Susan Sisko Carter is the author of the new novel The Lyric Hotel. Also a singer/songwriter and a television writer, she lives in Los Angeles.
Q: What inspired you to write The Lyric Hotel, and how did you create your character Jeanette?
A: I lived in a boutique hotel that catered to musicians longer than Jeanette lived at the Lyric Hotel. The very nature of a hotel is character-driven. Strangers sleeping under the same roof of a small hotel can create a feeling of consanguinity; an overture to intimacy that may or may not include sex.
I discovered through my conversations with men at the hotel that men were often more emotionally layered than women might imagine. And I realized, through my interactions with the guests, that I was learning about myself while learning about them.
I thought a small upscale hotel would make a great setting for a novel. And the perfect setting for Jeanette to learn about who she was after the loss of her husband. It took me many drafts before I realized the fullness of Jeanette’s character. The more I got to know her, the more I liked her, the more I wanted things to work out for her.
Q: The actor and author Stephen Tobolowsky said of the book, “Susan Sisko Carter has created a jewel box of great characters and sparkling dialogue in telling the story of a woman's unconventional journey in search of real but ever-elusive love.” What do you think of that description?
A: Stephen Tobolowsky is a wonderful writer. In the acknowledgements section of my book, I wrote: He is a human divining rod for emotional truth in character and story, no matter how hidden the treasure. I love that he appreciated my characters. He read deeply into the character of Jeanette.
So, I am delighted with Stephen Tobolowsky’s description of my book.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: I had a vague idea of how the book would end. It took me many drafts, though, to get to the specifics. As a screenwriter, I wrote for a while in an office, in an Art Deco building, with a view of neon conga drums outside a nightclub.
My office was down the hall from a veteran producer who gave me some advice. It would never work with the pressure of writing for television, but his advice came in handy when beginning my novel: “You don’t need a flight plan––you just have to take off.”
Q: As a singer and writer, how do the two coexist for you?
A: One nourishes the other. I started recording for major labels when I was 13. I wrote my new single, “Sipping Wine in Paris,” as a companion piece to my novel. It will be released the same day as The Lyric Hotel.
My novel predominately takes place in West Hollywood, but part of the book takes place in Paris. And both women, in the song and the book, are staying in hotels that stir a palpable longing. I wanted to convey that longing in “Sipping Wine in Paris.”
The opening lyrics are:
I’m the kind of woman
Who sings in the key of
The buzz of the bathroom light
In my hotel room at night.
I have imagined Jeanette, the heroine of my novel, singing in the key of the buzz of the bathroom light, in her junior suite, at the Lyric Hotel. And the man that the woman meets in my song could easily have ended up in my novel.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am working on a new novel. Also, I am happy to say that I will be going into the studio, soon, to record my new compositions… which take place in Paris.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: They say you should write what you know. Too many people write what they think they know––will sell. Nobody knows what will sell until it does.
While writing for a TV show that was cancelled too soon, I asked the set designer if he could frame a quote for me from the legendary jazz singer Jimmy Scott. The set designer placed golden-brown letters onto lovely cream-colored Italian paper. That framed quote is displayed on a wall near my writing table: “Either you give yourself and be yourself, or you blow the whole thing.”
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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