An Evening with Author Ayelet Waldman

I chose not to change out of the jeans that I had worn for four days in a row because I figured no one would brave the cold and icy Monday night for a book discussion at the library. It wouldn’t matter what I wore. Before I left, I tweeted the guest of honor who would be joining the group from her home in California by phone, and I let her know that I’d be covering the event for Patch. “I’ll see you there,” tweeted celebrated author Ayelet Waldman (@ayeletw). Where else but Twitter could I reach out directly to the famous or infamous as the case may be? It was Ayelet Waldman who admitted to loving her husband more than she loved her children in a New York Times article and became an overnight villain in the eyes of middle class mothers nationwide. But we didn’t get around to talking about motherhood until after we had discussed her latest novel, Red Hook Road.

This special evening with the author came to fruition when a book club member entered a website contest to win a call with Ayelet Waldman.  The South Orange Library Book Club won the honor of an evening with Waldman. 26 people attended the evening’s meeting. Perhaps I should have worn clean jeans and maybe a little lipstick. At least Ayelet was unaware of my disheveled state as we were only connected via phone. For all we know, she was wearing a purple velour tracksuit and a hair scrunchie. We’ll never know.

Waldman’s novel Red Hook Road takes place in Maine and revolves around two families connected by tragedy. Grief is a central theme throughout the book, and Waldman aptly examines how people deal with grief in very different ways. In addition to being a fascinating exploration of coping and denial, she includes meticulous details about restoring boats and cooking and classical music into the text that provides a profoundly realistic backdrop.

Before we called Ayelet, the group had a pre-call conversation facilitated by book club coordinator, Nancy Janow. Nancy encouraged everyone to speak about the book before we called Ayelet so that we could share honest opinions without fear of insulting our invited celebrity. 

In true book club form, there were varied opinions about the book. Some felt the story was flat while others were gripped by the scene descriptions and depth of characters. Most everyone was amazed by how well Waldman seemed to understand the many facets of grief.

Ayelet plugged into our conversation with familiar ease. We talked about her the process of writing such carefully constructed characters and how someone who knows nothing about cooking could transform into a culinary expert. I was particularly interested in her words of wisdom for those of us who write. She advised us not just to write what we know as most writers are told to do but to write about what we want to know. “If I only wrote about what I knew, it would be boring,” she explained.

In addition to the success of Red Hook Road, Waldman is pleased about the upcoming release of the film The Other Woman based on her book Love and Other Impossible Pursuits. Ayelet attended the premier of the film at the Toronto Film festival in 2009 and was able to walk down the red carpet with one of the stars of the film and fellow Israeli American, Natalie Portman. “It was very exciting to walk down the red carpet next to Natalie Portman while we spoke in Hebrew with each other. Natalie looked gorgeous, me less so. All the photographers tried to figure out who I was.”

Our facilitator, Nancy, couldn’t resist asking Ayelet to comment on her recent piece in The Wall Street Journal about Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Chua attributes the academic excellence of her children to strict, traditional Chinese mothering that requires perfection and punishes failure. Until Chua’s book came out, Ayelet Waldman was the reigning Bad Mother, but she had this to say about her piece:

I’m a typical Jewish mother.  If my child brings home a B-, I don’t say, ‘Good try.’  I’m disappointed.  I may not be a Tiger Mother, but that [expectation of excellence] is there.  My problem with her book is that [parents] really don’t have that much control.  If your children are Yo-Yo Ma, they’re Yo-Yo Ma but if not, you can’t beat them to be Yo-Yo Ma.  Some kids blossom under pressure and some kids are crushed.  After the articles in The Wall Street Journal came out about Chua’s book, I immediately got requests for a follow-up piece from The New York Times, Daily Beast and The Wall Street Journal.  Everyone asked me for comments except Fox News.  I thought about my daughter Rosie who is dyslexic.  Her life will always be about what she is able to accomplish on her own.  Screaming would not have gotten us anywhere.  I thought an Op Ed was worth writing.

We thanked Ayelet for her insights and her time, and she thanked us for the opportunity to discuss the book. She told us that listening to the Jersey accents was familiar after living in Bergen County since the age of 11. I thought about interrupting in order to represent those of us who do not have a Jersey accent, but I let it go. “Enjoy the nice weather in California,” we said. We could hear her smiling over the phone when she replied, “It might be spring over here, but I can’t get a good bagel to save my life.  Have a couple for me.”

Tell us what you think of Ayelet Waldman, her response to "Tiger Mothers," and her controversial admission that she loves her husband more than her children. Tell us in the comments.