A Certain Age (34 page)
Authors: Beatriz Williams
I experienced a weird and probably inappropriate childhood. From the tender age of five, I was regularly exposed to the uncensored lewdness of Shakespeare at the summer festival in Ashland, Oregon, and I distinctly remember watching
Don Giovanni
(“Daddy, what's a mistress?”) at the Seattle Opera when I was seven years old. The orchestra was on strike, and a pair of pianos accompanied the singers. When I was eight, a bomb threat interrupted a perfectly good performance of
Lucia di Lammermoor.
It was all downhill from there, reallyâsocial ostracism, a humiliating memory of enacting Desdemona's death scene on the living room sofa for the amusement of dinner guests. If a torrent of sexual passion runs through all my books, you can just blame my parents for that Live from the Met broadcast of
Manon Lescaut
in which a young and exceptionally hot Placido Domingo topples into bed with Renata Scotto. Imprinting starts early, folks.
You can blame them for this book, too. I don't know exactly when it occurred to me that Richard Strauss's
Der Rosenkavalier
might work as a novel set in 1920s Manhattan, but the idea took root and refused to wither. In my defense, there's some logic attached. First performed in 1911, the opera enacts a struggle between old and newâold money and new money, physical maturity and youthâin lyric, bittersweet music that itself clashed with the dissonant modernism then in fashion. Audiences ate up the eighteenth century Viennese setting, the sensual opening scene in the Marschallin's
luxurious boudoir, the angsty rivalry between a beautiful young ingénue and a lady of a certain age.
And if the Roaring Twenties were about anything, it was the conflict between youth and age, between tradition and modernism, between old and new.
Of course, I soon realized that Strauss's opera hasn't got enough plot to support a modern full-length novelâthe good old Scheming Servants storyline doesn't pack the same punch as it did a hundred years agoâso I had to invent a murder mystery to drive the action along. Purists, I hope, will forgive me for the embroidery.
No need, however, to embroider the wonderful wit of Helen Rowland, a journalist and humorist whoâa century agoâwrote a popular column called “Reflections of a Bachelor Girl” for the old
New York World
newspaper. As usually happens, I stumbled across Helen's ironic wisdom while researching something else, and not only did I adore her turn of phrase, I felt as if I'd discovered a clear and sharp-edged window into changing social customs in the early decades of the twentieth century . . . and, for that matter, an insight into how much has remained the same! I have a feeling Helen would find plenty to say about the contemporary state of love and marriage.
As for the horse race that brings Theresa and Octavian together, you can blame my horse-mad daughter, who insisted I write the legendary Man o' War into a novel set at the beginning of the 1920s. I was happy to oblige. The 1920 Dwyer Stakes was one of the great races of the age, and the eighth pole at the old Aqueduct was preserved and dedicated to Man o' War when the new track opened in 1959.
It still stands there today.
A Certain Age
marks a homecoming: to my very first editor, Rachel Kahan, now of William Morrow, who fell in love with the manuscript of
Overseas
several years ago and introduced herself in a memorable phone call that marked the start of my career as a professional writer. I'm so grateful to have her passion and expertise in my corner again, along with the tremendous energy and enthusiasm of her colleagues. And I'm grateful as well to my dear friends at G.P. Putnam's Sons for five books in four fabulous years, and for helping me make the transition with so much grace and goodwill.
The one and only Alexandra Machinist guides my professional affairs with such energy and commitment, I feel like every book rides out the door atop a truckload of thanks to her and to the entire terrific agency team at ICM. I can't imagine my career without you.
I am always humbled by support of family and friends, in-laws and outlaws, and above all my endlessly wonderful husband, Sydney, and our four children. As we up sticks and move along the coast to more rural climes, I want to send out special thanks to all those dear friends in Greenwich who touched our lives in every way: from the Starbucks baristas who let me sit and write for hours in the corner table, to the waitresses at the Putnam Diner who kept my coffee cup filled, to my fellow moms and dads at Julian Curtiss School who cheered me on from the first book, and to everyone in between.
Readers! Booksellers! Bloggers! Author buddies! A final thanks to you, who make it all possible. I love your messages and your tweets, I love meeting you on the road, I love your passion for books and your breathtaking support. Putting a book out in the world is a naked, dangerous journey, and you give me clothes and shoes and shelter. I can't hug you enough.
A graduate of Stanford University with an MBA from Columbia,
BEATRIZ WILLIAMS
spent several years in New York and London hiding her early attempts at fiction, first on company laptops as a communications strategy consultant, and then as an at-home producer of small persons, before her career as a writer took off. She lives with her husband and four children near the Connecticut shore.
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This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A CERTAIN AGE.
Copyright © 2016 by Beatriz Williams. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-240495-4 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-06-245400-3 (international edition)
EPub Edition JUNE 2016 ISBN 9780062404978
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