Q&A with Angela Brown

 

Photo by Sylvie Rosokoff

 

 

Angela Brown is the author of the new novel Some Other Time. She also has written the novel Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time. She lives in New Jersey.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Some Other Time, and how did you create your character Ellie?

 

A: The inspiration for Some Other Time came from the classic film It’s a Wonderful Life. Like so many people, I grew up watching it every December, and from the time I was young always felt fascinated by the butterfly effect—the way one small choice can ripple outward and shape an entire life (or lives).

 

For ages, I dreamed about creating a story with a similar narrative structure but wasn’t sure how to make it my own. Then, a few years ago, inspiration came knocking. My husband and I were out in our yard one evening with our two young children when we fell into a “what-if” conversation.

 

What if we hadn’t spoken the first time we crossed paths? What if we’d met a day later or a year later? Would the trajectory of our lives have changed? Would we have still fallen in love? Would another family be living in our house instead of us? Was it really possible that one small choice—to say hello to each other—so many years earlier had led to all this?

 

By the time I went to bed that night, the seeds of the novel had started to take root, and an outline began to form in my head.

 

As for Ellie, she was always the heart of this story for me. Thinking back on It’s a Wonderful Life, which, of course, centers on George Bailey, I knew I wanted to focus instead on a character more like his wife, Mary Bailey.

 

With Ellie, I wanted to bring a modern-day perspective to this type of character—a woman who might easily be overlooked, one who has chosen to dedicate herself to her family and to having a decidedly “simple” life, but who’s choices, even though seemingly “small” on the surface, have been powerful enough to change the world.  

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Ellie and her husband, Jonah?

 

A: I really love the dynamic between Ellie and Jonah. It feels very real to me. They’ve been married for more than 20 years, their only child has left for college, and they’re trying to figure out how to exist together—just the two of them—again.

 

Gone are the days of grand romantic gestures. Instead, what we see between them are quiet, everyday expressions of love—even when they’re at a major crossroads in their marriage. I think the frustrations between them are also very authentic—life does change when your children grow up and need you in different ways, and it forces you, and sometimes your relationship, to change, too.

 

Overall, I find their dynamic to be very sweet and heartfelt, and also very relatable. Plus, I like the idea that you can fall in love with your spouse all over again at different points in your relationship.

 

Q: How would you compare Ellie with your character Olivia from your first novel?

 

A: It’s funny. I think Ellie and Olivia share a lot of similarities. Both are women who are contemplating the “what-ifs” in their life and are wondering if they’ve made the right choices along the way. However, we meet each protagonist at different points.

 

Olivia is at the early stages of motherhood—her son is in preschool, her house is a perpetual disaster, she’s constantly being pulled in a thousand different directions as is often the case in those early years of parenting, and she feels like she has no real time for herself to create her own identity.

 

On the other hand, we meet my new protagonist, Ellie, at the opposite end of motherhood. Ellie’s daughter has grown-up and left for college, leaving Ellie with an empty nest and too much time to herself, which forces her to contemplate her identity—yes, she’s still a mother, of course, but she’s not really needed by her family anymore (or at least not in the same ways she once was).

 

In the end, I think they’re two characters who are on a quest to reevaluate their identity and what they want, though they do so from two very different points in life.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?

 

A: To me, the big takeaway from Some Other Time is that we don’t necessarily have to lead HUGE fancy lives for them to be deemed important. Sometimes (most of the time, maybe) it’s the small things we do – expressing our love, making sacrifices for the people who matter most to us—really do have the power to change our world.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m currently working on my next novel, though can’t share too much about it just yet. 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Angela Brown.