Lisa K. Richter is the author of the new memoir Fly, My Darling. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Santa Monica Review. She lives in Laguna Beach, California.
Q: What inspired you to write this memoir?
A: Sometimes, perhaps only once in a lifetime, there comes along an event so consuming, so psychically altering, that it demands an investigation, an unraveling at the deepest level, to be given a name, to be written out, and through words, to understand, to uncover its truth.
For me, it was the entrance into my life of a remarkable woman. Lynda Roth dropped into my being, as my jazz instructor, when I was looking for a freer approach to music. I was 44 and married at the time with children; our unexpected and profound love changed everything about me and my life situation. Then a few years later she was gone from the world.
Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: Pinned to the cork wall in my office is a card from Lynda. A single wish she wrote me just weeks before she died. It watched me for years before I realized it was the place to begin. Three simple powerful words: Fly, my darling. A wish, an endearing command, a theme. Flying, freedom, improvisation in jazz, in life. Letting go.
Q: The Kirkus Review of the book called it a “moving tribute to an unconventional person and the love she shared with the author.” What do you think of that description?
A: The description is true to the heart of the story. Lynda was certainly unconventional. She was spiritual, outspoken, and brutally honest—a brilliant and beloved musician. She shared her soul, her love, her life with me.
But the book is more than a loving tribute—it is also a personal journey of intense reflection and questioning, of family struggle, of newfound desire, of hope, resilience, and gut-wrenching grief. It is, as well, a musical tribute—a narrative composed of brief lyrical segments and shaped as a three-part musical composition.
Q: What impact did it have on you to write the book, and what do you hope readers take away from it?
A: Writing the book, revisiting those years, assembling all its parts from journal entries, emails, and taped conversations was, at times, a struggle. I had published poems and essays on the joy, eroticism, and grief of those years. But there was a wider story, a larger truth to be quarried.
I continued compiling scenes: childhood reflections, philosophical insights, riffs on mathematical and musical concepts, important moments from my larger world.
There followed the process of distilling each scene down to its essence. Paragraphs were reduced, sometimes to a single phrase, like the one asked of me early on, then echoed throughout the story: What is it you want, what?
Lynda had taught not to force a resolution. To listen. To allow each sound to speak, each riff to find its desired groove. I revisited the narratives of favorite authors to determine what made them work, to uncover the threads that held their stories together.
I worked out a rough chronological throughline with past events woven in—a story structure with the bones of a beginning (the searching and finding), a middle (the losing), and an end (the finding again). Segments were shuffled. And shuffled. Rhythms of anticipation, tension, and release began to flow. The process reinforced my belief that all writing is essentially musical when it is good.
I hope readers find comfort in the story’s honesty. That they trust to ask themselves the questions I did and realize that love is always worth its tribulations. It is never too late to begin anew.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am taking a close, revisionary look at the 28 essays in my themed online series, Searching for the Talisman (talismanofhappiness.com), with the intent of publishing them as a book. The essays are a meditation on family, food, the senses, and the Italian language.
Inspired by the 1929 classic Il Talismano della Felicità, inherited from my grandmother, my collection is a playful, personal inquiry into the culinary and (often poetic) life advice found in the historic tome of 1,320 pages. As a book, the essays will become a memoir of an entirely different sort, focusing on my Italian heritage and my love of cooking.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Memory holds so much. Some remembrances arrive as a salve, others shred us. And there are things which simply are too painful to write about, to share with the world. With memoir, it can be difficult to begin, difficult to continue. It can also feel nearly impossible to finish. But once you begin in earnest, it won’t let you rest until you do.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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