Laura Claridge Interview

This issue’s Featured Writer  —  Laura Claridge — isn’t who and what I was expecting. Her story prompted memories I hadn’t had in a long time… of being abandoned by my father at a young age.

It took me several starts at reading The Scent of Oranges before I was able to sequester my experience from hers so that, as a reader, I could best appreciate Laura’s unique perspective and telling about her missing-in-action mother.

In this interview, Laura talks about The Scent, biographies, her approach to writing, and simple advice that she believes will serve writers well at any stage of development. — Stephen FitzGerald, Alphabet Box editor.

 
The Scent.

If there was an elevator pitch for this story, what might it be?

The Scent of Oranges is about my mother — who after having an affair — returns to remarry her first husband and to the home in an orange grove that would be her final resting place.

When did you write The Scent?

Very recently, February 2024. Just before I sent it to you. It’s my newest piece.

Was there something that prompted you to write it?

Curiosity about my mother living in an orange grove. In her obituary, I was brought up to date about her life — and death — the detail that her husband Avery practiced injecting morphine into oranges was very inspiring in a literary way.

You end Scent inhaling “the bitter with the sweet.” What is the sweet?

I love that she was a wild girl once, that she flew a plane.

She was a high-struttin’ majorette and Avery was a football star. High-school sweethearts, they married, divorced and remarried.

I love that she was adventurous.

You never knew your mother while she was alive. Was her obituary all you had of her?

Rumors. I heard rumors she secretly watched me sing in recitals, but I never knew her. She gave me up at one week of age.

I became curious years ago and met my half-brother, then I looked up her obituary.

Do you think she didn’t want to be a mother to any of her children?

She was never maternal with me and actually abandoned her first two sons for a few years, but then returned to have two more boys. I was her only daughter.

You write that your paternal grandmother retrieved you after you were born. Did she raise you?

No, I never lived with her. She just transported me…

After I lived a year with his brother’s family, my father — William Harney Powell — raised me with his second wife.

I knew my father well. He was a World War II hero in the Pacific. But he was a tragic figure — brain damaged by the war wounds to his head and was undoubtedly suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

They raised me ’til my teens, when he entered the hospital and I went to college.

By chance, is the “handsome war hero” still living?

He died at age 51, in a Veterans Administration hospital in 1972. Sad end. They attributed his death to alcoholism, but he was a broken man with permanent brain damage.

You’ve written what many reviewers believe is a too-short memoir — Mind Over Manners. Most wish to read more about your life.

I’m writing a full memoir. Thinking of Memories of a Southern Girlhood as a possible title, a homage to Mary McCarthy’s Memories of a Catholic Girlhood. I’m pretty far along.

I’m also working on a novel.

On Writing.

Speaking at WGBH’s A Budding Writer forum, you said Emily Post was your role model when you were stricken by a rare brain cancer and at risk of going blind?

During that time, I never stopped writing about Emily. She accompanied me through my medical ordeal. It took me nine years to research and write her biography.

As a writing student, what guidepost served you well?

Write everyday.

When you taught writing, what advice did you offer your college students?

Write everyday, even if briefly. Less is more.

Most reliable advice you’ve learned from your many professional writing experiences?

Never give up.

Generally, what’s your approach to writing… are you a pantser, planner or plantser?

Writing has always been second nature for me. But I’m definitely a planner.

At the same WGBH forum, you recalled hearing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preach in his church, when you were a college student. You called it an “extraordinary moment” you’ll never forget. Are there other moments that stay with you?

With a close personal, mutual friend, I was a guest at the Corsica villa of Patricia Kaas, the French singer and actress.

Corsica was a baking hunk of white stone and there was a glittering, cool blue pool. I dove in and met Patricia underwater! She rose like a Botticelli Venus — stark naked, smiling… then she hugged me!

Miscellany.

Do you work with editors? And who chooses your titles?

Yes, I have book editors. I alone choose the titles.

Who do you consider cultural icons?

Superior writers. I admired Paul Auster who died this past April. Living, Olga Tokarczuk who won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Favorite pizza topping, and your favorite dish?

Cheese for my pizza. My favorite dish is mushroom phyllo.

The other books you’ve written examine the lives of American illustrator Norman Rockwell, New York publisher Blanche Knoph and Polish painter Tamara de Lempicka. There are two words — Intimacy and Privilege — that are frequently mentioned by interviewers and reviewers. As a biographer, what do these two words represent to you about the successes and failures of your subjects? And to you personally?

The intimacy and privilege amplifications are a bit different for each, but all were privileged economically and socially at various points in their lives. And true intimacy seems to have evaded Blanche and Tamara, while Norman may have found it in his second marriage.

My own second marriage is loving and intimate. My privilege was not economic, I was not the heiress my mother was. But the privilege of being curious, good at studying and writing has made my life very fulfilling.

Buried or not, humorous or not, what might be inscribed on your “tombstone” that other writers and readers may appreciate?

I did my best.

Laura Claridge has written books ranging from feminist theory to popular culture, including the biography of an American icon, Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners (Random House), for which she received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant. This project also received the J. Anthony Lukas Prize for a Work in Progress, administered by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She has also authored biographies about publisher Blanche Knopf, painter Tamara de Lempicka and illustrator Norman Rockwell.

She has been a frequent writer and reviewer in such newspapers and magazines as The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and The Christian Science Monitor. Several of her books are translated into Spanish, German and Polish. She has appeared frequently in the national media, including NBC, CNN, BBC, C-SPAN, and NPR and such widely watched programs as the Today Show. She and her husband reside in New York’s Hudson Valley.

Click to read The Scent of Oranges by Laura Claridge. We also invite you to follow Laura on her website.