NYT bestselling author! Francine Prose, 1974: A Personal History

[2:05]Zibby Owens: Hi. I'm Zibby Owens, and I am the host of this podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. I am also a newly minted USA Today bestselling author of the novel, blank and created a whole community of book lovers around this podcast, a publishing company, reading retreats, a bookstore, and more. Learn more at zibbymedia.com, or follow me on social at Zibby Owens, or join the community at Zivvie Readers. Francine Prose is the author of nineteen seventy four, a personal history. Francine is the author of 22 works of fiction, including the highly acclaimed the Vixen, Mister Monkey, the New York Times bestseller Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932, A Changed Man, which won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and Blue Angel, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her works of nonfiction include the highly praised Anne Frank, The Book, The Life, The Afterlife, and the New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer, which has become a classic. The recipient of numerous grants and honors, including a Guggenheim and a Fulbright, a director's fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, Francine is a former president of PEN America Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a distinguished writer in residence at Bard College. Welcome, Francine. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss 1974,

[3:34]Francine Prose: a personal history. Welcome. Thank you. How was it for you writing this book? What was this like? It was really hard. It was really hard because I'd really never written anything about me. You know, like travel pieces with your kids, it's not really about you. So and and as I was writing and I thought, oh, now I know I've been, like, hiding behind fictional characters and novels for years and years and years because and and I kept I wrote a bunch of different drafts. And, also, looking back at yourself as a 20 year old, it was terrifying. It was terrifying. And and so and I wrote one draft, and my husband, who's a very good reader, said, you really have to like that girl more that you were. You really just have to, like, not be, like, you know, how stupid I was. Right? Like, why did she do this stuff? And so that was the hard part. That was the hard part. I mean, the other other one you know, writing is writing, and it was fun, like, putting the sentences together and, you know, and changing this word and that word. I mean, that part is always the fun part. But just kind of trying to make a coherent story out of it and also remembering. I mean, you know, there were whole I I mean, it just so happened that whole big chunks of it were just, like, indelibly engraved in my mind, you know, after a long time. So that so that was like taking dictation. But then I had to, like, you know, think how did I get there and how did this happen and, you know, etcetera, etcetera. And then the historical political parts, I mean, I don't know if people know, but there's this spread running through it was which was that I was living in San Francisco in 1974, and my sort of boyfriend for a little while was this guy named Tony Russo, who was the guy that talked Ellsberg into leaking the Pentagon Papers, Xeroxing, leaking, blah blah blah. And we would, like, mostly just drive around San Francisco, and he would tell me stories about his life and Vietnam and, you know, blah blah blah blah. But, you know, there were things as things that I, you know, were just absolutely engraved. I mean, like, you know, after what is it? I mean, fifty years. Right? I can remember that he had this weird habit of ordering sausages and blueberry pie and eating in this cafeteria, this kind of, you know, skeezy cafeteria, the Tenderloin. And that was and he was saying, oh, you know, it's like he said, my friend, I worked when he worked for the Rand Corporation, they couldn't have Chinese food for lunch. So his friend said, you know, this is the closest you're gonna get. So details like that stayed in my mind and they were easy and sort of fun to write about. But again, you know, but again, like the past, there are all these different parts that were happening at once. So there was that and then, you know, being a writer and my novels were starting to come out. I mean, when I was a kid, you know, really stupid. And then deciding how how to end it, you know, how far in the future to bring it and so forth. How did you decide that? Well, you know, it just had to do with I mean, there's this whole other thing running through the novel, which is about Alfred Hitchcock's film Vertigo, which, you know, is filmed in San Francisco. And it's like, you know, I have this obsessive fascination with that film. I've seen it, like, 15 times. I mean, I just over and over. And also Selima driving around San Francisco really made me feel like that that film and think about that film, which is also about obsession, which is kind of what the book is about too. But even though, you know, San Francisco 1974 looked nothing like 1958 when Hitchcock was but I was still, like, running that movie in my head all the time. So the it ends with going to see the film at Bard College where I teach with my granddaughters. And somehow the music and San Francisco kind of brought it all back to me, brought that brought the whole thing back to me. And then I thought, oh, okay. I wanna write about this. So, you know, it was a great I mean, it was vertigo, but they they had, like, a full orchestra doing the Bernard Herrmann score. I mean, was so intense. It was so intense. So, you know Wow. So that's kind of what kicked it off. Yeah. How did you decide you you had lots of sort of short punchy chapters where you you keep us here, and they're almost like little scenes, little vignettes.

