Carole DeSanti and THE UNRULY PASSIONS OF EUGENIE R: The Next Big Thing

 

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The following is a guest post from the brilliant Carole DeSanti! I met her last summer at the Taos Summer Writers' Conference and meeting her was one of my favorite parts of 2012. Her book is amazing. Here is her version of "Ten Interview Questions for The Next Big Thing." 

 

Thank you, Sarah Sentilles, for inviting me to be a part of The Next Big Thing, a blog-based vehicle for writers supporting writers.  Click on Sarah’s link to find out more about her novel-in-progress, and check out her previous books – smart, provocative, full of courage and beautifully written.  I’m writing about the paperback release of my novel, long in the making, and grateful to be venturing further into the world in a new format.

 

What is your title of your book (or story)? 

The Unruly Passions of Eugénie R.  

 

Where did the idea come from for the book?

The Unruly Passions of Eugénie R.  arose from a desire to flee the pressures of 20th/21st century  commercial publishing (i.e. my day job) to escape back into the earlier love that brought me to novels in the first place.  As a young editor, I sometimes felt like a courtesan of literary life – if the publisher thought something would sell and dropped it on my desk, I worked on it -- from diet books to erotica.  I supplicated bestselling authors and pretended to like things I didn’t, which was hard going, because for me, reading is an intimate, personal act.  I started reading about 19th century prostitution to better understand the instrumentalism of business life and what it was doing to me.  Eugénie R. is what she loves:  she mourns for the part of herself that could once say, “I love, therefore I am.”  The first line she spoke to me was, “How does a woman learn to doubt herself?”   And, from there, came my own passion to bring back what was lost – a voice that would not have been heard in its own time – because such women were not allowed to speak publicly; they were denied a voice in their world.  I wanted to breathe life back into the “phantom limb” of her story.  It still ached to be heard, to be of use. Not to be forgotten.

 

What genre does your book fall under?

The Unruly Passions is a literary historical novel.  If I were to invent my own genre, I might call it a fictional memoir, though….

 

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? 

The story of a young woman’s loves, losses, and coming to consciousness in the wild tumult of Paris’s Second Empire, leading into the Franco Prussian War and the Paris Commune period.

 

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? 

This novel reads more like a 19th century novel than it is like present-day historical fiction, but my comparisons of choice would be Hilary Mantel, or A.S. Byatt, or Rose Tremain – I can only aspire!  

 

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? 

It is represented by an agency.

 

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? 

I worked on it for more than a decade, researching and writing, revising extensively, and traveling to all the locations of the story, more than once. There were so many drafts that I can’t begin to say which was the first.

 

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I was inspired by the need to tell a story that had not been told; by the work of devoted historians, by the now-silent voices of history.  By the beauty of the French countryside. Discoveries along the way…a piece of bread in a bottle at the Carnavalet Museum in Paris. A lady’s umbrella at the textile archive in Norwich, UK. A chance conversation; a worn-away 19th century advertisement on a wall in New York City.  A long project requires ongoing inspiration, and I was inspired by learning to create the magic that sustained me through it. And  I came back again and again to a quote from Stendhal, “the logic of passion is insistent.”  I felt the passion and the insistence; I wanted to understand its logic and where it would lead.

 

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

It’s the story of an old love rekindled; a child abandoned and the search for reconnection in a society set against that.  Love and friendship between women, perhaps more than anything.  It’s about the way we exploit one another, care for one another; falter, and regain faith.  This is really a giant banquet of a novel, a sprawling beast; more like life and less like a script.  The historical period has been deeply researched and is accurate, from the Salon system for arts promotion to the military, to the way children were fostered by the state.  No short cuts were taken.   No easy outs! 

 

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

When I heard Marion Cotillard speak recently in New York, describing how she prepares for her roles (which sounded a lot like the writing process) for the first time I could envision a film version of this novel. Stephan de Chaveignes – the young Jeremy Irons – who is that today?  Pierre Chasseloup – Dan Stevens. Madame Jouffroy, Christine Baranski.     Jolie (the lesbian revolutionary)….Jody Foster?

 

The Unruly Passions of Eugénie R.   will be available in paperback on March 26, 2013.  For more, please visit www.caroledesanti.net.

I’m now passing the torch to two very interesting and talented writers. Emily Winslow: http://emilywinslow.wordpress.com.  Her last novel The Start of Everything, is on the top of my to-read pile. I did a great deal of research for Unruly Passions in Cambridge, UK, and I always thought it would the perfect place to set a mystery.

And the delightful Paula Longhurst, who I had the pleasure of meeting at The King’s English Bookstore in Salt Lake City.  Her blog is: http://englishrosesloverain.blogspot.com/2013/01/next-big-thing-blog-hop.html

 

 

 

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