Susan Isaacs

BIO

Susan Isaacs is the author of eight novels including RED, WHITE & BLUE, LILY WHITE, AFTER ALL THESE YEARS, COMPROMISING POSITIONS, and SHINING THROUGH and one non-fiction title BRAVE DAMES AND WIMPETTES: What Women Are Really Doing on Page and Screen. She lives on Long Island with her husband.

PAST INTERVIEW

June 9, 1997

On June 9, at 9 PM ET, THE BOOK REPORT interviewed author Susan Isaacs, author of LILY WHITE, COMPROMISING POSITIONS AND SHINING THROUGH. Interviewing for TBR were Sara Nelson (BookpgSara) and Jennifer Levitsky (BookpgJL). Our host was Marlene T.

Marlene T: Hello, Sara and Ms. Isaacs. Good evening!

Bookpgsara: Good Evening

Susan Isaacs: Thanks. I'm really happy to be here.

Bookpgsara: Your books are so readable, and they seem to flow so naturally. I think a lot of people wonder if they just roll out of your head and on to the page. Is it as effortless as it looks?

Susan Isaacs: I wish! No, usually on a good day, I write 3 pages. When I re-read it the next morning, occasionally I'm pleased. Usually I'm stunned that that bilge came from me. What I do is go over it and re-write and re-write. It's a very slow process. I don't stop it until it appears to be effortless. The last thing a reader wants to see is the writer's droplets of sweat.

Bookpgsara: Somebody once said that the plot of a good narrative must be both inevitable and unpredictable. How do you walk that rather thin line?

Susan Isaacs: Because essentially I'm writing a book for myself. I'm writing the book that I most want to read. I have to please a really annoyingly tough critic: Myself. I have at times thought that I could change an ending. In ALMOST PARADISE, I was upset with the ending because it wasn't happy. I thought, well I have to write it this way and then I'll write an alternative ending. But I couldn't write the happy ending. It would have been false.

Bookpgsara: The characters in your books are usually straight-talking, New York women, not unlike yourself. How much are you like them and vice versa?

Susan Isaacs: A lot of them share geography and ethnicity. Then again I wrote MAGIC HOUR and that hero is a recovering drug addict, alcoholic, male homicide cop. No, what happens most of the time is that a character comes to me and stays with me while I'm working on something else. It stays with me and develops. A lot of the women are like me, but I'm not writing my own story. There's no one-to- one correspondence with my life. Frankly no one wants to read about a writer sitting on her butt in Long Island whose big excitement is going to Thanksgiving dinner. I like smart and strong women. I have no interest in creating protagonists who are victims. In that sense, maybe they are like me.

Bookpgsara: Where did the idea for LILY WHITE come from?

Susan Isaacs: My daughter-in-law converted to Judaism. She took the Hebrew name Leah. I though why did this wonderful, intelligent assertive name choose the name of such a loser? I went back to the Bible and re-read the story of Rachel and Leah. I really became intrigued by what happened to this obviously homely sister. The husband prefers the younger sister to her. She's horribly rejected. I thought about making it a contemporary story to see what would happen to her.

Susan Isaacs: I needed to fine Lily White a job and I made her a criminal defense lawyer. I had her tell the story of this murder case that she's working on. I thought I'd use the Rachel and Leah thing as background. The more I wrote, the more the family stuff came through. I saw that I needed to get all this family stuff through. That's when I decided to alternate chapters --- Lily telling her story and a third-person narrative to tell the family story, and have the two stories come together at the end.

Bookpgsara: How did you hit on the idea of using the fur business as the White family business?

Susan Isaacs: I was walking with a friend (she's an interior decorator) and told her the story. I needed a business that would make the Whites suffer at the end, she said. The fur business went to hell in the 80s, so that was it. Also, when my husband was a defense lawyer, he defended several people in the fur business, so I got to know a lot more about fox than is normal for a suburban kind of dame.

Bookpgsara: Is there going to be a sequel?

Susan Isaacs: No, because I can't imagine it. When I write a novel, it's really a fictional biography. I'm giving everything in that life, so there isn't much left. You wind up, essentially, writing the same book over and over with a lot of sequels. I really have no desire to write a sequel. I wish Lily well.

Question: Where did you study to become a writer? Was writing a lifelong dream?

