Ellen Feldman

Ellen Feldman, a 2009 Guggenheim fellow, is the author of The Living and the Lost (winner of Long Island Reads award), Paris Never Leaves You (translated into thirteen languages), Terrible Virtue (optioned by Black Bicycle for a feature film), The Unwitting, Next to Love, Scottsboro (shortlisted for the Orange Prize), The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank (a New York Times Book Review “Editors’ Choice”), and Lucy.

Feldman's new novel is The Trouble with You.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Of all the novels I’ve published, The Trouble with You was the hardest to title. I auditioned dozens of attempts. They were all too generic and could apply to any story or too specific and therefore incomprehensible. After much solitary agonizing and endless consulting with my patient editor and publisher, we hit on The Trouble with You. That’s the exasperated phrase that would be thrown at the protagonist Fanny, her aunt Rose, and several other characters in the book. I’m delighted to report that many readers have agreed. They’ve told me they could hear the more conventional characters in the book shouting the words at those who flouted the rules to forge their own personae.

What's in a name?

I’m a stickler for a character’s name fitting his or her nature. It has to be appropriate to the time and place, but especially to who the character is. That said, I avoid names that telegraph a character’s temperament or behavior. Dickens could pull it off. I can’t. I’m not sure how I determine the suitability of a name. It’s more instinct than reason. In this novel, Rose’s name is, I think, an apt and ironic comment on the world she inhabited and the life she was dealt.

Rose, whose very name was a joke, like the names of so many of the girls with whom she'd grown up and worked in the factories. Rose. Iris. Flora. Pearl. Ruby. Golda. They gave them names that connoted beauty or opulence, then sent them to work sewing hats or gloves or dresses so their brothers could graduate from college.

Other characters, however, often squirm in the names I initially give them and demand repeated changes. Fanny took some time to find a name she was comfortable wearing. Thank heavens for global search. Charlie, on the other hand, danced brashly onto my laptop screen wearing his name. He knew who he was. I had to get to know him.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

I have a double-edge answer to that. My teenage self would be amazed that I’ve published novels. I always wanted to write and began writing in childhood, but I always thought writers were special people beyond my reach. That said, I don’t think my teenage self would be surprised by the story. Kernels of it were bubbling just beneath the surface in her angst-ridden adolescent mind.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

The Trouble with You is the exception to my answer to this question. I usually find the beginning of a novel challenging to the point of despair and have to write several opening chapters, most of which are discarded, before I find my way into the story. In this book I knew the beginning from the moment the idea started to take shape in my mind. I was striving for something that would plunge the reader into Fanny’s life, let the reader savor her happiness, yet create a subtle tension about what was to come. As for endings, in this book, as in most I’ve written, I know where it’s going but I rarely know exactly how it will end until I’m almost there. That’s because I depend on the characters to lead me to the conclusion.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I think it’s hard, if not impossible, to write a character you can’t get inside. Some of my characters are close to the person I want to be so it’s not difficult living in their skins. Some are people I don’t admire and fear resembling. Then I try to find what makes the character tick so unpleasantly. The worst part of writing those unattractive characters is that I often realize the objectionable traits are ones I’m fighting in myself. The recognition is disagreeable for me as a woman, but invaluable for me as a writer.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Years ago a writer friend told me that in my books I “seize the thistle.” He meant, of course, that I go after difficult subjects. I have always cherished the description. I can’t undo past injustice, but I can try to call readers’ attention to it. However, I don’t so much choose topics as feel chosen by them. Specific instances of war, racism, and misogyny make me want to alert the world to the fact that they happened and warn against their reoccurrence. People who have fought those scourges – individuals like Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and Margaret Sanger – inspire me to write about them. Fictional characters like Fanny, Charlie and Rose in this book allow me to address vast human issues in deeply personal terms.

Learn more about the book and author at Ellen Feldman's website.

The Page 69 Test: Scottsboro.

--Marshal Zeringue