Tuesday Shorts interviews Jacquelyn Mitchard

The following interview with Jacquelyn Mitchard was conducted by Tuesday Shorts editor Kristen Tsetsi and was originally published in TS on April 23, 2007.

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Jacquelyn Mitchard, who began her writing career as a journalist, is the author of seven adult fiction novels (to include the famed Oprah's Book Club-starter The Deep End of the Ocean, which was later made into a movie starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Treat Williams) and three works of children's fiction.

Her latest, the YA novel Now You See Her, was released in February of this year.

Tuesday Shorts: Reporting or fiction writing?

Jacquelyn Mitchard: I would choose fiction, much as I love journalism, because fiction permits me to create my own universes.

TS: What was the best part and the worst part of having The Deep End of the Ocean turned into a movie? Were you given final approval over the script?

JM: There was no worst part, except that it was a 'family' movie and didn't stay long in theaters. I loved all parts of it; and I think that when authors permit their books to be made into movies, they relinquish the right to whine about the scriptwriter's vision. I had my chance to tell the story. And someone else told it another way.

TS: If you were to choose another of your books to be made into a movie, which would you want it to be?

JM: I would choose 'The Most Wanted' or the as-yet unpublished 'Still Summer.' They rock with adventure as well as (I hope) having some insight into why no one really is a hero or a villain.

TS: In what room of your house do you spend most of your time when you're not writing? What are you doing in there?

JM: You assume there is a time I'm not writing! I spend most of my time when I'm not writing in my bedroom, which is a place that is opulent and soothing and has my two favorite paintings on the walls.

TS: You said in one of your interviews, "I, myself, sometimes think I have the soul of a rebellious teenage boy." How does the rebelliousness manifest itself, and why does it strike you as a boy's?

JM: I have five sons. For four years, I raised them alone. I learned a bit about the way boys and men think. I have only one sibling, a brother; and we are very close. I don't seem to enjoy all the things women enjoy (maybe because I'm a klutz) such as crafts and baking and dressing up in pretty things. I'm more of an adventurer. I like to fish and SCUBA dive and ride horses that buck me off. I'm the primary wage earner; and I think my dreams were always male-type dreams: I never imagined being cared for but of being the one responsible.

When I was single, I was told I "dated" in the way a guy dates -- whatever that means. I think it means that I didn't get all misty-eyed over every nice guy I met, nor did I encourage ideas of permanence. I just wanted to have fun. Mainly, I think that the way men show their feelings is entirely different from the common wisdom: I think they're like that old toy: The Visible Man. You can see right through them. I want to howl like a beagle when I get a great review that says "Mitchard isn't as gifted at creating male characters,' when my characters Vincent Cappadora in 'The Deep End of the Ocean' and Gabe Steiner in 'The Breakdown Lane' were seen by writers who are praised for their understanding of male sensibility -- such as Stephen King -- as wonderful examples of realism.

At the end of the day, I have no idea why I said that, except I think I "get" the young man's psyche better than almost anything else.

TS: In another interview, you mentioned that your least favorite work (and I won't ask you what it was) turned out to be a "klinker" because the editor who ended up with it (after the original editor, who liked it, went to work for a new publisher) wanted you to rewrite the whole thing. The end result was, as you put it, like "banana-fana-fofana," and "it spoiled the broth of what was probably a halfway decent idea at one point." You said you wanted to run off to Brazil wearing a clown nose after the book was released, but it must have been just as frustrating to have to go against your instincts and make the changes in the first place. Do you have more creative control over what you write, now, than you once did?

JM: No. I have no greater control -- less, if possible, since there are fewer editors; they're busier; there are more authors and less time for each of us. I'm not Nicholas Sparks, which is okay, or Toni Morrison. I don't have the power of the $600-million-dollar author to insist that my deathless prose be unedited by anyone.

