Author Julie Gilbert Discusses the Writing of Her New Book ‘Giant Love’
Julie Gilbert Today, we delve into the enduring relevance of the themes explored by Pulitzer Prize -winning author Edna Ferber
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This week’s story, “ Between the Shadow and the Soul ,” is about a fifty-year-old woman named Eliza who has taken early retirement from her job. For the first time in her life, she finds herself with nothing to do. How destabilizing is this moment for her? Eliza has a lot of me in her—so much so that I even gave her a piece of my middle name, Elizabeth—and perhaps it’s unresolved Calvinism or internalized and unexamined capitalism, maybe it’s even embedded in our DNA from Mennonite/Amish ancestors, but both the character and I get a great deal of our daily pleasure from working extremely hard. In all honesty, I’m pretty exhausted right now; there’s a little wish fulfillment in my giving Eliza a sudden forced rest. But neither of us find ourselves happy with enormous swaths of free time, and the more I have, the less I find myself engaged with the world around me. Eliza’s retirement changes everything about who she imagines herself to be. Eliza and her husband, Willie, have spent most of their married life renovating an old stone house by a river. It’s now finished—and beautiful. Does it represent a vision of the future? Or a way of not thinking about the future? A house is always more than a house. It’s a larger, far more durable body we can build and shore up against the elements to protect our small, animal bodies from the world. The urge to perfect a house is an urge to make a safer and more beautiful life. This is why home-renovation shows on television are so deeply satisfying: the trajectory is always toward greater beauty and safety. I think Eliza and Willie’s work on the house is an attempt to drive themselves toward a more stable future. When did you come up with the title? Was it in place from the beginning or something that came to you later? Did you want to make a connection with Pablo Neruda’s poem? Neruda’s poem—“One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII”—has always been a secret talisman for me, evocative and rich and true, […]
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Julie Gilbert Today, we delve into the enduring relevance of the themes explored by Pulitzer Prize -winning author Edna Ferber
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