Lisa Grunwald, THE EVOLUTION OF ANNABEL CRAIG
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[0:31]Lisa Grindwald is the author of the evolution of Annabelle Craig, a novel. I really loved this
[0:37]episode. I loved getting to know Lisa. I felt like we knew each other in a prior life or I don't
[0:41]even know, but it was great. Lisa is the author of seven novels, including Time After Time,
[0:47]The Irresistible Henry House, and The Theory of Everything. Along with her husband,
[0:51]former Reuters editor-in-chief Steven Adler, she edited the anthology's The Marriage Book,
[0:56]Women's Letters, and Letters of the Century. Grindwald is an occasional essayist and runs a
[1:00]side hustle called Procrastination Arts, where she sells the other things she makes with pencils
[1:05]and paper. She lives in New York City. Welcome, Lisa. Thank you so much for coming on mom's
[1:10]don't have time to read books to discuss the evolution of Annabelle Craig. Thank you so much
[1:16]for having me. I'm really, really pleased to be here. Oh, it's joy. So tell listeners what your
[1:22]book is about if you don't mind. It's a book about a young woman who's living in a small
[1:27]mountain town in East Tennessee in the 1920s. She's grown up on a strawberry farm with her parents
[1:34]who are devoted to each other and devoted to her and devoted to the Methodist Church,
[1:41]and it's a very, very happy, beautiful childhood until both her parents die from the flu.
[1:47]And she has to move to a boarding house. She has to get a job. She's only 16, and she thinks
[1:54]nothing great is ever going to happen to her again. She thinks that she will never be loved,
[1:59]and along comes George Craig, a lawyer from another town who's handsome and smart and wonderful,
[2:05]and literally sweeps her off her feet into this lovely pond that is in their neighborhood.
[2:11]And he marries her in three months. And again, she thinks she's going to have the life that
[2:16]she expected to have. She wanted to have. And then this extraordinary thing happens of the
[2:23]scopes trial, the scopes monkey trial comes to town. And her husband joins the defense.
[2:29]And she and her marriage face trials. And she has to kind of figure out who she is and what she
[2:36]really believes and whether she and her marriage can sustain itself themselves in the midst of
[2:43]this turmoil. It's kind of a circus that comes to town, you know, books are, you know,
[2:48]neither stranger comes to town or stranger leaves town. This is lots of strangers come to town,
[2:53]and she has to grapple with that.
[2:56]That's like the original celebrity trial, right? It's like the okay.
[3:00]Exactly. And it was called the trial of the century, even though it was only 1925.
[3:05]So it was young. It was early to be calling it that. But one of the most famous participants,
[3:10]William Jennings Bryan, who was the famous three-time presidential candidate and
[3:16]populist hero called it a duel to the death. And what it was about was whether evolution,
[3:24]the theory of evolution, could be taught in public schools, which is obviously something that's
[3:29]very current today, the question of who decides what gets taught. It became a extraordinary cause,
[3:37]a real flashpoint for people. courtroom was overflowing with reporters from all over the world.
[3:44]And this was called a duel to the death. And it played out with great drama and a lot of coverage.
[3:52]Wow. And so why, how did you find the trial and how did you pick it for the subject of the book?
[3:57]I'd always been fascinated in the scope trial, primarily because of a movie called Inher at the Wind,
[4:02]which was based on a play that came out in 1955. And in the movie, it set up as this
[4:10]contest between religion and science. And it's very clear. Religions on one side, the science is on
[4:16]the other. Clarence Darrow, who is the most famous lawyer in America at the time, is standing up
[4:22]for science and modernism. William Jennings Bryan is standing up for fundamentalism and for
[4:29]tradition. And so it's in the movie version, very clear, black and white, right and wrong. Yes and no.
[4:38]And in the times we're living in, things being as divisive as they are and as divided as they are.
[4:45]I was looking around, I've written historical novels before and I was looking for a time in
[4:50]history where families and communities were as divided as they sometimes seem to be now.