That novel to which you refer, which really did have a halfway decent premise, was affected by the fact that two editors had entirely different sensibilities. People see a book through the filter of their own experiences; and even if they know better, they believe their own sensibilities are the only ones that are valid. For instance, I once was told by an editor, "Oh, no one in New York buys anything online because we have so many stores." HELLO! If a person has a child who's very independent, he or she won't understand a character who is immature and clingy. The editor will think that's "unrealistic." The only time it really drives me wacky is the time when an editor says not that his or her husband, wife, daughter.. whoever… wouldn't react that way but that no one would react that way. I really have only one editor, or one and a half, who trusts my judgment.

TS: If you were to impart any one piece of advice [not confined to writing], one piece of overall wisdom that you've come to believe in the course of your life, what would it be?

JM: You don't have to tell everything you know.

TS: What were you like as a teen?

JM: I had many great acquaintances and a few good friends -- although I was a very private person and held my thoughts very close to the vest. I thought I would be a biologist. Some days, I wish I was. I would love to have been a doctor, not a doctor of people but a researcher. A character in an upcoming novel is a biologist who studies bats. I love bats. If I had to be something else now, I would be a radio talk-show host.

TS: Everybody has one thing they don't particularly enjoy about their job - maybe it's the hours, or having to punch out to use the restroom, or how far away parking is. My husband, for example, loves flying and can't wait to start doing it full time, but I'm sure he'll complain about not getting enough hours at some point, or - if we end up moving to the midwest - having to do a preflight in -20 weather. What's the thing you're most likely to complain about when it comes to writing for a living?

JM: Well, there's the anguish and the every-single-dayness of it. Because I do it alone, no one has any idea how much time it takes. If it burned calories, I'd weigh as much as Kate Moss. Because I do it alone, I never know if I'm doing it well or badly. Because I do it alone, I don't have as much time for friends; and I have lost friends this way -- simply because I didn't have enough time in my life. Travel? When I GET THERE, I love being with readers. I love the places, the accents, the sights. When I leave to go on the road, I want to cry my brains out because I have to leave my family. Although I do like working at home, in my sweat pants and t-shirt, I do also miss having job security. I have none at all. Any book I write could be the last book I write. Any book I write could end up unpublished.

TS: You said (in yet another interview), "I have a passion to have my books be like life. In real life, you can't tell all the time who the good guys and bad guys are, and a lot of times people are a mixture of both things. Either they are very flawed people who have moments of extraordinary grace, or they're very good people who have moments of self-centered or self-destructive behavior." Has there been a character you've written who you truly love for his or her redeeming qualities, but who your readers just don't like?

JM: Beth Cappadora in 'The Deep End of the Ocean' was truly despised by many readers for her heartless selfishness in seeming to reject her other children after her son, Ben, was kidnapped. People told me that they just knew that if they lost a child, they'd draw closer to the others. In fact, a person who's clinically depressed finds it difficult to draw close to anyone. Also, Beth didn't feel she deserved her other children. She felt that her guilt over "losing" Ben made her an unfit mother -- and she knew that her husband felt that too. And people were annoyed that it took her so long to "get over it."

I had just been widowed when I began to write this book. And you never get over it. You have a limp that no one can see, forever. You may be happy. You may feel joy. But you will never be unmarked by this loss. I absolutely loved Beth. In the end, she alone was the one who had the courage to do what was right for her son. I knew that, if I were she, I'd have reacted in the same way, despite my best effort to be brave and cheerful. I don't think many people have been through what she experienced; so -- you know -- it's easy for people to explain exactly what they would do.

Bonus question: What's your favorite meal to make for dinner?

If you're looking for good home cooking, your best bet be is to find another home...That said, I make my own pasta with my kids; and it's fun. And I make an exceptionally thick, rich spaghetti sauce that my Sicilian godmother taught me to make. In August, I make up to twenty-five quarts, to taste summer all year long.


For more information on Jackie Mitchard, whose 100-word short appeared as Tuesday Shorts' first contribution, please visit her website.