According to Jane

by Marilyn Brant

  Sam pulls me closer, I squeeze him back and we melt together. Our communication right now is silent, too, and effortless.

  I appreciate your leap of faith in him, Jane, I tell her before turning my full attention over to Sam for the night. But I hope you’ll stick around and see for yourself.

  She laughs. Ah, Ellie. You may later regret the invitation, but perhaps I shall. Your challenge gives me reason to stay.

  A very special Q&A with Marilyn Brant

  In which author Marilyn Brant is interviewed by her main character, Ellie Barnett, on the subject of her life as a writer and why, precisely, she wrote this book.

  Ellie (smiling, her pen poised studiously for note taking) : Hey, there, Marilyn.

  Marilyn: Hi, Ellie. How are you doing?

  Ellie: Much better now than I was in the beginning of the book. Thanks for improving my love life, by the way. There were more than a few times I thought, “You know? This dating thing isn’t going too well.” So, I appreciate the upbeat, if still somewhat vague, ending.

  Marilyn: Glad to hear it. I’m always at your service.

  Ellie (clearing her throat) : No, not always. That whole sex-in-the-closet scene was not good. Not good at all. But now isn’t a time to nitpick or lament your painfully vivid authorial imagination. I have some questions here your editor wanted me to ask you, like, How did you become a writer? Was this always your hoped-for career path? Stuff like that.

  Marilyn: Sure. Novelists often interview their characters, so turnabout is fair play, right? Even if, on some level, we both already know the answers.

  Ellie: Stop trying to rationalize this. I asked you a question.

  Marilyn: Fine. Yes, being a writer was always something I wanted. I remember announcing that intention in sixth grade, but it wasn’t taken seriously by anyone around me and, at the time, I didn’t take it all that seriously myself. As a teen, I thought I wanted to be a scientist or, maybe, a detective. I spent a lot of my junior high and high school years observing people and “researching” them. I even went so far as to type out little note cards about guys I was interested in, adding tidbits of information when I discovered a new fact, like his middle name, his favorite food or his professed career goals. I became compulsive about journaling, too, and I’d record snippets of conversations in my nightly entries, along with song lyrics or poems. I listened to music for hours every day and read books the rest of the time. I had kind of an obsessive streak.

  Ellie: Yeah, I know. Your brother told me.

  Marilyn: Very funny. I happen to have a really great relationship with him, so don’t be telling tales.

  Ellie: Hey, that’s what you did with my siblings. You were making up stuff all over the place. I don’t know where you came up with those things about Di…you don’t even have a sister.

  Marilyn: Right. Because this is FICTION. Not MEMOIR. Big difference.

  Ellie (grinning) : Good luck convincing people of that. Finish your story.

  Marilyn: Well, my ability to fixate eventually took a scientific turn in high school biology when I learned about Mendelian genetics. I thought it was such a cool subject, and I began studying it on my own, which led quite a few people to expect me to go into medicine. It’s still a point of mystification and some disappointment to my parents that I didn’t.

  Ellie: But blood freaks you out, you hate needles and the thought of performing surgery makes you nauseous.

  Marilyn: Exactly. I’d have been a dreadful doctor, and you can feel free to remind my family of that anytime. Other people thought I had more of a leaning toward psychology, which, though true, wasn’t my college major, either. Instead, I went into elementary education because I thought little kids were funny, enthusiastic, curious and very honest — characteristics I value highly — and I had an idealistic notion that I could help them hang on to those qualities for longer. Later, while I was teaching but after I’d met my wonderful husband, I got a master’s degree in educational psychology, focusing on the relationship between “creativity” and “culture.”

  Ellie (sighing and glancing at her watch) : Okay. So then you became a writer?

  Marilyn: Um, no. Then I became a mom. And because I wanted to stay home with my son, I was determined to find a way I could do that while still making time for creative projects. This was really important to me. I felt a tremendous responsibility to my newborn to not only be a conscientious mom but a joyful one. To model for him the act of being fulfilled by life. In the process, I rediscovered my love of writing and wanted to do more of it. But, even though I’d always been a bookworm and had done a great deal of academic writing and some journalistic work, fiction was a different game. I started out by writing parenting essays and educational articles for magazines, branched into poetry and short stories, became a national book reviewer and, at the same time, began the process of learning how to structure and orchestrate the writing of a novel. According to Jane was my fifth completed manuscript.

  Ellie: Do all of your books involve Jane Austen?

  Marilyn: Not directly. Much like your experience, I first read Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in high school. It immediately became my favorite novel and Jane my favorite novelist. Remember that obsessive streak? Well, I read everything she wrote and delved into her letters and her biographies, too. Her genius in depicting human character quite literally changed my perceptions of the people around me. I wished I could’ve had her as my guide through the hazards of teen life and beyond. Her influence on my adolescent worldview was profound and, in my opinion, priceless. So, in that way, Jane is a part of everything I write, although this book is the only one I’ve written so far that features her as an actual character.

  Jane (strolling into the room) : What a pleasing commentary. I should like to make an appearance in another of your novels sometime. Provided, of course, that it is one of my choosing.

  Marilyn: Um, well…thanks, Jane. That’s thoughtful of you. I’ll have to talk to my editor, but we’ll see….

  Ellie (scribbling a few more notes) : Didn’t you also formally study Jane’s work and her life, you know, when you got older?

  Marilyn: No need to emphasize the “when I got older” part quite so maliciously, Ellie. But, yes. I did take a class specifically on Austen. It was a fantastic course, and it happened to be taught at Oxford University. When people hear this, they’ll occasionally imply that having studied Jane’s work there gives me a sense of authority in discussing her writing that they don’t have. The truth, though, is that I’m not a big believer in any academic institution, no matter how prestigious, bestowing legitimacy on scholarship. I really think the quality of education is directly proportional to the effort and depth of thought the student puts into it, not necessarily the building in which the class was held.

  Sam (leaning against the doorway, raising an eyebrow) : Kind of reverse snobbery, isn’t it?

  Marilyn: It is not.

  Sam: Is too. You’re gonna piss off the literary scholars by claiming that just anyone who reads a lot of Austen can tap into the small body of knowledge available on her and, if serious about studying her work, can actually know her as well as the academically elite claim to.

  Marilyn (squinting at him) : Who invited you into this converstion? Jane, tell him he’s being obnoxious again. Make him leave.

  Jane: Indeed, he is behaving as uncivilly as usual, but the man, insufferable as he is, may have a valid argument in his favor.

  Sam: What the hell is it with you and the insult slinging? For the last time, I’m not insufferable. No one uses that term anymore anyway, and —

  Ellie: Sam, don’t talk to Jane like that! And, Marilyn, I’ve had a personal relationship with Jane for almost twenty years, and I think that level of intimacy can happen when a writer of her skill and integrity reveals her soul and her truthful observations to the reader. That’s probably why millions of people around the globe feel they know her. That she’s their “dear Jane” — their friend.

  Sam (rolling hi
s eyes) : Some friend.

  Ellie (pointing with her pen) : Leave, Sam. We’ll talk later.

  Sam (shrugging, turns away) : Whatever.

  Ellie: Did you really need to make his character so defensive and difficult, Marilyn? I mean, who is Sam to you? Some guy from your past you were trying to get even with or something?

  Marilyn: Not really. At least not entirely. Sam’s character, as well as that of the other men in the book, are composites of lots of guys. Some I met in real life. And some, like Mr. Darcy, I know only from fiction. Plus, there’s that whole alchemy thing that happens when writers are making up characters. It may be a cliché, but these characters tend to develop a life of their own. They have specific likes, dislikes, agendas. And sometimes they start talking to you. At really inconvenient times.

  Jane (sniffing) : That is utter nonsense. I could always keep my characters under control. They said or did nothing without my consent. And certainly nothing unseemly.

  Marilyn: Well, Jane, that’s because you’re The Master. We all want to be like you.

  Ellie (nodding) : Yeah. You rule.

  Jane: Ladies, you know how I distrust flattery and charm. And I do not tolerate such disingenuousness without mockery.

  Marilyn: We know. But in this case, we’re being honest and sincere. Nothing but the greatest admiration would entice an aspiring novelist to spend four years drafting and revising a story intended to honor another writer’s influence. To a very large extent, you’re why I’m a writer, Jane. This book is to thank you for sharing your astute observations and your extraordinary perceptiveness with me. For enriching my life beyond words on a page. For giving me three-dimensional characters to love for a lifetime. I can’t hope to match your contribution to literature, but how else could I express my gratitude except to attempt to inspire and entertain someone else, sometime, somewhere?

  Ellie (flipping to a new notebook page) : Oooh, Marilyn, that’s good. Let me write that down.

  Marilyn: Thanks, Ellie. I’d appreciate that…

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