ago, but it wasn't ready and so if I could change, or grow a little more for a few days, it will all come out just fine, I hope.

French Indochina, circa 1939-the children of Aymond Jullien, the author’s grandfather, who left France and went to Asia in 1896 and married the tutor, Marie Jeanne Jarno, who was half French and half Vietnamese. Marie Jeanne usually dressed her children in matching clothes and periodically had them photographed in a photo studio in Hanoi. The author’s mother, Suzanne, is the second from the right. From the collection of Danielle Flood.  

French Indochina, Christmas, 1952 – The author, Danielle Flood, practicing walking at the first Christmas Party the American Embassy celebrated in Saigon; it was elevated from a Legation during the summer, 1952. Flood’s mother, Suzy Flood, is to the right; her friend, the daughter of a career undercover CIA officer at the embassy, is to the left. From the collection of Danielle Flood.

Eleanor Brown talks about success after THE WEIRD SISTERS, writing THE LIGHT OF PARIS, her wonderful big laugh, and so much more

You can't help falling in love with Eleanor Brown--both her AND her writing. I don't remember how we first met, but I remember the moments, and they always make me smile. Going out to dinner with a bunch of other writers and celebrating that we both made the New York Times Bestseller List--she for her amazing novel, The Weird Sisters.  Being at the Pulpwood Queen's Girlfriend Weekend together and she had the best, best, best costumes of all of us (We were supposed to dress like clowns for a circus theme.) And I saw Ron Charles of the Washington Post interview her at the fabulous Gaithersburg Book Festival. We email. We bond. I adore her. She's smart, funny, full of heart, and her new novel THE LIGHT OF PARIS is wonderful. And I'm so happy to have her here. Eleanor! Come to our house and visit!

The Weird Sisters was an incredible sensation, shooting you justifiably into fame. Did this help or hinder writing your second novel and why?
It hindered it terribly, but that was 100% my problem. I know it sounds like whining from the penthouse, but following up a success is stressful in its own right.

I was also very determined not just to put out another book – I wanted to put out the right book. A good book. So I’m glad I waited until I had that. And whatever happens now is out of my control, so I can just enjoy people connecting with Margie and Madeleine, which is really the main reason I write – so we’ll all feel less lonely, me included.

What is it about Paris for you?
Ironically, I am not a big fan of Paris. (I KNOW! I’m just not a big city person.) But that actually makes me even more interested in it – what the hell is it about Paris?
In the story, Paris is a symbol more than anything, of the life we want to live. Because when we think of Paris, we think of wearing elegantly tied scarves and drinking coffee in cafés and wandering slowly across the bridges of the Seine and writing fantastic poetry and making beautiful art. We think of our best selves, of the people we would be if we didn’t have to worry about paying bills or doing the dishes.

And I think that’s a good thing to consider – the person you would be if you were in Paris, and then ask yourself how you can get closer to that while still managing to pay your mortgage and go to the gym.

I love that your books are always so full of sparkling humor—but how do you do it? Are you naturally funny? Do you laugh out loud?
That is a sweet thing to say! With The Weird Sisters, I think I was startled to find out people thought it was funny, but I guess that’s just my natural voice. With The Light of Paris, I did make a conscious effort to be funny, partially because poor Madeleine is having such a tough time of it I didn’t want readers to get depressed!

But I do love to laugh, and I’m fortunate to have a sweetie who makes me laugh like no one else. I’ve also been told I have a great laugh, so you all should come to one of my tour events and tell me a really funny joke so you can hear it.

How the past impacts the present—and the future—is a big theme in your novel.  Do you think we can ever escape who we came from? (Especially in the light of new scientific research that shows that  emotions and experiences can be passed down in our DNA?)
Ugh, that is such a huge question (clearly, I just spent 300 pages in The Light of Paris trying to answer it. And in The Weird Sisters, come to think of it).

I do think we always carry our histories with us, and we can’t escape them. But I do think we can make conscious choices about how we want those things to affect us. We had a few really hard years and I found myself becoming sadder and more negative, so I’ve made a really active effort to reclaim my natural sunniness – recording blessings in my journal, doing things that make me happy, finding new friends.

The past is the past, but we get to decide our own future.

What’s obsessing you now and why?
Justin Trudeau. I mean.

What question didn’t I ask that I should have?
 
Where I’m going to be touring! I really love being on the road and meeting readers, so I hope folks take a look at www.eleanor-brown.com/events and come see me if I’ll be near you (and if I won’t be, ask your local bookstore or library to invite me for the paperback release!).

I also keep folks posted at www.facebook.com/eleanorbrownwriter and post happy-making things there, so you can come say hi.