[4:56]So I thought the scope trial was the perfect metaphor for this. And of course once I started
[5:02]doing research, which is just about my favorite thing to do, I discovered that of course it wasn't
[5:10]as simple as that and that few things are. And I wanted to create a character who could and would
[5:18]have to experience the complexities of the situation. And the further I got into it and the more I
[5:25]understood Annabelle as a sort of average normal everyday person living in the midst of this
[5:31]epic event, I thought her questions about the complexities would resonate with what I hope are our
[5:39]questions about some of the complexities that are surrounding us. Well, I mean, good theory, I like it.
[5:46]I also, by the way, love this cover. I loved your other ones too. I was looking at all of them.
[5:55]But, you know, I feel like with everything, there are some sort of tropes that people use for
[6:00]historical fiction versus contemporary fiction. And this does not fall into that. I, you know,
[6:05]which I don't know. I just thought it was, it's very cool. Do you love it? I adore it. I notice that
[6:11]with historical fiction, most heads are cut off. You never see faces. You see women from the
[6:16]back. You see women from the neck down. You see women from the waist up. But somehow the women
[6:23]are always turning away from you. Presumably so that, I mean, I guess the theory is that you can see
[6:28]yourself in those women. I'd like to think that anyone reading Annabelle will be able to see
[6:36]themselves in this woman male or female young girl. She's supposed to represent the part of all of
[6:44]us that looks for something solid and something inside herself that she can really rely on in a
[6:52]world and a marriage that's changing all the time. So I didn't feel I needed to see her from the neck
[7:00]down. Also, the cover is based on an ad at the time for the Kodak girl who was always
[7:06]black and white stripes and always had a camera around her neck. And Annabelle is a photographer.
[7:12]It just seemed right to try to take off a bit from Kodak in that moment when, you know, among
[7:19]many other modern inventions being able to walk around with a camera was, you know, pretty cool.
[7:24]Yeah, like getting a camera on your phone is now cool. So cool that I just actually went and got
[7:29]a regular camera. But anyway, that's fine. One of my first internships was at an ad agency and Kodak
[7:37]was my client and I love photography. And so I got to do all this research on Kodak and the branding
[7:43]and all of that. And so any time people talk about evolution of different industries, I'm always
[7:48]like, yeah, but like, you never would have thought that Kodak wouldn't be the leader forever.
[7:53]Right. Exactly. Everything. Not like Coke. Right. Coke is evolved. I mean, exactly. And for some of
[8:01]us, that your little yellow package of film, which for Annabelle is so important, that box of film
[8:09]that she gets from the from Robinson's drugstore on Main Street that first beginning,
[8:15]you'd think that that yellow box would have lasted the same way the Coca-Cola sign has.
[8:20]Yes. Just finally enough, there's a faded Coca-Cola sign on a brick wall in Dayton that kind of,
[8:28]it's almost there to say here's the ghost of what was. But around the corner, I assume they're
[8:34]selling Coke. So, you know, it has lasted. Wow. My mom is from Dayton, Ohio, but this is Dayton,
[8:40]Tennessee. Right. Which I didn't even know existed. So there you go. In my research, I kept, you know,
[8:48]I was doing various searches for Dayton and got really excited at one point that there was
[8:54]this flood and fire in Dayton and realized, no, Ohio, wrong state in part of the country.
[9:02]This is East Tennessee. This is not Dayton, Ohio. And a very, very different place to have grown up.
[9:09]I mean, the three scholars who remember that fact probably, you could have probably
[9:14]slitted in that they're fed into it. I know, but I get very, I'm kidding. I know history of
[9:22]public. I understand. It's like cheating or something. Right. Oh, absolutely. I mean, and I can get
[9:29]carried away. I mean, I wrote a scene at one, there's a scene in the book where she and Georgia
[9:35]skating on this pond, even though it's Tennessee and usually warm, but it's an unusually cold
[9:42]winter and they're skating on the pond. And I looked up what skates they would have been using
[9:48]and I had it in there as, you know, whatever skates. And I looked at it after I'd written it and thought,
[9:54]no, one fact too many. They really don't need to know the brand.
[10:00]of the skate. And then you got it, I mean, it's very tempting to pull yourself back. But
[10:05]the people in this book, most of them are real. So William Jennings Bryan, of course,
[10:10]and Clarence Darrow, and the great but cynical journalist, H. L. Lincoln, all make an appearance.
