LiveWorld Transcripts

Time Warner Bookmark presents

Author Jane Shapiro
Discusses her latest novel

November 11, 1999

Author Jane Shapiro chats about her latest novel, “The Dangerous Husband” and the inspiration behind her work.

Page 1 of 3

TWBookmark: Welcome to TimeWarnerBookmark! Little, Brown and Company and the Talk City Network are proud to present our special guest for tonight, Jane Shapiro, author of "The Dangerous Husband." Shapiro's witty, dark, and brilliantly funny novel features a couple that meets and almost immediately falls in love. Like everyone, they have been alone. He is perfect for her - charming and sexy and awkward and sweet. They are forty; it is time for them to marry and shelter each other. But all does not go as planned. Welcome, Jane! Glad you could join us!

Jane Shapiro: I'm glad to be here.

TWBookmark: Jane, just how seriously should we take "The Dangerous Husband"? Or is there nothing serious here to take?

Jane Shapiro: Many people do take it seriously. Readers' responses have certainly varied. Some people have sounded quite disturbed, that it was a disturbing view of marriage. I'm not really sure, though.

Reader: Good evening, Jane. I haven't gotten your book yet. What kind of experience should I look for in your book? Drama, love, mystery?

Jane Shapiro: I think the book is very funny. It was fun for me to write. And, for many people, it's fun to read. Laurie Moore called it a "Chaplinesque and Hitchcockian little fairy tale." It is funny, but it is darkly so.

Bart: Hi, Jane. I read that your last book was rated as one of the top 25 of the year. Can I expect the same quality experience in this?

Jane Shapiro: Sure! Absolutely! Rush to Amazon and purchase it! (smile)

Zephyr: What was your motivation for writing the novel?

Jane Shapiro: At the time, I was working on a childhood memoir, which was very dark and difficult to write. At the break from the memoir, every once in awhile, I worked on "The Dangerous Husband" for a few weeks at a time. I think I started writing about the moment in every new union when the infatuation ends. The lovers find flaws. I expanded on that. My first novel was 'very' realistic. I knew I wanted to write a book about marriage, which was less realistic, darker, and more gruesomely funny. I didn't know what to expect; I just set out writing. My friend once commented about "After Moondog," my first novel, that none of the characters could ever do anything really bad to each other. I think I wanted to write an entirely different sort of book about marriage that's funny and sad and where everyone does really horrible things.

Gar^^Trek: The husband has some very extreme qualities. How were you able to define such a clumsy character?

Jane Shapiro: The simple and true answer is, I don't know. I was out to dinner with my former husband. He's a natty dresser, but an enthusiastic eater. As always, he splashed his silk tie. I wanted to think about what happened after the first moments of romantic love end. Another person emerges. The beloved is someone else revealing himself. I wanted this character to have some small quality, like clumsiness, that could be expanded to such a surreal point that the spouse would not just feel like killing him, but that she would have to get him killed.

Page 1 of 3