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The Secret Papers Of Madame Olivetti Trade Paperback: 304 pages Publisher: NAL, a division of Penguin Group Release date: October 7, 2008 Language: English ISBN-10: 0451225279 ISBN-13: 978-0451225276 Where to Buy the Book Read from the book and the Conversation Guide (PDF) Watch videos of Annie reading from the book A note to Book Club members Lily has traveled to southern France in search of a new perspective, hoping that the sun's soft rays and the fragrant sea breezes will provide a relaxing respite from the demands of her lively daughter and her family's Idaho cattle ranch. Two years after her husband's sudden death, in the house that's been in his family for generations, she finally finds a moment of peace, some stolen weeks to immerse herself in memories and make sense of the past... To Madame Olivetti -- her cranky old manual typewriter -- Lily entrusts all her secrets, pounding out the story of the men she loved, the betrayals she endured, the losses she still regrets. With the companionship of honest, open Yves, the sexy handyman who comes by to make repairs, Lily takes in life on her sun-drenched terrace. Soon Yves is coming in the evenings too, obviously capable of mending more than broken roof tiles. As Lily whispers her tales to Yves in a language he doesn't understand, every sensation and remembrance brings her closer to understanding her exhilarating past -- and to discovering she has a new story to tell, one about the delights of starting over... The Story Behind the Book... A sensual woman, Lily Crisp, and sensual settings, an old stone farmhouse on the Côte d'Azur, France, and the rain forest in Chiapas, Mexico, were the vague beginnings of this novel,  more a visual and tactile banquet of the senses than a book. I saw the scenes, smelled them, and felt them long before I attempted to paint them in words.
Within this framework I envisaged a plot that was densely layered, moving fluidly between past and present, so that a delicious soup of intrigue, lushness, passion, disaster, humor, and quirkiness would enhance the background flavors of my settings. I wanted to write about long-term marriage and love as it grows, changes, falters, and resurrects itself, but not in some Pollyanna feel-good form. I didn't want a heroine who shone too perfectly, or one who whined and wallowed in regret and remorse. I wanted a woman who knew about death and had lived long enough, after thrashing about in the thick of life's struggles, to maintain some measure of personal perspective and a sense of humor. Lily Crisp emerged from my imagination fully blown, a combination of fearlessness and vulnerability, a naturally erotic but not neurotic woman -- flawed, as we are all flawed, well meaning and committed in spite of which  she sometimes takes detours that are not in her best interest.
And then there are Lily's men: her husband, her father, her son and her lovers. I enjoy men tremendously and think they have often received a bum rap in women's fiction. I'd be happy to spend time with any of Lily's coterie of males, except perhaps her father, who never quite manages to let the marshmallow-hearted inner Oscar take control of his meaner instincts. I spent a decade writing The Secret Papers Of Madame Olivetti, working on and off through the death of my parents, overseas adventures with my husband, and health issues on the personal front. Love and death: big themes. They slowed me down, set me back, and changed just about everything except Lily Crisp and her oddball intrepidity, and Madame Olivetti, the Lettera 23 portable typewriter to whom Lily entrusts her secrets. |
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