Susan Isaacs: No. I was not one of these sensitive little 10-year-olds who kept a journal. After I finished Queens College I worked at SEVENTEEN magazine writing advice to lovelorn. "How to write a letter to a boy"-type articles. It never occurred to me to write fiction even after I left and was a freelance writer. I was reading a lot of mysteries. More than was probably good for my mental health. Then this housewife, a Long Island housewife, came into my head-- the one who solves the mystery. It took me a year to get the courage to write it. I'd go shopping for my 6- year-old -- for socks. He couldn't care less about socks. Then I became the greatest puff pastry maker on the eastern seaboard. I'd do anything but write it. Finally my need to write became so great. I bought a book called HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL by John Braine. It broke down what is a very complex task into a lot of idiot steps. Thank God I didn't join a writer's workshop. Studying writing produces more bad writing and deters more writers than anything in the history of letters.

Question: How long did it take to write LILY WHITE?

Susan Isaacs: Took about 3 years. The hardest part was figuring out the structure. The last thing I wanted the reader to think was "Isn't this clever structure?" It took a year to write the outline. The other books take no more than a month for the outline. This was much more complex.

Bookpgsara: When you say it took 3 years, did you write every day for 3 years?

Susan Isaacs: I generally write 5 days a week. I take off for vacations. There are some days I take off because I want to buy a pair of shoes. At this point in my career, I can take that day. I couldn't allow myself that luxury for my first novel. Writing is a craft and occasionally it can be art. But it's a job. If you don't go to work regularly, it won't get done.

Bookpgsara: Do you find writing painful?

Susan Isaacs: I think novelists are given to a great deal of dramatization --- we use a lot of words like "pain" and "angst." It's extraordinarily difficult. I don't know that I work any harder than any really dedicated 3rd-grade teacher.

Question: Which one of your novels is your personal favorite?

Susan Isaacs: ALMOST PARADISE, my 3rd novel. I think it's the richest and the most touching. I also think it's really, deeply flawed. I think it's flawed because I did not know how to balance the two families' histories with the character's present life. If I had to re-write it today, I don't know if I could solve that problem. But it's my favorite the way you tend to have that special warmth for the goofiest kid. It did very well, but it was the least critically acclaimed of my books. I got a lot of scathing reviews. I think, in part, because it was the early 80s and I was writing about celebrity. Some critics thought I was trying to capitalize on that. It's the book I would most want to read again if I had to. I was writing about if there is any sort of private life public people can have.The book started out of my tiny experience with celebrities from going on a book tour. Suddenly I went from being a dorky person in a room alone to someone who was getting professionally made up and getting good seats in restaurants where only the day before I was relegated to Siberia.

Bookpgsara: How have you felt about the movie adaptations of your books?

Susan Isaacs: I can't complain too much about COMPROMISING POSITIONS because I wrote the screenplay. And we had a fabulous cast --- Raoul Julia, Susan Sarandon, Judith Ivy. I had a wonderful time being on the set and making the film. The director, Frank Perry, was generous. As far as SHINING THROUGH goes --- with Melanie Griffith and Michael Douglas --- I was less thrilled but also less involved. I sold the book and knew I would have nothing to do with it. I think a lot of novelists are willfully naive. Most of us are great readers, consumers of art. We know what goes on when a book gets made into a movie. Rarely is a movie better than the book. If you're a great reader, the book is better. You know this, they pay, and they can do anything they want. They can animate it! They can put Minnie Mouse up there. You're being compensated for your pain. The alternative is not to sell it. Sue Grafton won't sell Kinsey Milhone. I can understand that and I respect it. But to sell it and start whining is foolish.

Bookpgsara: Why were you less involved?

Susan Isaacs: I wanted to be less involved with it because it would be so big budget. Set in WWII, it was a costume drama. They wanted a real Hollywood pro, one of their own, to write it. Screenwriting is hard, and I didn't want to fight too much. Writing SHINING THROUGH was one of the happiest times I had as a writer. But I didn't want to do it again. There's a lot I admired about the movie. Visually it was beautiful. But I think it was doomed to be different from my book because of the stars. Griffith was not anywhere close to Linda Voss. They got nervous she wouldn't bring in enough foreign business so they hired Douglas. It became the Melanie and Michael story instead of the story of one heroic woman. They'd asked me who I wanted and I'd said Debra Winger and Anthony Hopkins.

