The Last Time They Met
by Anita Shreve
List Price: $7.99
Pages: 336
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0316713732
Publisher: Little, Brown and Co.
Anita Shreve began writing fiction while working as a high school teacher. Although one of her first published stories, "Past the Island, Drifting," was awarded an O. Henry Prize in 1975, Shreve felt she couldn't make a living as a fiction writer so she became a journalist. She traveled to Africa, and spent three years in Kenya, writing articles that appeared in magazines such as Quest, US, and Newsweek. Back in the United States, she turned to raising her children and writing freelance articles for magazines. Shreve later expanded two of these articles — both published in the New York Times Magazine — into the nonfiction books Remaking Motherhood and Women Together, Women Alone. At the same time Shreve also began working on her first novel, Eden Close. With its publication in 1989, she gave up journalism for writing fiction full time, thrilled, as she says, with "the rush of freedom that I could make it up."
Since Eden Close Anita Shreve has written nine other novels: Strange Fits of Passion, Where or When, Resistance, The Weight of Water, The Pilot's Wife, Fortune's Rocks, The Last Time They Met, Sea Glass and, most recently All He Ever Wanted. In 1998 Shreve received the PEN/L. L. Winship Award and the New England Book Award for fiction.
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Please join Bookreporter.com writer Rachel Kempster as she chats with Shreve about her connection to Africa, the book's unconventional chronology, and much more.
BRC: Africa plays a central role in THE LAST TIME THEY MET. Have you ever spent time in the country, or studied it in depth? What was your impetus for setting part of the novel there?
AS: I lived in Nairobi for three years in the late 1970s. I set part of the novel there because I wanted a wider canvas for this one.
BRC: Suffice it to say, the ending of the book left quite an impact. Did you plan for that the ending all along? Or did it just "occur" at some unexpected point in the writing process?
AS: The ending of the book was its "raison d'etre." The conceit for the novel is contained within a description of Thomas's life's work in THE WEIGHT OF WATER.
BRC: Did you imagine that readers would go back and read the novel again after digesting the ending? If so, how did that affect the way you worked?
AS: I thought that readers might go back and read the book again. (Well, skim it again perhaps.) I did plant clues, clues that are not meant to register too much at the time of the first reading, but that might click in once the book had been read and the ending digested.
BRC: THE LAST TIME THEY MET begins at the present and moves backwards. As it does, the love story between Linda and Thomas is fully unraveled. Why did you choose such an unconventional chronology?
AS: Given the conceit of the novel --- that this is the story of an imagined life --- the novel had to be written backwards. One couldn't admit that Linda was dead at 17, and then expect the reader to believe in her as alive at 26 and 52. Hence, the chronology.
BRC: The cumulative affect of going back in time and seeing Linda and Thomas make the choices that will forever change them is wrenching. Are regret and loss of innocence recurring themes of yours?
AS: Yes, I think it would be fair to say that. These themes are probably most heightened in this work, however.
BRC: Thomas and Linda, are both writers. Is it difficult writing about writers? Or did you find it helpful to have a personal point of reference?
AS: They are writers, but not in the same way that I am. By making them poets gives me a bit of distance. Also, the theme of the power of words is important to the novel. They, more than most, would be aware of that.
BRC: What was the most difficult part of the novel to write? Did this book pose any special technical problems for you? Conversely, what was the easy part of the writing process for you?
AS: The easiest section of the book to write was the Africa section. It is the only time in my life that I ever kept a diary. Unearthing those diaries helped lend an immediacy to the impressionistic writing that was helpful. The hardest part to write is always the beginning.
BRC: What is your writing schedule like?
AS: I write in the mornings. Like a lot of women, I've learned to write when my kids are in school.
BRC: What were your influences for this novel in particular? Were you working with any kind of model in your head?
AS: Truthfully, I didn't have any.
BRC: Do you feel any new pressures as a writer after being an Oprah book author?
AS: Not really. I learned early on that it's death to a work of imagination to think about anyone else while writing a book. Ultimately, you have to write for yourself.
BRC: What book(s) is currently on your nightstand?
AS: A lot of English books. Just finished John Banville's new novel, as well as the Justin Cartwright, HALF IN LOVE. Also the new P.D. James.
Excerpted from The Last Time They Met © Copyright 2008 by Anita Shreve. Reprinted with permission by Little, Brown and Co.. All rights reserved.
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