Q&A with Ava Dellaira

 

 

 

Ava Dellaira is the author of the new novel Exposure. Her other books include the young adult novel In Search of Us. She lives in Altadena, California.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Exposure, and how did you create your cast of characters?

 

A: I first got the idea for Exposure during the 2016 election cycle, at a time when social media had really taken off as a new kind of public square, and our divisions were as loud as ever.

 

I wanted to write the book as a way to think about what it would mean to empathize with the human beings behind the headlines (or social media storms), or on the other side of any of the many battle lines being drawn.

 

After I had the idea for the story, the characters arrived pretty quickly to tell it. They all have parts of me and of people I love in them, but they are also very much themselves. 

 

Q: The writer Stephen Chbosky said of the book, “In a time when so many cultural conversations turn black and white, this brilliant book provides a way to truly see two sides of a story.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I think it’s a great description! Certainly a flattering one that expresses an important part of what I am trying to do in this book.

 

Culturally, we are having a number of important and difficult conversations, but sometimes the inherent complexity in the most sensitive tops can get flattened or edited out, and we are asked to choose sides— right or wrong. With this book, I wanted to make space to live inside of the complexity, to examine the gray areas. 

 

Q: You’ve written for adults and for young adults--do you have a preference?

 

A: I’ve loved both experiences. As I have “grown up” in my own life, had children, lost parents, and attempted to process the events in our shared world from a midlife perspective, I felt inspired to tackle more adult themes in my work, and I loved being able to sink into the complexity that is inherent in Exposure. 

 

But my children would love for me to write a book for them, so I may return to YA again at some point, perhaps when they are getting closer to their teenage years.  

 

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

 

A: I hope that Exposure makes it feel a bit more possible to do the work of holding space for more than one truth at the same time. I hope that it makes readers feel seen, and helps them to see others. I hope that it helps to create some space for readers to process the complexities in their own lives. I imagine the book not as an opening, but as a way to begin conversations. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I am working on a new adult novel, but I’m still in the sprawling, messy early stages of writing where a story gets born. 

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Exposure is a book that takes place over many years and delves deeply into the lives of its characters, so it explores many different themes, like the intensity of both young female friendships and of new motherhood; the multifaceted, long-lasting effects of grief; artist ambition and what it means to persevere; the effects of race and class; the meaning of unconditional love…

 

When I first sent an early draft to my agent, he described it as an “ambitious” book, which at the time I took to mean he thought it was not working… but now I consider that description a compliment. I hope you enjoy it! 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Ava Dellaira.

Q&A with Jennifer Tzivia MacLeod

 

 

 

Jennifer Tzivia MacLeod is the author of the new children's picture book Baila the Klopper. Her many other books include Yossi and the Monkeys. She lives in Israel.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Baila the Klopper?

 

A: I love stories about spunky little girls! And I already had this fictitious shtetl (old-world European) setting in my head from my previous book, Yossi and the Monkeys, which was also illustrated by my friend Shirley Waisman. 

 

That fictitious town isn't quite Chelm and it isn't quite Anatevka (from Fiddler on the Roof). Like Tevye, religion is important to them. But so is family, and so is community, and that's what Baila is all about.

 

As a Canadian, I think I was also deeply inspired by Phoebe Gilman's gorgeous Something from Nothing, which is set in a similar shtetl. I've always loved how free the little boy seems in that story; he can run around the entire town but he knows he always has warm, loving people to come back to.

 

Q: What do you think Shirley Waisman's illustrations add to the story?

 

A: Wow, so much! When people tell me they love my books, I always credit the illustrations, not the words, and I'm not just being modest. They bring the whole book to life. 

 

Shirley and I are friends in real life now and worked more closely together on the illustrations than I usually do. We started out just by reading the book together, with her asking me what I meant and how I envisioned certain spreads. 

 

That's a fascinating cultural difference; in Israel, illustrators and authors work closely together all the time, whereas in the US, they're usually kept apart and mediated by the editor or art director. For me, it felt uncomfortably intimate at first, but I absolutely love the results. 

 

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

 

A: You know, I was talking to Fran Greenman-Schmitz, the new publisher at Kar-Ben who took over from Joni Sussman, who acquired the book. And I told her the story didn't exactly share most feminist messages: at the end of the story, Baila ends up baking and holding a baby, both traditionally female activities. 