Question: Who do you see playing the characters in a movie of Lily White?

Susan Isaacs: It's a done deal, or almost a done deal. Disney has optioned it for Whoopi Goldberg. I'm absolutely delighted about that. I'm not going to write it. It's currently being written. I'll co-produce it. With Whoopi. That's the extent of my involvement.

Bookpgsara: But having Whoopi, an African American woman, play Lily adds a whole new meaning to the term "Lily White."

Susan Isaacs: Yes. I said to Whoopi: "So you're going to play a Long Island Jew?" She responded "I could." And she's right! She has the two key qualities ---intelligence and humor. I would much rather have that than race, ethnicity. That's less important. Also, Whoopi has the reputation of being a decent, nice person to work with. That means a lot in this business.

Question: What do you have planned for the future?

Susan Isaacs: I've written the screenplay for AFTER ALL THESE YEARS. Now it's in the hands of God and the William Morris Agency. I'm writing another novel.

Bookpgsara: What is that about?

Susan Isaacs: It starts off briefly at the end of the last century with an immigrant Jewish couple. They have 2 kids. The daughter stays in NYC. The son, a bit of a rogue, hops a train and gets thrown off in Wyoming for cheating at poker. I trace the family through these two until I get to the man and woman in today's time. The question is "What is an American? Is there a common thread? Is there a national character that makes us different?" Because it covers 100 years and the setting in Wyoming, I had to do a lot of research -- including going to Wyoming.

Question: Do you consider yourself a funny person? Your books are hysterical - I loved Lily White - the one liners are great!

Susan Isaacs: No, because I'm not particularly funny in person. Whatever comes out in my books doesn't come out in me. Now I have this reputation as being witty, I can say "Please pass the peas" and people think it's clever.

Question: What other writers' works do you read?

Susan Isaacs: Right now, Philip Roth's new book. I love it (AMERICAN PASTORAL). This knocked my socks off. I'll read anything by Styron, Anne Tyler. I also like Sara Paretsky, King. I read lots of different types. When I'm writing, I don't read fiction except this Roth--- I couldn't resist it! Any writer with a strong voice, whether it's Parker or Updike, the good voice is very seductive. Part of my talent is having that ear, so I don't want to be Susan Isaacs and then all of a sudden go off for a bit and sound like John Updike. That's a very strange combination.

Question: Which of your characters do you most identify with?

Susan Isaacs: I think the two Long Island women-- Rosie Meyers in COMPROMISING POSITIONS and Judith Singer in AFTER ALL THESE YEARS. Except for their adventures, their lives and thoughts are closer to my own. Steve Brady in MAGIC HOUR, from his hairy chest down to his, whatever, size 12 feet is too far away from me.

Question: If they were to make a movie of your life, who would you cast to be you?

Susan Isaacs: What a great question! Not Julia Roberts. Someone good-natured, with a tighter ass and one less chin.

Bookpgsara: Sounds like Whoopi Goldberg.

Susan Isaacs: She could do me.

Question: Who will play the male roles in LILY WHITE?

Susan Isaacs: It really depends on when it's being shot and who Whoopi feels comfortable with. Since one of the main characters is black in the book, it will depend on what race the director and Whoopi decide. They all could be black, or white except for Whoopi.

Question: Any words of advice you would give an aspiring writer?

Susan Isaacs: Yes, avoid writing classes. You have one thing as a writer: that's your own voice. If you go into a class, the first thing they'll tell you to do is write in the style of a famous writer. Immediately, you're being taught to mimic. You're not doing the one thing you have to do which is tell yourself a story, listen to the sound of your own voice. You're writing to please the teacher instead of yourself. What comes out of those classes is generic New Yorker short stories, few of them good enough to be in the New Yorker. Did Austen get a Master's? Did Dostoevski have a writing workshop? There's nothing wrong with these 2-day courses where you can get a few pointers on getting published and finding an agent, but no one can teach you how to write. All they can do is make a good writer so self-conscious, she gets into an artistic knot who can't get untied.

Bookpgsara: It has been a real pleasure talking with you. We'll all be waiting for the next book --- and reading LILY WHITE at the beach. Thanks for coming.

Susan Isaacs: Thank you for having me. It's been fun.

Marlene T: Thank you Sara and Ms. Isaacs.

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