[8:00]Zibby Owens: Did you decide to do it that way, or that's just the way the story came to you? Well,

[8:05]Francine Prose: I mean, I was like, okay, that's as much as I want to say about that. I mean, because they're

[8:11]Zibby Owens: Just ran out of coffee. Ran out of coffee.

[8:15]Francine Prose: Because they're little stories. I mean, like they're little interpolated stories in there. Like, you know, there's for a while, have this other boyfriend that we go to Mexico and eat mushrooms and, you know, blah blah blah. But there wasn't I didn't have that much to say about it. I mean, it was just part of giving the general

[8:30]Zibby Owens: feeling of what that time was. You know? So Actually, you had there was a passage I wanted to read. Is that okay? From the boyfriend. Yeah. Sure. Go ahead. I don't often read passages about sex on this podcast, but I just had to read this passage. Is that okay? Maybe I'll embarrass you. Yeah. Go for it. He said, I wish I could say that it was the kind of sex that is the answer to every question, the gift for which we wait, the fireworks ignited by every spark of curiosity, affection, admiration, every laugh, every glimpse of a body part, every twinge of desire. I wish I could say it was the kind of sex that makes you think that from now on, life will never be the same. The kind of sex that makes you wonder how someone could know what you have wanted all your life, what you will always want. I wish I could say it was the kind of sex that makes you think, now I understand why we have bodies. I wish I could say it was the kind of sex that makes you think, this is why people leave their happy homes. This is why they pull up their lives, to feel like this just once or just once more. I wish I could say it was the kind of sex that makes someone say, I wanna have your child. I wish I could say it was the kind of sex that makes you think how brilliant nature is for attaching the survival of the species to something that feels like this. I wish I could say it was the kind of sex that makes you stop thinking, but I can't say any of that because it wasn't.

[9:44]Francine Prose: I know. I know. Well, you know, writing about writing about bad sex by writing about good sex, it's like you know? But, again, I mean, you know, it's so funny you chose that passage because John Guerre, the playwright, who's been super supportive of the book, said we went to his house for dinner, he said, oh, there's I love the book. There's this passage I wanna read you. And he it was that passage. And I went like You're kidding. No. It was that passage. I went like, no. No. No. It's okay. Like, I know what it is. Like, I don't wanna you know? But, yeah, I mean, it was it was a hard thing to write about. You know? I mean, in a way, bad sex is easier to write about than good sex because bad sex is like you know? It's I mean, like Blue Angel, there's bad really bad sex in it. And good sex is impossible because the language has been just stolen by pornography and whatever. But but it you know, and also that passage would have been awful if it didn't end with like this. It wasn't there. I you know, if it wasn't there, I wish I could say if it was just it was, you know, it was just like unbearable, but it wasn't. It really wasn't.

[10:54]Zibby Owens: How did the people in your life how have they so far taken this book, and have you shown it to anyone? And did you have to clear it with anybody?

[11:03]Francine Prose: Well, the the lawyers at at Harper, like, picked up a couple things and they were and but they were very easy to change, you know, a little phrase that they wanna take it out and hear that. I gave it to my son to read, who's my younger son, who's 40, in his early forties. And he's a very good reader. He's a musician, but he's a very good reader. And he said took him a long time. He was mostly reading on his phone, of course, traveling. And he said he said, I found it really scary. And I said, why? Because mom took drugs and had sex and, you know he goes he goes, no. He goes, because I have daughters. Right? And I mean, his girls are like 17 and 13. So it's like that, you know, and I've got okay. He really got that part of it. Like, you know, what what it's I don't know. Maybe you maybe you sail through it, Zibby. I don't know. But but being a young woman in your twenties is is not easy. I mean, it certainly wasn't then.