 

But then I think everybody in that meeting realized that it actually kind of is a feminist message: girls can do whatever they want. If what they want and what they're good at is taking care of babies and baking delicious bagels for their entire community... well, that's awesome. (My own kids, boys and girls, are all both great bakers and great baby-snugglers.)

 

Anyway, the bigger message is maybe that without food, without babies, society doesn't have much of a future. And without problem-solvers like Baila, who cut through the complexities to find simple solutions, our communities flounder. So let's celebrate her!

 

Q: What first interested you in writing children's picture books?

 

A: Years ago, as a Jewish homeschooler I kept stumbling across all these Christian materials and wondering why nobody had created Jewish resources that fit our needs better. So, in the greatest parenting tradition, I set out to create some. I wrote and self-published some educational things. 

 

I also started to feel that a lot of Jewish picture books waste a ton of time explaining the basics: on Rosh Hashanah, you dip an apple in honey, you blow a shofar; on Shabbat, you make kiddush, you pray and rest and do things you love with people you love.

 

Spelling it out is wonderful for kids who are less Jewishly involved, but my kids knew that stuff by the time they were two. So I wanted picture book stories that put those basics in the background; they're assumed but never explicitly stated. 

 

Here's an example: I wrote a book called Penguin Rosh Hashanah (https://tinyurl.com/penguinrosh), basically trying to create a Rosh Hashanah book that mentions none of the usual things.

 

And my favourite review - they gave it only one star, which is a terrible review! - says, "I thought this book was going to be about different ways to celebrate Rosh Hashana." Even though it's a lousy review, I take it as a compliment.

 

There are a million of that book out there already, and some of the choices are wonderful. But there's only one with a penguin. Also, who buys a book with a penguin on the cover if they're looking to find out about "different ways to celebrate Rosh Hashana"?! The review still makes me smile every time I see it.

 

Even though it's not exactly my most commercial book, I want to keep creating books like that. For kids like mine were, and now my grandkids. Kids who by the time they turn 2 have already celebrated 108 Shabbatot, so they don't need to be told what challah is, what kiddush is, what havdalah is. They just want stories - like all kids do - that reflect them and their world.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Middle grade! I still love doing picture books, but I'm dreaming of being published for middle grade. 

 

I'm writing a World War II story set in Toronto. Donny is a 13-year-old Boy Scout who's preparing for his bar mitzvah against the background of what's going on in Europe (which all the grownups are talking about in whispers) along with some local antisemitism from the rival neighbourhood Boy Scout troop.

 

And then, on top of everything, his family takes in a British boy who turns out to be absolutely insufferable. There are the inevitable boyish clashes but ultimately (spoiler alert!) they wind up being friends. 

 

Everybody knows about British kids being evacuated to the countryside because of the Narnia stories, but many of them were shipped overseas. Canada hosted about 3,000 kids as part of their "War Guest" program. The program was halted in 1940 after the Germans actually torpedoed a ship carrying children to Canada. 

 

Like my chapter book The Peacock, which came out this year (Orca), Donny's War is based very loosely on my own family's history. My grandparents really did take in a War Guest child, but I haven't been able to find out anything about him. And my uncles were the wrong ages to be in this story, while my mother wasn't born yet.

 

So I changed my uncles' birthdates and other information, and invented a new girl for the family to fill my mother's place.

 

As with The Peacock, I love having the opportunity to tell a story about the war through the eyes of a child who is actually living very far away, in relative safety and privilege.

 

Here, too, the adults are trying to shelter Donny from what's going on over there. But he's a smart kid and understands a lot more than they give him credit for.

 

I hope this distance will make the story relatable for today's kids, who are also very distant, chronologically, from that war. And encourage them to think about bigger questions rather than just the specifics of that particular war.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Wow. Just how incredibly humbling it is to be part of the community of children's-book authors. There are so many wonderful stories out there, and so many talented authors and illustrators, that my books feel very small, like a drop in the bucket.

 

But it's my drop in the bucket. Well, in this case, mine and Shirley's. I hope this will become some kid's favourite story. Maybe even more than one kid's.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with Ellis Shuman

 

 

 

Ellis Shuman is the author of the new story collection Rakiya: Stories of Bulgaria. His other books include The Virtual Kibbutz. He lives in Israel.