[10:17]But then most of what happens in the circus around Dayton is real. There really was a monkey
[10:24]that was brought to town named Joe Mindy, who was forced to play piano and wear a suit
[10:29]and smoke a cigar. It's horrible. And there was a guy named Voliva, who believed in
[10:37]Flatter theory and said he would give $5,000 to anyone who disproved it. There were preachers,
[10:45]there were signs saying, you know, where will you spend eternity? There were, they were capitalizing
[10:51]on the craze of this. And so even at the drugstore, they were selling something called a
[10:57]Simeon soda. And one of the other main characters in the book who is a reporter is based on a real
[11:03]person, an amazing woman named Nellie Kenyon, who was one of the, no, the first person to get
[11:10]a press pass to the trial because she knew before anyone what an event it was going to be.
[11:18]There's a man in the book named Howard Byrd, who's a pastor, and he leaves his church. I mean,
[11:24]leaves his church because his congregants don't want to have a pastor from New York come and talk
[11:31]about evolution. The congregants don't even want to hear what evolution is. And so he quits
[11:38]and on that Sunday and goes away and becomes a carpenter. It's really amazing. So I didn't have to
[11:45]make any of that up because it was all real, the smell of hot dogs on the street and funnel cakes
[11:51]and the craziness of of this circus that is the exact opposite of the bucolic beautiful world
[12:00]that she grows up in where she says the sky is blue and the mountains are purple and the Bible's
[12:08]true. Have you sat in on trials before? No, I haven't. I mean, a long time ago, I attempted jury service
[12:15]and I was summarily dismissed from New York City. Now I have multiple sclerosis and so I have
[12:21]unfortunately can't attend, but I actually would love to. My husband wrote a book about the jury
[12:28]system and I'm fascinated by it. I'm fascinated by trials and one of the joys of writing this book
[12:34]was putting people in the courtroom and seeing what that was like. I mean, there was one fan
[12:40]in the whole courtroom and it was on the on the judge's desk and otherwise people were using
[12:46]calmly fans to try to cool themselves off but everyone was sweating and people took off their jackets
[12:51]and it was hot and testy. I would have loved to have been there and actually it's reenacted
[12:57]every year in Dayton. They have the Dayton trial reenactment. I was just invited to go down there and
[13:04]I would have loved to. I would love to see Dayton, but I actually sent my son as a as a proxy
[13:10]at one point and he wonderfully. I sent him with a map actually of what old Dayton was like
[13:16]and what Dayton's like now and I said, this is where Walnut Street is. That's where Annabelle
[13:20]lives and this is where the courthouse is. Courthouse is still there. Walnut Street's still there
[13:25]and I said, please walk from this place to that place and tell me how long it would take.
[13:30]He has very long legs and I said, you know, go slowly. But let me know. So he was kind of my proxy
[13:38]took lots of photographs for me and it was great. I would have loved to have seen it. But,
[13:43]you know, I wouldn't have been seeing it in 1925 anyway. I mean, I could barely get my son to go to
[13:49]the kitchen and get my glass of water and let alone go to Dayton, Tennessee. I'm like, no,
[13:53]really, you're already getting water. Just like, get me one, please. But anyway, I don't know,
[14:00]maybe your son needs to coach up my older son. He's just older and he was in Knoxville anyway.
[14:08]Okay. I mean, it wasn't quite like a track from the New York City on my behalf, but it was
[14:15]lovely of him to do it anyway. Yes, I just did jury duty. You know, you can actually get excuse
[14:20]now if you have kids 16 and under this is like a new thing, but you're not missing anything
[14:24]with the New York City. You know, of course, as you well know. No, I know. I remember, you know,
[14:30]sitting there and getting lots and lots of work done, I'm thinking, don't call me, please, don't
[14:34]call me. But then, you know, Stephen, my husband did write this book quite a few years back now.
[14:40]And it really made the case that this is one of the few places where we can actually exercise
[14:46]our rights as citizens. And the fact that we are constantly trying to find ways to get out of it
[14:52]is really a shame. And I, you know, I have to be out of it. But I love the drama of a courtroom.
