The Disrespectful Interviewer: Dissing Adriana Trigiani

by

Lauren Baratz-Logsted

The Disrespectful Interviewer is a semi-regular feature in which your intrepidly disrespectful correspondent is as rude as she likes with prominent writers of the day.

Lauren Baratz-Logsted: This is the most difficult interview I’ve ever had to conduct here. Do you have any idea why that might be the case?

Adriana Trigiani: Because we actually know one another and like one another?

LBL: I’ll tell you why. It’s because you’re so stinking nice. No human being, certainly no writer, could possibly be as nice as you are. What is that, some kind of act?

AT: You give me wayyyy too much credit, Lauren, but I’m gonna take it. I have learned that compliments are as important as mascara that doesn’t run, a self-cleaning oven, and the right shade of lipstick. So, thank you kindly. I am too nice.

LBL: Here’s an example of your insane level of niceness. It’s the very first nice thing you did for me. [Note: It’s not just the first nice thing. It’s the very first nice thing.] Prior to the publication of my debut novel, The Thin Pink Line, I hunted you down like a dog. Well, not you exactly. I hunted down your email address like a dog, but somehow that doesn’t have the same ring to it. Anyway, in that dog-hunting email, I asked if you would read my book with a view toward providing a blurb I could put on the book jacket if you liked it enough. You said yes. You said yes even though I was a nobody, even though you didn’t know me from a hole in the ground, even though it wasn’t some powerful agent or editor asking you for the favor, but rather, just me. Is this ringing any bells for you or are you too busy writing yet another international bestseller to bother answering my questions?

AT: I remember the whole drama of your determination to find me (though I’m easy to find and wonder why it took you so long). There was something about your request that moved me, and made me want to help. And that’s still the case, unless of course this interview heads south, and then, girl, you’re on your own. 

LBL: What I didn’t know at the time of my dog-hunting request for help was that you were about to give birth to your first child in something like five minutes’ time, but still you said yes. You said yes even after I told you that my book was nothing like yours in that my book was acerbic in the extreme. You said that was OK, that you liked acerbic. So then I told you the first line of my book, which cannot be reprinted here because BiblioBuffet policy prohibits such language (Editor’s Note: It does?), and you said, “My, that is acerbic,” and still you said yes. A person can only conclude that you are either a too-nice girl who just cannot say no or pathologically insane. So, which is it?

AT: Neither. I was in that pre-baby state where I was cleaning everything and organizing the house and I needed you and something acerbic, something to get my mind off the fact that I had no idea what was going to happen to life as I knew it once I became a mother. Your novel totally took my mind off of everything. And by the way, I still highly recommend it to readers.

LBL: There’s that niceness—you’re doing it again! Now then. You’ve blurbed a number of books since blurbing mine. As you no doubt know—or perhaps you really don’t know, living in the bestselling glass bubble you reside in—blurbing is a topic of some controversy. Some people claim it’s all just log-rolling, one publishing hand washing the other, and that it’s all just meaningless. I have my own opinion, but that opinion runs to thousands of words, so we’ll leave that for another time. Tell our readers, please: Is the reason you’re willing to take five to ten hours out of your own life to read Suzie Unknown’s novel and give her a blurb just so you can get the free advertising of having your name printed on each of the copies of her 1,000-copy first printing? Because if that’s the case, I think the reading public would be right in assuming you’re just as bad as Oprah trying to ride on Jonathan Franzen’s coattails. What say you?

AT: I have a long memory, and I remember the beautiful writers and artists who helped me when Big Stone Gap was published—John Berendt, Ellie Lipman, Rosanne Cash, Whoopi Goldberg—therefore I am paying their kindness to me forward. These days, I can’t do a lot of blurbing, or at least the amount of manuscripts that come in the door because of my deadlines. Having said that, I try try, try, try to blurb when I am asked because it’s one of the ways I can help fellow writers get the word out about their work. A blurb is not meaningless if it helps sell a book. Having said that, I blurbed the novel The Help, before its great and monumental and deserved success (I love Katie Stockett) and some of my readers wrote in that they were happy I blurbed it—and just as many, if not more, had no idea of the endorsement. So you see, if you’re a reader who looks at blurbs, then they may encourage you, but if you’re a reader who doesn’t, well, then you’re a reader who doesn’t. I don’t think blurbing a book has ever helped sell one of mine, but of course, I was raised that you do a nice thing, to do a nice thing, not to polish your own horn. 

LBL: Blowing your own horn—you make that sound so sexual. But getting back to this blurb you wrote for my first novel. You said that anyone with ovaries or anyone who has ever even dreamt of having ovaries should read my book. You didn’t say it in exactly those words but the sentiment was obvious. A few people with ovaries did read my book, and at least one male librarian in the Midwest who said he’d always wanted to know what it would feel like to be pregnant read it as well. But sadly, not everyone with ovaries read it. Do you have any idea what I’d be doing if more people listened to your blurb?

AT: Lauren, you can not and must not EVER judge your novel on how many it has sold so far. You have NO idea what will happen to your novel in the future. The beauty of a well-written novel is that it can be discovered at any time—so don’t hold yourself to the shackles of instant success. You wrote a book and it was published, and it’s wonderful—that, in and of itself is a triumph. Don’t forget that. Think mountain climbing; pick, step, pick, step.

LBL: Actually, I’ve had eighteen books published, so it’s been quite a bit of picking, stepping, picking, stepping. But never mind that. I’ll tell you what I’d be doing. I’d be spending the rest of my life on a beach somewhere, sipping tropical drinks and crying “Ole!” as needed, instead of sitting here conducting this interview while listening to the laundry spin in the little alcove next to my basement cave, AKA my office. OK, I’m starting to feel bitter. Channel one of those nicey-nice women from one of your bestselling books—how about that Italian itch from your insanely successful Big Stone Gap series?—and say something to cheer me up, preferably something “hilarious and heartwarming” as your website promises.

AT: I just wrote a line in the Very Valentine screenplay: Aunt Feen, a curmudgeon who says something negative to Valentine, says, “What do you want from me? Every time I burp, I taste bitter.” Now, you do NOT want to be HER. The only thing you can do is keep writing—and very often, that book living inside you waiting to be written will open the door to more readers for The Thin Pink Line. This is a marathon, not a sprint.

LBL: I ask you for hilarious and heartwarming and you give me a lecture about marathon running? I said I wanted to talk to the girl from Big Stone Gap, not this Aunt Feen person. Anyway, The Thin Pink Line did plenty of well for a first novel. It just didn’t do retire-early well or even necessarily retire-ever well. But who cares? I still can’t let this blurb thing go. So I ask you to read my book with a view toward providing me with a blurb, you say yes, you read the book and respond back with a blurb in like record time—not like some authors whose names I could mention but won’t, mostly because it’s such a long list. Then about five minutes after that you pop your baby out. And five minutes after that, I see you on the Today show! I have to admit, I may have asked you to blurb my book, but I hadn’t really realized what a big-deal author you were until that moment. I also hadn’t realized how deep your voice is until you opened your mouth and some words came out. Here’s something readers would really like to know: If your voice were a musical instrument, which instrument would it be?

AT: A saxophone. 

LBL: Really? You hear yourself as a saxophone? You have such healthy self-esteem. But who cares about that either? Your daughter should be the right age now to enjoy The Sisters 8 series I created with my own husband and daughter. Do you think you could get her booked on the Today show so she could verbally blurb my book to millions of viewers? If so and you mail me money for postage, I’d be happy to send her copies of the first five books. I hate to ask for postage money but I’m sure you’ll understand since I’m not a bestselling author which I would be if only your blurb of my first book had delivered in a big-enough ovary way.

AT: I’ll buy the books!

LBL: OK, I think we’ve talked about this blurb business enough. What is it with you? Don’t you ever talk about anything else?

AT: I am here and receptive to all that is on your mind, including blurbs.

LBL: I know—we could spend some time talking about what else you can do for me! Your husband Tim Stephenson is an Emmy award-winning lighting designer of the Late Show with David Letterman. Do you think he could get me on there? I promise not to ask Dave any questions about his sex scandal. I’m actually in Dave’s corner on that one! We high-profile people will not be blackmailed by fortune-hunting thugs! And I promise not to compliment him on his interview with Charles Manson, which is what my brother-in-law did years ago when he painted Dave’s house, apparently confusing Dave with Tom Snyder.

AT: Hilarious. I am laughing so hard at that mix-up—that is really what it means to be in the public eye! I’ve been mistaken for the actress/writer/star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and once on a plane, a lady asked for my autograph. I said, “I’m not her.” And she went back to her seat and halfway through the flight, she came back with a napkin, and she said, “Either sign this or I’ll tell the entire plane who you are and you’ll have to sign all the napkins.” So, I signed, Love, Nia Vardalos on the napkin.

LBL: Give yourself credit for spelling Vardalos correctly on a napkin. Now let’s see, what else can you do for me . . .  You may not remember this, because you probably do this for every single insignificant author who waits in line for your autograph at Book Expo America, but back in 2004 I was in Chicago to do my own book-signing for Crossing the Line while you were there to promote yet another soon-to-be bestseller. We had never met in person. I waited in your line, which snaked all over the place—there were easily hundreds of people waiting to meet you. When I got to the front, I propped my name badge on your signing counter. You recognized the name, shrieked, came around the corner and hugged me like it was Old Home Week. For readers who are having trouble getting a visual on this—oh, do I wish I had a picture! —you’re about a foot taller than me. Put it like this, if female mud-wrestling ever comes to publishing, you will kick my ask-me-no-more-questions. Anyway, after the recognizing and the shrieking and the hugging, you asked me when my own signing was, I told you, and you then proceeded to announce to the throngs waiting for your autograph, “This is Lauren Baratz-Logsted. You need to go to her book-signing at three.” That was such an insanely nice and insanely generous thing to do. I can’t imagine any other author doing such a thing. Well, at BEA 2003, Al Franken—the one who’s now a U.S. senator—held up a copy of The Thin Pink Line and told everyone in his line to get in my line next, but that’s a whole other story and not at all the same thing. Anyway, here’s my question: I doubt I’ll be at BEA next year, but I’m sure you will be. So do you think maybe you could just tell every single person you meet there to just buy my books?

AT: I will do it with relish and gladly. You can count on tall, old me. And evidently, sharp new senator Franken. Sidebar: I had dinner with Al and his wife, John Markus (brilliant television writer) and Bill Persky and Joanna Patton. Al was smart long before he was a senator.  

LBL: As a matter of fact, maybe you could do that at every publishing event you ever attend forever. If you want, I could get you a sandwich board made up and you could just wear that everywhere you go. How do you feel about sandwiches?

AT: I like roasted red pepper with Lucini olive oil on fresh Italian bread.

LBL: Good. Could you make the sandwiches? I’m getting hungry here. Oh, and one other thing. It’s nice that in the section of your website reserved for your “Favorite Things & Virtual Bookshelf” you have a link to my website and a picture of one of my books, Crazy Beautiful. I get a lot of traffic in terms of people coming from your site to mine, so I’m not ungrateful, but I’ve had other books come out since Crazy Beautiful. I’d hate to have readers of your website think that I haven’t had anything published since 2009 and that my career is dying on the vine, so do you think maybe you could update things a bit?

AT: Absolutely. Don’t be shy and send me all the information.

LBL: Hold on a second—I see what you’ve been doing here! You’ve been using your niceness to get me to go on and on about myself in a self-absorbed kind of way, your nefarious goal being to distract me from asking the tough questions. Well, I’m on to you, missy—there’ll be no more of that! Do you ever get tired of people treating books written primarily by, for and about women as some sort of second-class literary citizen?

AT: There is nothing second class about women. And there is nothing second class about what we read, write or do. Get on the bus, Lauren.

LBL: I am on the bus. Sometimes, I’m even driving the bus! (See This is Chick-Lit.) But it can’t have escaped your notice, how dismissive . . . Feh. I’m depressing myself again. Moving on. Your readers have come to expect a certain kind of book from you—“hilarious and heartwarming”—and I imagine that if you elected to write, say, a serial-killer thriller next, a few people would be disappointed, not least of whom would be your publisher. If not for the usual publishing concerns of an author writing outside her own box, is there a genre or even a specific book that you’d just love to take on?

AT: I’m doing what I love, and I shall stick with that until my death.

LBL: Which published book, outside of one of mine, of course, do you wish you’d written?

AT: None. I love to read your books to appreciate the world you create and what you’re thinking—and this is true of any book I pick up to read. To each her own.

LBL: You wrote bestsellers for adults for a long time but last year you came out with Viola in Reel Life, a Young Adult novel. What’s up with that? Are you just trying to cash in on a hot trend?

AT: Nope. I have an eight-year-old daughter and wanted to write a book about girls that might encourage them and challenge them, as opposed to not doing those two things. If I were ever to cash in on a trend, I’d write a book about vampires or  unsolved murders at the Vatican.

LBL: A lot of writers who started out writing for adults now write for teens too. There’s you, Francine Prose—I’ll bet you could take her at female mud-wrestling too—and many others, including John Grisham. Do you know John Grisham? If so, could you ask him to start telling everyone he meets to buy my books too?

AT: John Grisham is a good guy. And he’s tall and handsome, and happily married. But you can dream. Furthermore, you have to ask him to promote your books. Begging builds character—trust me. I know.

LBL: Better yet, ask him if he’ll blurb me. (That sounds so much more sexual when I say it about him than when I say it about you. I wonder why that is? Probably because you’re so nice.) What’s the cruelest review anyone’s ever written about one of your books? Feel free to quote a snippet. We love cruel snippets here at DI. Makes us feel less lonely and makes us like you better.

AT: I don’t read the reviews, which makes for great fun when the paperback comes out and I read the lovely things that were lifted from them, making me wish I had read them when they were new. Having said that, nobody has been cruel—picky, yes, and pushing me to do my best, yes, but mean for the sake of it, not yet.

LBL: On your website you have a section called “Adriana Trigiani Tours” which looks to be real-life tours that readers can go on . . . to Italy! Are you the only author that does something like this? (I wish Martha Grimes would organize one for the twenty-two pubs in England and the U.S. that provide the titles for her Richard Jury mystery series, because I’d take that tour—hic!) Can you tell us a little bit about these tours?

AT: We’ve (Gina Casella and I) formed a company that she runs, that builds tours around the locations in my novels. The first is happening right now (August 2010), with more planned for next year. It was an idea hatched on the Isle of Capri. I had gone over with Gina to study shoemaking, and she has worked extensively in importing/exporting, is fluent in Italian and was looking for love in her career. I said, “Why don’t you do a tour like the one you created for me?” And bells went off—and here we are. For those who might not go to Italy (or Big Stone Gap!) without a guide, these are tours built for you: personal, illuminating, adventurous and FUN.

LBL: Wow, I’ve come to the end of my question quota. This is the part where I usually say one last rude thing to the interviewee, something along the lines of “I need to go catch up on General Hospital. I’ve gotten used to NuMichael but I’m still having problems with NuMorgan. Once I’m gone, you’re free to talk however much you want to.” But somehow I can’t bring myself to do that. [GH watchers alert: Brenda is coming back today after seven years away but I think if female mud-wrestling ever came to Port Charles, Carly could so take her.] I can’t bring myself to do it because you’ve always been so nice to me and I don’t even really know why. You read and blurbed my book when you should have been having fun with false contractions or worrying about what to wear to seduce Matt Lauer, you told people at BEA to go to my signing when you could have just said “nice to see you, Suzie Unknown,” you put my website link and my book on your own website (please update that), and you sat through this entire interview which can’t possibly have been as exciting as when the New York Times comes calling. You really are that nice. So thank you. Will you be my friend?

AT: Friends forever. I am a little in love with Johnny Zacchara, and a little in love with Jason Morgan now that he has stopped killing people while enjoying a stint in prison. Carly’s hair is perfect, and so is Olivia’s bella figura. Nicholas makes me nervous, his eyes dart around like he’s gonna kill somebody or steal fudge when no one is looking. Dante is headed for a fall, and Lulu needs a reality pill. Sonny will eventually have his own cooking show on cable access in Port Charles. Anthony Geary is a great actor, and so is Tracy who plays his wife. How do I know all of this? One of my mentors, June Lawton, was a GH fan from the start, and when she died, I read an article that said dead people can watch TV because the afterlife is on the same wavelength as planet earth. So, I’m an early to bedder and would leave the TV on with Soapnet—so June could watch GH. One day, months later, I woke up with a knowledge of everything that happens in Port Charles. Not kidding. So you can joke about a lot of things, but not GH. It seeped into my brain like great literature. Thanks for a great online experience—it’s almost as fun as Overstock.com on a rainy day.

Win a free copy of The Education of Bet! We will be giving away a copy of her latest young adult novel, The Education of Bet, to this week’s lucky winner. To enter, send us an e-mail with your name. That’s it. For this drawing, all names received on or before Friday, September 3, will be entered, and the winner’s name will be drawn that evening. We will notify the winner over the weekend. Only one entry per person, please. (We apologize to our international readers, but due to high postage costs we can only mail books to U.S. addresses.) There is no obligation, and your name and address will not be saved by BiblioBuffet or used for any purpose other than mailing the books.

Lauren Baratz-Logsted has sold twenty-three books to six publishers since 2003. Her published novels include The Thin Pink Line and Vertigo for adults; The Education of Bet for teens, Me, In Between for tweens; and the first five of The Sisters 8, a nine-book series for young readers, co-written with her novelist husband Greg Logsted and their ten-year-old daughter Jackie. Later in 2010 she'll have two more books published, including the sixth title in The Sisters 8 series and the YA novel The Twin's Daughter. Lauren still lives in Danbury, CT, where she writes and reads pretty much all the time. You can read more about Lauren’s life and work (and contact her) at her personal website and the Sisters 8 site. Contact Lauren.