 

Q: Over how long a period did you write the stories in your collection?

 

A: I’ve been writing ever since I was a boy. Creative writing was my favorite subject in school, and the feedback from my teachers encouraged me. I wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps—he was a journalist at the local newspaper—but I was always drawn to writing fiction.

 

My first book was a collection of short stories set in Israel, where I had moved with my family at the age of 15. The stories were based on my experiences living on a kibbutz, a collective farming community in Israel’s southern desert. Life on the kibbutz was evolving, from socialist idealism to modern capitalism, and I strived to show these changes in my fiction.

 

I wrote two suspense novels set in Bulgaria, but I’ve gravitated to the craft of writing short stories. I enjoy the format of introducing characters and plots in a limited number of words. In many ways, this is more challenging than writing a novel.

 

Several of my stories deal with life in Israel, including a story about residents of a Jerusalem retirement home that was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Other stories deal with the challenges facing writers, travels in Italy, and the complexities of modern life.

 

But in the past five years I’ve written several short stories set in Bulgaria, a country which was my home for two years.

 

Q: Can you say more about your relationship to Bulgaria? And what do you see as some common perceptions and misconceptions about the country?

 

A: It came as a shock to me when my boss in a Tel Aviv online marketing company informed me that my position was being relocated to Sofia, Bulgaria. He said that I could continue in my job if I moved to Sofia for two years; otherwise, someone would be appointed to replace me. And, I had one week to decide whether to accept the relocation offer.

 

My wife and I accepted the challenge. Our children had grown up and left home; our parents were still healthy enough to take care of themselves; and we found someone to house-sit our cats for the duration of our overseas stay. We packed our bags and set up home in the Bulgarian capital.

 

I knew little about Bulgaria before we arrived. Bulgaria was a former Communist country, but otherwise I wasn’t familiar with its history. I had seen brochures advertising its Black Sea resorts, but what else was there to see there? Bulgarians spoke a language similar to Russian and wrote in an undecipherable Cyrillic script—everything was so strange, and foreign.

 

To our surprise, my wife and I fell in love with Bulgaria. We traveled extensively, visiting its picturesque villages and enjoying its stunning nature—mountains, rivers, rocky and sandy seashores. We were entranced by Bulgaria’s rich and colorful culture and traditions.

 

Bulgaria is a secular country but with a strong regard for its religious heritage. Centuries-old monasteries attract pilgrims and visitors.

 

One thing surprised us more than anything else, and that was the story of how Bulgaria rescued its Jewish citizens during World War II. Despite Bulgaria being aligned with the Nazis, not a single member of its 50,000 Jews was sent to the concentration camps.

 

That said, 11,343 Jews from Thrace and Macedonia, regions under Bulgarian control during the war, were deported and sent to their deaths in Auschwitz. This was a story I had to tell, and I knew it was something that would play a role one day in my fiction.

Q: How did you decide on the order in which the stories would appear in the collection?

 

A: There are 12 short stories in Rakiya – Stories of Bulgaria. Some of the stories are told in the voices of native Bulgarians, while others come from the perspectives of foreigners visiting and experiencing the country for the first time. Working as an Israeli in Sofia on a relocation contract, it was natural to include many Israelis among the characters in the book.

 

The book starts with the title story, and that is followed by the others set in no particular order. Some characters make return appearances in other stories.

 

The story dealing with Bulgaria’s Jews during the years of the Holocaust is the longest in the book. Admittedly, it is more serious than the others. I had never previously written historical fiction, so I also related to this incredible period of Bulgarian history through the eyes of modern-day Israelis and Bulgarians.

 

I decided to end the book on a lighter note. The final story contains a humorous story-within-a-story, and it brings closure to the other stories. The story ends with its protagonist, an Israeli working in Bulgaria on a short-term contract, walking down a dark Sofia street, fascinated by his Bulgarian experiences and not knowing what wonders he would next discover about the country.

 

Q: How was the book’s title, also the title of one of the stories, chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: Rakiya is the traditional Bulgarian alcoholic drink, particularly enjoyed when it is homemade with a very high alcoholic content. Bulgarians typically drink rakiya with their meals, raising it in a toast while looking each other directly in the eyes. “Nazdrave!” they said. “To your health!”