[12:02]Zibby Owens: I would not say I sailed through it. Those words have never come out of my mouth.

[12:11]Francine Prose: Well, that's what you want for people, but it just doesn't it's just it's not set up that way. So, yeah. And my husband has been, you know, as I said, has been like an amazing reader all along. I don't know. I mean, I haven't heard from my ex husband about it. And he's you know, I'm I really tried to be fair. And it was ridiculous to, like, get married your senior year in high school. That was just an insane thing to do, you know, in 1968, '69. So you know? But no. I don't think I think it's okay. And I talked to a couple of the people just to get, you know, the people like my roommates in San Francisco. I I talked to him and, you know, so forth. So, yeah, we'll see we'll see. Well, we'll see. I mean, that's, you know, another reason for not writing about yourself is is it doesn't it's not about you. So

[13:00]Zibby Owens: Well, I think that it was so interesting that you're so that we can be so critical of ourselves, so much so that it would ruin someone else's experience reading about the younger versions of ourselves. Like, that's such good advice to just go a little easier on our characters when they are in fact us. Right? And go go a little easier on our sense in general.

[13:21]Francine Prose: I know. No. And and and then it really I mean, that's so weird about parts of your life being disconnected in a certain way where you become different people. But but having sympathy for for, you know, why I mean, because, really, if one of my granddaughters was in that situation, you know, riding around San Francisco with this guy, I'm like like, no. Like, don't do don't do it. Don't do it. But there I was, like, you know, completely

[13:49]Zibby Owens: in it. So I mean, let's let's blame the prefrontal cortex development. It was not your fault.

[13:56]Francine Prose: I know. Well, I know. I think that's probably right. I think that's probably right. I think that's I mean, I really do think it's a lot has a lot to do with, you know, the biology of certain stages of your life. Today's episode is sponsored by Quince.

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[17:23]Zibby Owens: So now that you've written about yourself, do you feel like that's good. I finished, and now I can't wait to get back to fiction? Like, do you Yes. Yes.

[17:38]Francine Prose: Also, I don't know. It's sort of like there are other parts of my life that I don't know. I mean, it was so dramatic in a way. I mean, that part was so dramatic. And then, you know, as I say in the book, four years after that book, my first child was my son was born and things, like, quieted down quite a lot, right, as they still are. But it wasn't, you know, when people do I mean, people write wonderful books about motherhood and young motherhood. You know, there are things that I you know, the things I think about that time that, you know, I might, but but I don't know. No. It's so it's nice to make things up. It's so you feel so clear and clean about it. Know? Not me. It's not me.

[18:21]Zibby Owens: Do you have another book in the hopper? Like something you're working on now? Yeah. I'm working on a novel that's set in England in 1857.

[18:29]Francine Prose: You sound really excited about that. I am. Yeah. No. It's really it's strange. It's a super strange book. It's just a super strange book. And I don't know. It's I just finished I mean, I'm sort of finished. I mean, I'm sort of finished. And I don't you know, I'm still at this I mean, my husband liked it, but he's the only one that's read it. So I mean, that's the stage it's in. So I don't know. I mean, it may be completely unintelligible for all I know. What was she thinking? What was she thinking? But, you know So what is the secret to

[19:02]Zibby Owens: continually writing fiction that keeps people's interest, that forges a career, all of that? How what what is the secret sauce?

[19:11]Francine Prose: You know, it sounds I just really like doing it. I like doing it. I mean, are times where it's, like, really hard and I hate it and I hate myself and my life for thinking that this was, like, a reasonable thing to do or that I couldn't do it or something. But when it's like those days when it's going well and, like, I some idea pops into my head or, you know, or I get the nerve to say something that I wanted to talk about, I go, okay. You know? I mean, I like gardening too. I mean, I like hanging out, you know. I mean, there are other things I do, but I don't know. I would really miss it if I wasn't doing it. I mean, you know, if I have something to do. Well, you know. I love that. So great. I mean, it's so simple, but so obvious. Like, to be a writer, you have to love it. You have to. It helps. Which isn't you know, again, I don't wanna sell it like it's, you know, like, you know, completely false advertising. There are days when it's just horrible. It's just a horrible thing to do. I mean, really horrible and always hard work and always harder work than you think it's going to be. I mean, you know, in a way the memoir was easy because I knew how things that the order in which things had happened, but it was hard because I had to figure out how to put the moving pieces together. So, and that's work, I you mean, it's like, and fiction too, you have to know a certain amount about these characters and what they're doing at a certain like Lovers of the Chameleon Club, I need I had a whiteboard where I just put the years in and all the characters just to figure out how old they were, you know, at the different times. So and, you know, people don't think about this. They think, oh, you have an idea, you know, super creative and you just, like, have some inspiration. But you but you're like, you know, a friend of mine once said it's like being a grocer when they used to, like, add up the numbers on paper bag. It's like that's part of the job.

[21:06]Zibby Owens: Yeah. Gotta know a little bit of math. Might as well be in the kitchen and go.

[21:11]Francine Prose: Oops. Well, yeah. That's a problem.

[21:16]Zibby Owens: Well, is there anything that you're really hoping that people aside from wanting to protect their grandchildren get out of this book? Yeah.

[21:24]Francine Prose: I'm not telling them how to do that. I don't know. I mean, I think well, you know, I had a straight I mean, it was it was so weird to write in a certain way. And I really didn't know how I felt about it. But and so I let it go for a long time. I mean, I didn't open the page proofs. I mean, when the page proofs came at first, I was saying, like, I feel like I got this package of anthrax. If I open it, But then I started I did the audiobook, which I'd never done before. And I kind of I mean, it sounds like narcissistic, but but I kind of start to love the way the story moved, like, just the way the story moved. And And I was interested. And also, I actually cared about this girl in the story who happened to be me, but not in a way that, you know, blah blah. So I just hope people have that experience. And also, think, I mean, you know, it's sort of it is sort of about how the sixties turned into the seventies. And we're living now in something worse than the seventies, but it's not like the sixties, that's for sure. But, you know, to live in a time when you really thought, like, things are gonna get better, like we're gonna figure out a solution to all these problems and the, you know, war's gonna stop and, you know, we're all gonna I mean, we really believe these things. You know, we'll we'll, you know, just to get political for a second, Roe v Wade came in in '73. It's like, yeah, like, you know, and now here we are. So I just feel like that history, you know, to be able to present it in a way that, well, I don't mean to diminish it, but goes down easy in a certain way. Like, learn learning the book, you learn a certain amount of the history of that time. Mhmm. But it's not like taking a class in it or something or, you know, having to take a test having to take a test on it. I mean but it just it's there. And and I think it's important. I mean, I'm always sort of you know, teach and I'm and it seems like the seventies and the eighties kinda dropped out of my college undergraduates. Kinda just dropped out in a way like they don't they weren't paid it wasn't paid a lot of attention to when they went to high school. But, I mean, that was so but it happened, you know, and a lot of really a lot of important things happened. So so that too. I mean, you know, young girl, me, blah blah, and then 1974. So is

[23:50]Zibby Owens: that what you I don't know. Sounds good. It sounds great. I didn't think she'd let you do it, but yeah. No. It's perfect. That's it's perfect. Francine, thank you so much for sharing your personal history with the rest of us. This is, by the way, the coolest cover ever. Don't you just love it? Cover. A friend of my son's designed it, Danny Miller. He's not real he's a designer.

[24:09]Francine Prose: And, you know, I've known him since he was, like, eighth grade. And I said, Danny, you ought to do, like, a book cover for me. And they did I love it. It's super beautiful. I know. So cool. It's just so cool. Oh my gosh. Anyway, congratulations,

[24:22]Zibby Owens: and good luck with your ex reading it and and all the stuff. So Thank you. Thank you, Zippy. Thanks so much. No problem. Alright. Have a great day. Bye bye. You too. Thanks for listening to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. If you love it, please leave a review and follow us on social at Zippy Owens and at Zippy Readers.