Behind successful ‘Work’ author stand doubting Jewish parents
By Beth Teitell
Boston Herald Columnist
Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - Updated: 03:26 PM EST
I’d been planning to talk to Laura Zigman about her fourth novel, the hilarious “Piece of Work,” about a stay-at-home mother who’s forced back to work after her husband loses his job. But after reading her blog, I had a more pressing question.
Was she as embarrassed as she seemed to be writing it?
That may seem like a strange thing to bring up with a best-selling author, a 44-year-old woman with a husband and a child, a writer whose first novel, “Animal Husbandry,” was made into a movie (“Someone Like You”), and whose most recent work has been optioned by Tom Hanks’ production company, but she seemed almost uncomfortable. Not only does she write about herself in the third person, but she calls the blog a “brant.” Half brag, half rant.
Or, as she writes by way of introduction: “ ‘Piece of Work’ is Laura’s first novel in four years (not that anyone’s counting and not that there’s anything wrong with having a long four-year dry spell in between books). It will (finally - I mean let’s be frank - four years is a really long time) come out on September 25, 2006 (right in between all the Jewish holidays and) right in the middle of one of the strongest fall fiction lists to be published in recent memory.
“She has no idea how the (expletive) she’s going to have enough material to add to it constantly, the way other branters do, but she figures branting (nonstop about herself, All Laura, All the Time) is something she will eventually get used (addicted) to.”
On the phone, Zigman was equally humble, equally horrified:“I could not bear the idea of having a real-life blog,” she said when I reached her last week at her home in Newton. “I’ve seen certain authors, who I cannot name, who, without any irony, engage in this narcissism.”
Zigman, who’s been called the mother of chick-lit, probably doesn’t need to worry about narcissism. When I asked if her parents were proud of her - which seemed relevant after she told me she earned a coveted spot on the Jewish Book Network’s November festival schedule as “relief between the Holocaust books” - she answered:
“How do I say this, this is usually saved for twice-a-week sessions, but there wasn’t much promise for me.” When she was writing “Animal Husbandry,” “there was a lot of ‘What are you doing? Are you ever going to get a boyfriend?’ All that stuff. I had an enormous amount of luck with the first (novel) and I got very lucky with film and foreign rights and they looked at me like a complete stranger. ‘Oh my God, you’re not weird.’ I had this mini-transformation.”
Well, in her parents’ minds at least, if not in hers. Meanwhile, Zigman’s local book tour starts this week, and as you can imagine, she’s worried no one will show. So do her - and yourself - a favor and go out and laugh.
Laura Zigman will be at Newtonville Books, 296 Walnut St., Newtonville, tomorrow at 7 p.m., and at Borders Books, 10-24 School St., Boston, on Friday at 12:30 p.m.