 

I acquired a taste for rakiya during the years I lived in Sofia, but more than that, I enjoyed everything about Bulgarian culture. The fresh salads and the tasty cuisine. The mesmerizing costumes and chants of Bulgarian men performing traditional rituals intended to scare away evil spirits. The fortresses and tombs attesting to Bulgaria’s magnificent past. And the modern high-tech infrastructure and well-educated youth, attesting to Bulgaria’s bright future.

 

Rakiya—the drink—symbolized the Bulgarian experience for me and that is why I chose it as the name for my short story collection

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: An author’s work is never done. Getting a first draft written is hard enough, but that is followed by extensive editing, a task that, if successful, will make the author’s message shine.

 

Even after a book is published, there is more work to do. It doesn’t matter if you are traditionally published or self-published, if you don’t market your book, no one will know of it. Although many writers say they write for themselves, myself included, a book can only truly be successful if others read and enjoy it.

 

I am currently concentrating on marketing Rakiya – Stories of Bulgaria. I know I will return to writing fiction very shortly, but whether it will be additional short stories or the long form of a novel, only time will tell. I look forward to the journey.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Ever since I returned to Israel after the end of my relocation contract, I have strived to share Bulgaria with those not familiar with the country.

 

I have written travel reports, introducing readers to the historic sites worth visiting. I have written book reviews of modern Bulgarian literature. And I have set my fiction in the country.

 

Bulgaria is a fascinating place to visit, and if, through my writing, readers will consider including Bulgaria in their travel plans, I will feel that I’ve accomplished my mission. Nazdrave!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Sept. 27

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Sept. 27, 1917: Louis Auchincloss born.

Q&A with Jane Alison

 

 

 

Jane Alison is the author of the new novel Villa E. It focuses on characters based on architects Le Corbusier (1887-1965) and Eileen Gray (1878-1976). Alison's other books include Meander, Spiral, Explode.  She is a professor of creative writing at the University of Virginia, and she lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Villa E?

 

A: The real story: that an architect of Le Corbusier’s (supersized) stature would become obsessed with the villa of a far less known female architect--so obsessed that he’d cover it with paintings, build his own cabin beside it, and subsume it, removing her name--this fascinated me.

 

Not only that Corb did all this, but why. Riddles like this swing open the big wide gate of fiction. How to understand what might have made him do this, inch by inch.

 

And beyond the mystery, I was intrigued by details: the strange sexual undertones of his relations with Eileen Gray and the house, the lyric justice of him swimming to his death just below the house, her literal elevation above it all.

 

The bare history opened up so many ideas, passions, sensual details, along with that riddle to try to solve.

 

Q: What did you see as the right balance between fiction and biography as you created your characters Le G and Eileen (inspired by Le Corbusier and Eileen Gray)?

 

A: Oh, biography would have included so much more! Gray’s work extended far, far beyond this villa.

 

But, as when you write a memoir and need to choose the veins of life to follow and leave out the rest, here, too, I wanted to focus on the incidents that spiraled around the villa, and let the rest of their lives just crack through occasionally.

 

There were a lot of facts to work from: details of the villa itself, documents about its making, cards from Corb to Gray, masses of manifestoes written by Corb, her letters to her niece and friends, and so on.

 

I could hear their voices, I felt, through reading their words, and in studying or visiting the objects they made, I felt that I could sense what problems and passions preoccupied them aesthetically.

 

The “fiction” came in envisioning crucial emotional or dramatic moments and going deeper into the mazes of their minds. I tried--mostly--to invent only in absences, or at the very least to bend a fact toward fiction.

Q: How did you research the novel, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

 

A: Research is a wonderful way to pretend you’re writing without quite doing it . . . no, it truly is a fantastic part of writing.

 

I read many bios and critical studies of both architects, as well as their own works and letters; visited as many of Corb’s buildings as I could (in France, Switzerland, the US); peered through a gate to try to see Eileen’s second house; looked at their furniture, paintings, collages, objects in museums and catalogues.

 

And above all went to the site itself, now called Cap Moderne. When I first went, 20 years ago, Gray’s house was only just starting to be restored and could not be visited, but you could walk right into Corb’s cabin. I visited three times over the years, and only on the third could I finally get inside her villa.

 

I’d say there were discoveries and surprises all along the way. A few tiny ones: Corb had a model of the villa made and kept it on his desk (along with the jawbone of his dog).

 

Gray’s niece became a very successful painter in a time of rough-boy English painters, and one of her friends was Graham Sutherland, who did the portrait of Churchill that Churchill famously hated--and this same Sutherland bought Gray’s second house, the one she built when she had to flee the villa.

 

Q: The Kirkus Review of the book called it a “remarkable gender parable filtered through a sophisticated imagination.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I like it. It’s concise. I’d like to think I did more than “filter” this parable, but okay!

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: A long (book-length) lyric essay about female sexuality, female potency, and . . . chickens. I got chicks three years ago and am besotted. They are, to me, a wonderful kind of dirty virgin that is immaculately fecund . . . A perfect egg each day, a piece of art, no rooster in sight. It’s  called “Self Portrait in Egg.”

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Maybe: men being monsters, men appropriating the work of women: this is nothing new. If anything, it’s more and more present. And what Corb did was monstrous.

 

But I don’t think a flatly portrayed “monster” could ever be very interesting. Nor is it true or fair. The Corb I made--Le Grand--is fully dimensional. We’re in his body, in his mind, in his mouth . . . sensing his weaknesses and failings just as he does.

 

Eileen, too, needed nuance. A woman as victim is a terrible drag on a narrative and on my mind. She had to have her own obstinacies and aloofness--and ways of flying over this historic affront.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Jane Alison.

Q&A with Pamela D. Toler

 

 

Pamela D. Toler is the author of the new biography The Dragon from Chicago: The Untold Story of an American Reporter in Nazi Germany. Toler's other books include Women Warriors.

 

Q: How did you first learn about journalist Sigrid Schultz (1893-1980), and why did you decide to write her biography?

 

A: An article from the Chicago Tribune appeared in my newsfeed one day.  (I’ve never figured out why or how.)  An architectural salvage vendor had discovered a cache of glass plate photographic negatives in the attic of a house in what is now the Chicago neighborhood of Ravenswood. 

 

The photographs were unusual for the time and the format: most of them were informal shots of a woman, a young child and a large dog, taken outside the house where he found them.

 

With the help of his girlfriend, who is an art historian specializing in  photography, the vendor tracked down who the people in the photographs were. The little girl was named Sigrid Schultz. The woman was her mother, Hedwig. And the photographs were taken by her father, Hermann, who was a portrait painter who had emigrated from Norway in 1892.

 

All of that was mildly interesting, then the news article took an unexpected twist. Sigrid Schultz had been a groundbreaking foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and possibly the first woman to head a foreign news bureau for a major American newspaper. At that point, I was more than mildly interested!

 

It didn’t take me long to find her basic story: Sigrid Schultz was the foreign bureau chief in Berlin for the Chicago Tribune from 1925 to 1941 and one of the first American reporters to warn her readers just how dangerous the Nazis were. The more I learned, the more convinced I became that her story needed to be told now.

 

Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: The title comes from one of my favorite anecdotes about Schultz.  Hitler’s right-hand man, Hermann Göring, called Schulz “that dragon from Chicago” after she confronted him in front of the entire foreign press corps about his efforts to entrap journalists with stories about purported German military secrets. Schultz accepted that title with pride.

 

I open the book with the anecdote, which I believe illuminates both her personality and her willingness to confront the Nazis face-to-face.

 

Q: The writer Julia Scheeres said of the book, “A wildly inspirational tale. I'm so glad that Toler rescued Schultz’s legacy.” What do you think of that assessment, and what do you see as Schultz's legacy today?

 

A: Inspiration is a tricky concept as far as I’m concerned. It is very personal. People find inspiration where and when they need it.

 

That said, I found Schultz to be an inspiring figure on several levels, not only in her courage in facing up to the Nazis but in her ability to carry on no matter how many times life knocked her down. And life knocked her down pretty regularly.

 

Looking at her story through a broader lens, Schultz stood up for the truth over the course of her entire career. As a young woman, she walked away from jobs she needed because of antisemitism on the part of her employers. As a reporter, she stayed in Berlin as long as possible because she was determined to give her readers “all the dope there is” about the Nazis. That’s a legacy worth having.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: I was lucky to have lots of primary sources to work with, including two archives with substantial holdings related to Schultz. I read Schultz’s by-lined articles in the Chicago Tribune in chronological order: a chilling introduction to the fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazi Germany in what felt like real time.

 

And I also read every memoir I could get my hands on that was written by her fellow journalists at the time. Most of them weren’t very good books, but they were amazing sources.

 

Schultz appeared in many of them; even when she didn’t, they gave me different perspectives on what it was like to be in Berlin at the time and sensory details that I couldn’t get any other way. 

 

As I worked through Schultz’s papers, I tried to identify every random name she mentioned. I didn’t always succeed, but I succeeded often enough to realize that far more women worked in and around journalism in Europe in the years between the two world wars than general histories of journalism would have suggested. Both a nice surprise, and a little dispiriting.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: After four years of working on Sigrid Schultz and the Nazis, I’m taking some time to refill the well. Though I do have a couple of ideas that are calling my name…

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I share my research and writing process with my readers in a twice-weekly blog, History in the Margins, and a twice-monthly newsletter. In the blog, I share historical tidbits, book reviews, and my experiences visiting historical sites on the road.

 

For example, in the two months leading up to the publication of The Dragon from Chicago I shared the stories of little-known women journalists.

 

In the newsletter, I share what I’m thinking about writing and history in a broader context. It’s a great way for me to experiment with ideas, and to keep in contact with readers in between books. 

Readers can sign up for either or both at my website, www.pameladtoler.com

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Pamela D. Toler.

Q&A with Scott Ryan

 

Photo by Faye Murman

 

 

Scott Ryan is the author of the new book The Last Decade of Cinema. His other books include Fire Walk With Me.

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Last Decade of Cinema, and how was the book’s title chosen?

 

A: I was looking to find a movie to stream and I noticed that there was nothing new that I was interested in. Every movie I picked to watch seemed to come from the ‘90s. So that sort of made me wonder why and I just started doing research on film and how it changed.

 

Most of my other books are nostalgic looks at TV shows from the past. I noticed that when I was interviewed, people wanted there to be some juicy argumentative things about the shows. So I decided to pick a title that created an argument. I was hoping it would spark sales. This isn’t the first time that I’ve been wrong.

 

Q: How did you choose the films that you focused on in the book?

 

A: It was really difficult. These are not my favorite films, these are films that have something to say and are different from the other movies that I picked.

 

I wanted to show that we used to have variety at the box office. Now all the movies are made from the same cookie cutter. But no one could think Terminator 2 and Pretty Woman are the same, but they both were widely successful and everyone watched them.

 

So basically, the films had to be good, had to have something to say, and had to be different from everything else that was going on at the time.

Q: Of the various films you discuss, do you have a particular favorite (or two)?

 

A: I love The Prince of Tides, Reality Bites, and Pulp Fiction. Those are probably the movies that are covered in the book that I have seen the most times. They really help to shape what I want from a movie since I saw them in my early 20s.

 

But I also think The Ice Storm, Two Girls and a Guy, and Pleasantville are forgotten films that truly say a lot and take audiences on a good journey.

 

Q: How would you compare the films of the ‘90s with those of today?

 

A: Well, for that answer, I wrote about 300 pages explaining that. I don’t think films of today can hold a candle to movies from the ‘90s.

 

The films back then were taking chances, they weren’t worried about if audiences were going to get upset by the plots and made up characters, they respected their viewers and created complex plots and used subtext in dialogue.

 

I struggle watching even critically acclaimed films today because there will always be a character today who just re-explains the plot because the studio is sure that viewers are on their phones and not paying attention, and they are usually correct.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I am writing a book about the music from the TV show Twin Peaks. I have been interviewing the music editors of the shows, the band members and directors. It is fascinating because there are 290 music cues in the entire series and I am covering them all. So it’s a lot to write about.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: One of the things about The Last Decade of Cinema is that it isn’t just me blabbing on. I interviewed actors, directors and writers from some of the movies I covered and I got their take on how things have changed and why these films still matter to Gen X.

 

I interviewed Patricia Arquette about True Romance and that was just incredible for me. I love her so much and that is one of my favorite movies.

 

Thanks so much for your interest. People can buy the book here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1949024768

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb