Brunch With Lisa Grunwald and Adriana Trigiani

Me, Lisa Grunwald and Adriana Trigiani

Yesterday I took a trip to Bay Ridge Brooklyn for a brunch with fans of Adriana Trigiani and Lisa Grunwald at Cebu Bar & Bistro, organized by The Bookmark Shoppe. Close to 60 of us gathered to hear these wonderful authors talk about their creative process.

Many in the crowd were being introduced to Lisa Grunwald, whose novel Time After Time is the highlight of the summer for me. (My review is here.) Adriana Trigiani has been raving about Time After Time on her weekly Facebook Lives, and it sounded so intriguing I had to read it.

Time After Time tells the story of a young woman, