Readers Place

Alice Hoffman interview/review

1. I’ve just seen the book cover of your Blackbird House and wonder if you have any input to cover design?

The cover is really up to the artist — I have been pleasantly surprised and have liked all of my covers, especially Blackbird House. It’s interesting to see how another artist views the same material.

1. Also, are you planning on appearing in the UK? And is there any significance to the breeding of a BLUE rose in your last book [The Probable Future]??

I’ll be in the UK on the publication of my book Blackbird House. For ages people have been trying to create a blue rose, but blue is not in the pigment range for roses. It’s symbolic of a quest that can never be completed, a dream that is impossible to possess in one’s waking life. The River King has just been filmed by a British director, Nick Willing, and I hope will be completed next year. It stars Edward Burns and Jennifer Ehle.

1. In Blackbird House was the house at the centre of the novel based on a house you know? Do you have a particular place in mind when you write – I wondered the same about Cake House in The Probable Future?

Although I didn’t base Cake House on a real house, Blackbird House is based on an old farm I own on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. It was falling apart, in ruins, and we rebuilt it, all the while thinking of the past lives lived inside our rooms.

1. What were the books that most influenced your life and your career as a writer?

My favourite book is Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte — I could read it again and again. As a child, I loved anything with magic, especially Mary Poppins and fairy tales.

In both Here on Earth and The Probable Future I found your portrayal of the difficulties experienced by adolescent girls and their mothers to be fantastically accurate. Have you had first hand experience of difficult teenagers?

I have adolescent sons, but I very much remember the difficult teenaged girl that I was! And I remember how intense that time of life is. I have longed for a daughter, and writing about mothers and daughters allows me to experience that — at least on paper!

1. Which of your books do you feel most proud of?

I’m very proud of a book I wrote called Green Angel, written after 9/11. It’s an exploration of loss and sorrow and the meaning of literature in our lives.

1. Your portrayal of life in a small town is vivid and convincing and at times even quite claustrophobic for the reader where did you get your inspiration for these towns that frequently appear in your novels? Are they based on anywhere you have lived?

Although I’ve never lived in a small town, I feel that we all live in communities that can feel “small”. I often write about closed communities — an island, a small town, an isolated farm.

1. Nature is a strong feature in your novels, being at the centre of some amazing description as well as a controlling force over your characters. What led you to create such a powerful tie between humans and nature?

I’m always interested in the interplay between the natural world and the human world. Who we are is so influenced by where we live and by circumstance — a storm, a flood, can change everything.

1. Do you ever base your characters on people you know and have any of them been autobiographical?

My characters aren’t based on real people — I think each one has a little part of me at the core. It’s as if I threw a mirror on the floor and it shattered —- each shard would have a tiny bit of my essence, but none would be me. What I love about fiction is the room to imagine and create new people and situations.

1. Have you begun work on your next book yet? If you have can you reveal anything about it?

I have just finished a teen novel set in the Bronze Age about an Amazon girl — it’s an anti-war book about warriors, and I think it’s as much for adults as it is for teens. It’s very different for me, and it was great fun to research a brand new world.