Today I am thrilled to welcome Marilyn Brant to Great Thoughts’ Great Authors. Marilyn’s new book, A Summer in Europe, is fabulous. My review is here.
Getting to blog about books and travel is like getting to snack on both gelato and milk chocolate salted caramel squares… For me, it doesn’t get any better! So, first of all, many thanks to Andrea for inviting me to visit Great Thoughts today. It’s truly a pleasure.
Being that I wrote a novel called A Summer in Europe and did, in fact, spend several summers abroad (back in those more carefree, pre-parenthood days), it’s no surprise to anyone who knows me that I love to travel. I always have. My family would be the first to tell you that my wanderlust predated even my love of writing. I got my first passport when I was two, and I haven’t been without once since, even when I couldn’t afford to travel any further than the borders of my home state—Wisconsin.
But, while writers must typically go through years of apprenticeship to get to a place where they know their craft and have gained
enough skill to juggle the elements of storytelling reasonably well, almost every novelist I know spent several decades simply observing. Seeing as a fiction writer…long before they acquired the narrative mastery of one.
So, it’s been quite interesting for me, personally, to field questions about the writing of this new book. Many readers assumed I was in Europe recently or had actually done research for the novel while overseas. Oh, I wish that were the case! But, no. I haven’t been to Europe in almost 15 years. As I was working on some of the book’s chapters, I would invariably come upon a detail I needed that I either didn’t know or couldn’t remember. Wikipedia is an excellent tool in such instances! There are scores of European details that can be looked up online—from the floor plan of the Louvre Museum to the specific times hovercrafts travel between Sorrento and the Isle of Capri to the lyrics of an Andrew Lloyd Webber song and where, exactly, you can hear it performed live in London. At some point or other, I hunted for all of these and many more.
But the part that couldn’t be Googled was my emotional reaction to the places I’d once visited in Europe, or the immense relief I felt at finally being able to do something creative with the images, sounds and sensations I’d perceived while I was there. For years, they’d been lingering in my mind. Haunting me, like the mocking ghosts of journeys’ past. I’d attempted a number of other forms of creative expression, hoping I might feel that I’d put these experiences abroad to some good use. I tried photographing major landmarks (the result was mediocre and frequently grainy), painting canvases of Venetian bridges and canals (I should not be allowed near oils), baking English scones (oh-so-dry…) and playing piano (my rendition of Mozart’s “Alla Turca” truly exemplifies the full meaning of “dreadful”).
Instead, and at long last, I poured my love of Europe into a story, crossing fingers and hoping it would express what I couldn’t seem to say otherwise: That the Eiffel Tower sparkles in the darkness like a giant nightlight bringing glowing comfort to the city. That music fills the air in Vienna and Salzburg and inspires in passersby a desire to dance on street corners. That warm scones with jam and butter might just be the food of the gods. And that Venice is so magical my breath catches every time I think of it. Every time. I have to pause, just remembering.
Wishing you all the joys of the season and many happy memories to warm the winter nights!
What are you reading and where are you going?
Your love of Europe has come through in all of your interviews, and any discrepancies (of which there are none probably) surely can be attributed to the eye of the beholder.
Best wishes for success of A Summer in Europe.
Your Comments
I long to visit Europe! So far, I’ve only been there through books, movies, and the thoughts shared by my eldest son, who has lived in Europe for many years (as a photographer, writer).
I’m looking forward to your book!
Here’s MY SUNDAY SALON POST and
MY WEBSITE
I think this would be a great time to go to Europe! I think it might be considered work-related expenses.
Here’s my Sunday Salon!
Andrea, thanks again for inviting me to guest blog! I’m so thrilled you enjoyed A Summer in Europe.
Liz, thank you so much for your kind comments and for visiting me from place to place
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Laurel-Rain, it must be fascinating to hear about Europe through the stories of your son! I’m hoping my son will also tell me someday about places he’s ventured to that I’ve never been…
Deb, I’d love to make a European trip “work-related” for sure!!
Marilyn,
Your attention to detail and ability to evoke so much emotion with your writing continues to delight me. This holds true for your latest, A Summer in Europe. Thank you for bringing us faithful readers along with you on your journeys.
That warm scones with jam and butter might just be the food of the gods.
I wondered if you were going to write an entire blog without mentioning food. lol You used all your remembered emotions brilliantly in the book! It’s too bad you can’t get a tax deduction for all your travels.
Right now I’m reading my own short story. My last book before that was a friend’s western romance, which I very much enjoyed. As for where I’m going, we have two elderly dogs who think they’re young, and we can’t leave them alone. It will be another year or so before we travel.
Pamala, thanks so much for your kind comments, for always being so supportive and, most of all, for being my mah-jongg partner as I tried to learn that game!!
Edie, LOL!! Yeah, I know, I can’t seem to stop myself from writing loving descriptions about food
. Glad you’re reading your own short story — I hope that means I’ll get to look forward to another anthology of yours soon!
To me, reading is all about travel. Whether it’s the small, ‘tired old town’ of Maycomb or the fantastical Diagon Alley or the European cities you so beautifully described in A SUMMER IN EUROPE, books transport us to another time, another place. That is the beauty of reading and when an author is as brilliant as Marilyn Brant, we are not only transported there, but we feel we are a part of the journey.
Jill, thank you so, so much! I love what you wrote about reading being “all about travel” — I really think you’re right. Every story takes us somewhere outside of our lives… xox (p.s. I loved Diagon Alley in HP!)
Marilyn, I’ve enjoyed every word of your travels – from *your* perspective on this awesome blog tour and from *Gwen’s* in A Summer in Europe! I can’t stop thinking about how much I want to go to Europe now. I’ve got this giant plastic Eiffel Tower (that held a yummy strawberry margarita when I was in Las Vegas last summer) and I’m now using it as a piggy bank with plans to use all the money I save in it to help get me to Europe in a couple of years.
As for what I’m reading now, I’m in the streets of Chicago with Jim Butcher’s latest Harry Dresden book.
Robin, thank you
. And I love this image of you with a giant plastic Eiffel Tower piggy bank (formerly a margarita glass!) — I can see you in Paris someday soon, with your hubby, having a wonderful time strolling along the Seine together… It’ll happen!!