Ebook: Last Night at the Blue Angel: A Novel

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• published: 25 Oct 2016
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Read your free e-book: http://installapp.us/mebk/50/en/B00FOPS58A/book Paula Mclain Rebecca Rotert Paula Mclain, author of the New York Times best-selling The Paris Wife, interviews Rebecca Rotert Paula Mclain (pm): From page one, I felt you really knew your story and these fascinating characters inside and out, Rebecca. What hooked you and got you writing this novel? Rebecca Rotert (rr): Sophias voice appeared first and I immediately fell in love with her sensibility, her hyper-vigilance. Her mother, Naomi, demands an enormous amount of attention, and Sophia lives in the shadow of that appetite, like a riverbank constantly being shaped and re-shaped by Naomis currents. You could also say Ive been thinking about this theme all my life. I was acutely aware from an early age of my own mothers magnetism. In a way, the brighter she shone, the more private I got to be, and in that privacy my own internal world began the reading, writing, painting, and music. Pm: As troubled, unpredictable and self-involved as Naomi is, I felt I understood her demons and historywhat drives her. As her creator, you clearly found sympathy for her too. How?rr: Its tempting to see a troubled character as fixed, her actions as calculated. I think this is rarely the case. Once the larger narrative of a life comes into view, even the worst behavior begins to make sense. Its always a risk to give space to less desirable characters but its infinitely more interesting. Pm: The descriptions of singing, listening to and performing songs are incredibly well done and feel true to life. Whats your own relationship to music? Rr: My family sings a Lot. I was classically trained, and sang in school choirs and plays. As a young adult I sang in a few bands and learned to write music, to show up at practice with lyrics and chords on a scrap of paper and have a song by the end of the night. I chose to limit Naomis artistry to singing other peoples music as another way for her self-expression to be truncated. If she wrote her own music, if she had that kind of agency, her story would be different, I think. Pm: I loved Jim! Hes the father Sophia would choose if she were able, and is the emotional glue for Naomi too. How can he remain so devoted when shes put him through the wringer? Did you know from the start what a significant role he would come to play in the novel? Rr: I love Jim, too. He is the good guy, the friend, but I wanted to represent this relationship as a sort of performance, too