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****Jane Bernstein’s THE FACE TELLS
THE SECRET is #119 in the never-ending series called INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION where the Chris Rice Cooper Blog (CRC) focuses on one specific excerpt from
a fiction genre and how that fiction writer wrote that specific excerpt. All INSIDE
THE EMOTION OF FICTION links are at the end of this piece.
Has this been published? And it is totally fine
if the answer is no. If yes, what publisher and what publication date? Yes.
The publication date was October 18, 2019. Regal House Publishing.
What is the date you began writing this piece of fiction and the date when you completely finished the piece of fiction? I started this novel about ten years ago, but there was a long stretch when I lost confidence and put the manuscript aside to work on something else. Usually, it’s hard to reenter work that’s been abandoned. But in this case, as soon as I picked up the pages, I knew I had to keep going.
Where did you do most of your writing
for this fiction work? And please describe in detail. I no longer write in my office, a bright, beautiful space
with a sitting and standing desk.
Summers,
when I’m in Maine, I sit on the dock and write on sunny days. (Right)
What were your writing habits while writing this work- did you drink something as you wrote, listen to music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day? I’m a morning person, not one of those super-efficient, waking up at 5:00 AM writers, but someone who tries to write before plugging into a world of tasks and responsibilities.
On a good day, I’m in my
writing chair by 9:00. The only time I sit in my “sacred chair” is to
write. I don’t talk on the phone, use the internet, or do email when I’m in my
chair. That keeps my relationship with this space pure. I write in
long hand, with a stubby old Pelikan fountain pen. I do all of my early
drafts in longhand. Writing longhand keeps me in dreamland, thinking of
nothing except what’s happening on the page. Once I print what I’ve
drafted, I become an editor, which is a really different stage in the
process.
What excerpt of the book was the most
emotional for you to write? This excerpt can be as short or as long as you
prefer.
I followed her down a long corridor that led
to an annex. First there was the pungent smell of chlorine, then air that
thickened from humidity. From outside the closed doors to the natatorium
I could hear the echoes of conversation. Mrs. Silk opened the door a
crack and peered inside. “Shall I give the two of you some time alone?”
“Okay,” I
said. “Where will I find you?”
She
touched my arm. “I’ll be in my office all day. Stay as long as you
like.”
I stepped inside. It was a large pool, the size of the one at my
gym. No lanes or diving boards. A hydraulic lift to lower swimmers into
the water. Fiber optic tails sparkling on the tiled walls. A
man was in the pool, cradling a limp woman, and he was moving, swirling,
dancing with her in his arms. The woman was so skinny and pale in a
stretched-out red swimsuit, broad shoulders, small breasts, long salt and
pepper braid. He bounced over to the end of the pool and said, “You’re
Aviva’s sister? Come in!”
The tile
floor was wet. I took off my shoes and walked slowly toward the
water. And the woman, my sister, her jaw slack, mouth hanging open as if
she were asleep. Long white limbs. Hands fisted, feet turned in at
the ankles. A being. The shock of seeing her breasts. A woman,
the body perfectly formed, for what? The face, her face, like mine, the
fluttering eyes and crowded teeth, a being, a woman, a sister, separate from
me, part of me. I had yearned for a sister, but not this, not her.
The air was so thick I could hardly breathe.
The man,
now that I was closer, had a puff of white chest hair. His eyes, too big
and blue for his narrow face, were downturned, as if in sadness, in opposition
to his cheerful demeanor. An aide, I thought. A therapist who enjoyed his
job, though what kind of person would do this, I could not imagine. I
watched while they danced, and realized there was noise in the room, like the
sound in an aquarium where dolphins splashed and played; aquatic sounds that
echoed as he sang and twirled in the water. I wanted to go home.
Away. Anywhere else.
The man
danced his way closer to me again, Aviva limp in his arms, before I realized
that the echo had distorted his words, and he was speaking to me. “Come
in. The water is something else.”
I said,
“Another time.” I couldn’t imagine another time. “I don’t have a bathing
suit.”
The man
called out in Hebrew to the lift operator, and a few minutes later, he handed
me a blue one-piece swimsuit and pointed.
The
locker room was empty. Even so, I pulled the curtain shut before I
slipped into the well-worn suit. When I stepped out, I caught sight of my
whole self in the mirror. At first there was a shock of recognition -- I
know her! -- as if I was seeing a long lost relative from
afar. Then, taking a step back -- she’s small! -- another surprise, since
living with Harley had given me the illusion that I was a big truck-like woman,
a Hummer of a human being, driving over curbs and flattening everyone in my
path. I put my arms on my hips and scrutinized my flattened image.
From a distance I looked like a paper doll.
Someone
needs to clothe her, I thought. A pretty tunic and flowing pants, with
tabs to keep the garments in place. Someone needs to give her a name and
a history and imagine a life for her.
Why don’t
we call her Vered?
How about
if we give her a career. Have her be a maker of pretty things. Beautiful
containers. Nesting boxes.
I
imagined myself the second doll of three nesting dolls. Vered.
This time
pushing the “r” to the back of my throat, so the name sounded as it might in
Hebrew.
Aviva was
the smallest doll, the one inside me.
Why is this excerpt so emotional for you
to write? And can you describe your own emotional experience of writing this
specific scene/excerpt? The Face Tells the Secret is a novel about a woman named Roxanne who knows
absolutely nothing about her own history. She learns that she has a
profoundly disabled sister only weeks before this scene takes place, and now
she stands before this sister, this twin, who has been negated by the family,
forgotten, as if she’d never been born. I can’t really express in a few
words what this scene felt like when I wrote it and the effect it still has on
me. It’s a major part of the story and it takes my protagonist time to
get to some place of accommodation.
I am not my
protagonist, but it took me a long time to get there, too.
Were there any deletions from this excerpt that you can share with us? And can you please include a photo of your marked up rough drafts of this excerpt. I scribble up my drafts in crazy ways with letters and numbers and arrows. Alas, I don’t think I have any existing versions of this scene.
Were there any deletions from this excerpt that you can share with us? And can you please include a photo of your marked up rough drafts of this excerpt. I scribble up my drafts in crazy ways with letters and numbers and arrows. Alas, I don’t think I have any existing versions of this scene.
Other works you have published?
Gina From
Siberia, Animal Media, Pittsburgh. With Charlotte
Glynn. Illustrated by Anya Desnitskaya, Animal Media.
Rachel in
the World – University of Illinois Press.
Loving
Rachel. Little,
Brown and Co., Boston, MA..
Seven
Minutes in Heaven. Fawcett, New York, NY, 1986.
Departures. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New
York, NY, 1979.
Anything you would like to add? Thank you for keeping this site going and for being a reader.
Jane
Bernstein is the author of two
novels, three memoirs, and a children’s book she cowrote with her daughter. She
is a lapsed screenwriter, and an essayist, whose stories have appeared in The
New York Times Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, The Sun, and many other
journals, and have been anthologized in such places as True Stories
Well Told, Love You to Pieces, and Best American Sports
Writing 2018. A Brooklyn native, she is the recipient of two National
Endowment for the Arts Fellowships and a Fulbright Fellowship and is a member
of the Creative Writing Program at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania.
janebernstein7517@gmail.com
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