[14:59]It's rarely I imagine as dramatic as it's presented. Even in this case, my sense of this
[15:06]trial came from this movie and her at the wind where Spencer Tracy is, you know, the great hero
[15:12]and he scores all these points against Brian and Brian literally dies on the courtroom floor.
[15:18]Not in a happen like that. I mean, some of it happened like that, but it wasn't as dramatic.
[15:23]When I read the transcript, which of course I have, you know, a lot of it is just posturing and
[15:29]procedural and all of the things that aren't dramatic. And the things that are, you know, really
[15:36]stand out. My sense of what a courtroom trial is like is shaped largely by fiction and film and
[15:45]not at all by sitting there and, you know, enduring the reality of it.
[15:52]That's why you can make it cinematic for the rest of us. Absolutely. I love you've mentioned
[15:56]your husband a couple of times and I love that you two write together and that you're both
[16:00]authors and I actually have this marriage book. I'm looking at your website and I was like,
[16:05]oh, I totally have that book. And because I sort things by color, it was very easy for me to find
[16:10]it. So I'm holding up the marriage book centuries of advice, inspiration and cautionary tales from
[16:15]Adam and Eve dissolved. Which is so funny. Anyways, so you've been in this room forever.
[16:21]Oh, that's lovely. It's a great joy to write that, to edit that book and to, I mean, because
[16:27]it's an anthology. So I can't take credit for having written some of those great things about
[16:32]marriage, but it was an absolute joy. It's such a joy to work with him and he has had big day
[16:38]jobs. So getting to have a little side projects are really wonderful. And what is your secret to
[16:44]marriage here? You seem very happy. What is, what is, what are some of the secrets we might not
[16:51]know? Well, it's I don't know if I have a secret to marriage. I mean, I think number one is you luck
[16:56]out. And you know, you have an instinct and you have no idea what life is going to throw at you
[17:02]and how you're going to deal with it. But there's some instinct and you get lucky. But to the extent
[17:08]that I have any with them on the subject, it's just you figure out what your spouse wants, what he
[17:14]or she wants to become and you help them become that. And to the extent that it's humanly possible,
[17:20]you know, you kind of have to decide in advance that you're okay with what the aspirations are.
[17:27]But it's really important that you know it. And actually, Anabel tries her hardest to help George
[17:33]become what he wants to become. But it turns out that they're not on the same page with what that
[17:41]might look like. And she thinks that they are equal and spirit to they are. But it turns out
[17:48]doesn't think as well of her as she does of him. That's not exactly an answer to your question. But
[17:53]I think if there is a secret, it's just don't try to change who you love, just try to help them be
[18:02]the best version of themselves. And by the same time, make sure that they're helping you become
[18:07]the best version of yourself. So far, so good. We've been incredibly lucky. How long have you
[18:13]the married? It will be 36 years next April 9th. So in very short period of time. And it blows
[18:21]our minds constantly because feel like we just met. No, that's not true. We have two children. We've
[18:28]had two dogs. I've had a lot of health issues. He's had a lot of jobs. We didn't just meet. We've
[18:34]had a lot of history. But it is wild how time passes. And it is extraordinary to find ourselves
[18:42]at this point in our lives with two grandchildren and dealing with the things we're dealing with.
[18:47]Yeah, we're at one point very, very early on. I talk in my sleep. And at one point very early
[18:55]on I said, in my sleep, I think we'll go the distance. He's been sort of holding me to that for
[19:03]for a long time. Oh, well, thank God. That's what you said. I mean, you said in column by another name.
[19:12]I've been 36 years hoping that I don't stumble in my sleep.
