Lynn Cullen

Lynn Cullen’s bestselling novels, including The Woman with the Cure, The Sisters of Summit Avenue, Mrs. Poe, Twain’s End, The Creation of Eve, and Reign of Madness, have been translated into seventeen languages and are the recipients of various honors, including NPR Great Read, Oprah.com Book of the Week, People magazine Book of the Week, Indie Next List selection, and Atlanta magazine Best Books of the Year. She lives in Atlanta.

Cullen's new novel is When We Were Brilliant.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I wrote my novel When We Were Brilliant in response to the deep curiosity I’ve had about Marilyn Monroe since I was a kid watching her in The Seven Year Itch. I’d wanted to write about her for decades but couldn’t find a way in that was unique. It then occurred to me that one of the many woman who photographed Marilyn might have some interesting insights. I was shocked to find that she’d only sat for one woman, Eve Arnold. In fact, Marilyn sought her out.

Eve was wary of Marilyn at first. Marilyn claimed that she could help Eve’s career, a big boast, Eve thought, coming from a starlet. But she soon found out that their collaboration was like nothing she’d ever experienced (nor would ever again in her highly acclaimed, 70-year career.) Marilyn brought out the best in Eve’s natural ability to draw out her subject, a gift that would come to allow Eve’s subjects to fully give themselves to her. For her part, Eve allowed Marilyn to show a side of herself unseen by any other photographer. In fact, you can easily pick out Eve Arnold’s photos of Marilyn from the rest of the field. Marilyn just looks different in them.

Twenty-five years after Marilyn died, Eve wrote a book about her time with Marilyn. In it, she said that they sparked off each other; together, they were brilliant. And hence the title of the novel, which, in a nutshell, summarizes the scope of my tale.

What's in a name?

Every character in my book is based on a real person, from Marilyn to her make- up artist, Whitey Snyder, so there was never any thought given to naming them. The challenge, came instead from putting together what is known about Marilyn and Eve-- not just the events in their lives, but how they thought and acted--to tell a story that shows the real women behind their famous facades. The result is a view of Marilyn that is as unique as Eve’s photos of her. I can’t wait for readers to discover these two truly brilliant women in the pages of the novel.

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

This book is exactly what my teenaged self would have dreamed of writing…but would have never been able to pull off. It took a lifetime of hard-won experience to understand what the lives of Marilyn Monroe and Eve Arnold could say to us.

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

The first few sentences of a novel are relatively easy to write, but it’s slow-going after that as I figure out what the story is trying to say. I rewrite everything. Repeatedly. Dozens of times. I usually have an idea of the ending before I start the book but don’t write it until I come to the actual finish. It’s a sort of bait to get me through the years it takes to write a novel.

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

For differing reasons, I can relate deeply to both of my leading ladies. I did my best to inhabit them, to the point that Eve Arnold’s grandson has said that Eve, in my book, sounds like the woman he knew and loved. But with that connection came an attachment that might explain why I get so teary just thinking about Marilyn and Eve or seeing their photos. I don’t regret it—it was the cost of writing the most authentic, honest story possible—but I am a bit of an emotional wreck.

Visit Lynn Cullen's website.

12 Yoga Questions: Lynn Cullen.

My Book, The Movie: Mrs. Poe.

The Page 69 Test: Mrs. Poe.

The Page 69 Test: Twain's End.

The Page 69 Test: The Sisters of Summit Avenue.

My Book, the Movie: The Sisters of Summit Avenue.

--Marshal Zeringue