Carol Jameson is the author of the new novel Adam and Leonora. An educator, swimmer, and pianist, she lives in Richmond, California.
Q: What inspired you to write Adam and Leonora, and how did you create your cast of characters?
A: I was inspired by a visit to the Lucid Art Foundation in Inverness, California, and the studio of Gordon Onslow Ford, a surrealist artist from the 1940s. He continued to paint for many years and his last place of residence was this studio in Inverness.
Adam is loosely based on this artist, Gordon Onslow Ford, and Leonora is a composite of me and many women that I know who create art and engage in dreams and their inspiration.
When I walked into Onslow Ford’s studio, I could feel his presence there in the room; all his art was still hanging on the wall (massive canvases of cosmic worlds) and his tools and paints still scattered on the work tables a decade after he had died. This created an atmosphere of enchantment, mystery and intrigue.
At that moment, I knew I had to write about this artist and the women who were his muses, lovers, and wife.
The cast of characters comes from Onslow Ford as Adam; Leonora, like I said, is a composite of myself and other artists and academics that I know since she is also a researcher of dreams; Pauline is loosely based on Onslow Ford’s wife Jacqueline Johnson, a writer; and Mimi is entirely out of my imagination of someone who would entice Adam in Paris during the 1930s.
I also used a couple of historical surrealists: Andre Breton is a fun sidekick for Adam; and Remedios Varro, the surrealist artist, is a confidante and friend of Pauline in Mexico. Finally, Wolfgang Paalen, a surrealist artist, writer, and creator of the surrealist journal, DYN, is a mysterious love interest for Pauline.
Q: How would you describe the relationship between your characters Adam and Leonora?
A: The relationship between Adam and Leonora is one of mutual respect for each other’s art and creative process but also a deeper personal attraction that may never manifest into a physical love but nevertheless is a strong bond between the two.
Leonora has an uncanny resemblance to Pauline, Adam’s wife, and so there’s a mystery as to whether she is somehow related to Pauline. Yet the reader never really knows what this could be: is Leonora Pauline in her second life or is it just coincidence that Leonora and Pauline look so much alike or…?
Q: The writer Jonathan Lethem described the book as “a Midsummer Night’s Dream of pure storytelling intoxication.” What do you think of that description?
A: Well, of course, any writer would love to be compared to Shakespeare, so I was thrilled with this description by Lethem. I think that A Midsummer Night’s Dream has themes of whimsy and magic and transformation that are a part of Adam and Leonora. And, of course, dreams are central to Adam and Leonora’s world and their creative process.
Then the idea that a storytelling narrative can intoxicate-- that one can be drunk on a story --is high praise indeed! Why drink martinis when you can pick up a book?
Q: How did you research the novel, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: I purposely did very little research for the novel because I wanted it to be a work of fiction. While it’s loosely based on Onslow Ford and his life, all of the action and details are from my imagination.
I did incorporate many excerpts from Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto and learned that his idea of automatic writing, which I knew vaguely about, actually fit very well with Pauline’s struggle in the writing process. I did a little bit of research around Mexican healers, or curanderas, and was fascinated with the ritual and magic of these healers.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m currently at work on two writing projects. One is compiling my short stories that I’ve written over the last 20 to 30 years into a collection, The Red Dress, for a publisher who may be interested in them. These are stories about my time working in a bookstore, my time teaching in China and my time working at a coffee store.
Secondly, I’m drafting a novel, Bad Attitude, about my time as a soda jerk in Santa Cruz at Polar Bear ice cream in the 1980s and how this was the most fun I’d ever had. I have a great cast of characters loosely based on the people that I worked with and there are many shenanigans that occur during these stories. However, there are also some intense moments, too, that will be incorporated.
While this could be marketed as a memoir, I feel like it’s so far from what really did happen-- again my imagination takes off-- that it will become a novel. I hope that it will entertain and transport readers back to 1980s Santa Cruz with the story of a young woman at a loss for purpose who discovers it in the course of the novel.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I have a website that people can check out: https://www.caroljameson.com
I also write two blogs that I work on regularly. One is stories about swimming: Pool Purrs: https://poolpurrs.blogspot.com. The other is stories about walking that I began during the pandemic when I couldn’t swim: Walk with CJ: https://walkwithcj.blogspot.com. I also teach writing and piano and love working with writers and musicians on their projects.
Finally, on a personal note, I am a swimmer, a reader, and a lover of cats in spite of the naughtiness of my orange cat, Clara!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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