Interview with Pam Jenoff in Tucson, "I please all of the people none of the time"

Tucson Festival of Books 2015. Photo Jesuiseduardo

Pam Jenoff sat on a panel at the Tucson Festival of Books my first year to attend. She shared that she had been a diplomat in Kraków, Poland, and is writing to work through what living there and working on Holocaust issues did to her psyche.

Q: How do you decide what point of view to tell the story?

Jenoff: A friend was reading a book in first person, pretense tense, Jenoff had an AHA moment,

First person, present tense – I had to do that.

She took a snippet of the book she was writing and showed it in different tenses to her agent and to her editor, and asked them to choose their favorite.

Q: How do you start?

Jenoff: I start with an image, and throw down the worst 60,000 words and then try to fix it.

"I knew this terrible thing would happen to the Connally family and I knew the end, but didn't know how they were going to get there." (Reference: The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach, by Pam Jenoff)

Q. How do you research, how do you use the research, how do you not screw up the research?

Jenoff: My mom is from South Philadelphia, and ask her, "Close your eyes and tell me . . .

I love periodicals from the time period and letters from soldiers."

Q: Characters you missed after you left them.

Jenoff: My protagonist is usually a woman in unusual circumstances. The protagonist would have lived a normal life, but is pushed out of her comfort zone.

Q. What are you reading?

Jenoff: reads across all genres, currently reading, A Small Indiscretion, by Jan Ellison.

"I am an avid library person. I'm there four times a week."

Advice:

Jenoff: "You have to write on a schedule. If I was an attorney and said, 'Oh, I just don't feel like writing a brief, today.' I would have lost my job."

Stops when you're tired.

"I can't do plot twisty turning things if I'm fatigued."

Topic:

Jenoff: When looking for a topic, looks for a question she can answer. If she researches too much, she's not writing and in danger of an informational dump.

I please all of the people none of the time.

Reviews

Jenoff: Reads everything, responds, "I always appreciate the chance to learn from my readers."

She is a law school professor. When her law students are afraid to show their work, she tells them, "Read my bad reviews."

Comments

How I got here and why it matters by Carol Doane

When I learned to write complete sentences I had one goal, to write a book. Somewhere in the youthful march through grade school, in some secret place long forgotten, is the book I started. I was seven-years old. I wrote prose, neatly in pencil, on blue lined notebook paper and added tiny illustrations at the top of my chapters. I drew my brother's birthday, bunny cake that celebrated his arrival at the terrible twos with frosting smeared onto his nose by my mother before she took his picture — with a film camera. I wrote about my uncle's visit from the distant country of Texas. I wrote about the way the world hurt and how small I felt. As I raced through school and ploughed down the writing path, I wrote stories and essays that high school teachers returned, scratched with red grammar corrections and tantalizing notes, such as, "This would make a good book." When I graduated college, my reward was to take a break, stop writing, and read what I wanted to

Review: Everything I never told you by Celeste Ng

“Everything here reminds her of what Lydia could have been.” Lydia, a high school student has died and her mother drifts into her room to experience the smells and sensations of the girl who used to inhabit the space. Across town, Lydia’s father has dropped into another woman’s bed and sleeps tranquilly. Nothing in life has happened as it should. Love gets lost in withheld touches and unspoken thoughts. Parents’ expectations are driven into successive generations and serve as baggage rather than inspiration. Words hurt: “ this,” referring to Lydia’s parent’s marriage, “isn’t right.” Words are avoided: mixed, interracial, mismatched. Words that could reassure lay stagnant and not vocalized. Words are smithed to cope: “disappeared, fell in the lake, drowned.” The family’s search to understand the daughter who died, their search for a killer to pin their grief on, the destruction of trust, and the slow melting away of relationships show a family on the brink. The sprint to finish this

The Kommandant's Girl by Pam Jenoff, a book review

Once I got into this book I couldn't put it down. As I began, it plucked at me, though, reminding me that this was a first novel as certain ideas fit too perfectly. Mid-journey, it gathered up fully as the writing swelled and the author stoked the fire of the story. While the final chapters felt slightly contrived as characters reconnected, tension rose, fates sealed, and the living left standing had no other option than to move forward. A solid story, characters you care about and hope the best for. Book : The Kommandant's Girl by Pam Jenoff Source: Purchase. Purchase through our affiliate link, and referral fees donated to Woman of Wonder , a college scholarship fund for women. Print Length: 384 pages

Book Convos with Carol Doane

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