[19:19]But to bring it back to Annabelle, she I think she would love to have thought that she would be so
[19:24]lucky. And this epic event puts her and her marriage in peril. And there was nothing to prepare
[19:33]her for what was going to happen. She's loved living in this little town and the nature and beauty
[19:43]the proliferation of strawberries and tomatoes and flowers. And she's never had to stop and think
[19:48]how do they get to be this way. She's never had to think about evolution and everything changes
[19:54]and her marriage is one of the things that changes. I read your article about
[20:00]COVID and how when people in the Atlantic how when people said oh we can't wait to go back or things like that
[20:06]You were like well now you know what it's like I have a mess and this is what it's like to be inside and how you met people on zoom
[20:12]And you're like yeah, this is great. I can like hang out in my living room and now everybody's doing this
[20:16]Yeah, it was a beautiful piece and
[20:19]Gave such a window into your life and and what it's like sort of navigating the world with MS and all of that talk a little just tell me a little more about that
[20:28]And how it is now and since then and everything. Oh, thanks for saying that about the Atlantic piece
[20:36]It certainly came from the heart it was extraordinary that at that moment a horrible moment in our time when people were dying and
[20:46]Everyone was afraid. I was more connected to the world than I had ever been
[20:51]I'm not I'm sorry not that I'd ever been because I was only diagnosed about 16 years ago and
[20:58]My ability to navigate outside this little apartment has diminished as time has gone by but don't get me wrong
[21:06]I will still be doing a reading you
[21:10]Evolution book and I will I will do my best to get out there and and I try
[21:15]but for the many many people who are
[21:18]Living with disability and especially now with so many people with long COVID which is not dissimilar from some of the symptoms
[21:25]I have it's hard not to be forgotten not to feel invisible and it's essential
[21:31]I think to do everything you can to
[21:34]participate in
[21:36]The world in my case. I get to participate in the world by imagining it not just the party that's you know in the village
[21:44]But Tennessee in 1925. I'm deeply lucky that the work I do would be at this desk
[21:51]Anyway, and I'm deeply lucky that the internet for all the awful stuff
[21:55]It's brought and it has brought an awful lot of stuff has allowed me to journey outside of this place nevertheless
[22:02]when the
[22:03]Pandemic was raging and people were saying oh, let's meet up and we'll have a party
[22:07]And it was just on screen and I didn't have to get dressed for it
[22:11]And I didn't have to go downtown. I didn't have to use up energy
[22:14]Getting someplace which is
[22:16]You know 80% of it. It was extraordinary and I felt guilty about the fact that I would miss it
[22:23]But I knew that I would I knew that people would get back to their normal lives and they would go to parties
[22:28]And they would go to museums and they would go to the theater and I do get to the theater sometimes
[22:33]I I go to matinees, but you know a lot of this marvelous city
[22:38]I live in is not something I get to experience while
[22:42]Everyone has gone back not everyone because there are a lot of us still in this spot are still in a situation where
[22:49]We wish for that connection and I don't think it's entirely about having a disability
[22:55]I think that people are lonely
[22:57]I mean, I've read this a lot and that they yearn for connection and that we're all in our little silos of belief and ideas
[23:04]But for people with disabilities, I think it's a particularly it can be a particularly narrow world
[23:10]And I'm lucky to be able to break out of that world at least in my imagination with writing
[23:17]So that's really much how how it's been my last novel was about a woman who was essentially
[23:25]Not essentially she was stuck in one place in Grand Central Terminal and I
[23:31]Didn't realize until about halfway through writing it that I was writing about myself and that I was writing about
[23:37]You know being what it's like to be stuck in one place and how you make a life
[23:41]If you really can't be out and about so
[23:44]This one's not about that, but it did require some imagination
[23:49]Well, I
[23:50]Deeply appreciate and I'm sure everybody else reading your work does that while you are inside you are taking us
[23:57]To all sorts of different places and giving us all of these experiences and it's like
[24:03]It's like magic what you're doing
[24:05]Fire like all over, you know, just like transcasting us. It's really miraculous
[24:11]So thank you for that. That is so incredibly touching to hear and and I'm so grateful for that. Thank you
[24:19]Certainly is what I try to do doesn't always work, but I try it works. It's working
[24:25]Lisa, thank you
[24:26]It was a delight to meet you
[24:28]Congratulations on the evolution of Annabelle Craig and all of your work
[24:32]And I hope to stay in touch. Thank you so much. It was really a delight. Me too. Okay. Have a great day. You too. Okay. Bye. Bye
[24:41]Thanks for listening to moms don't have time to read books if you love it
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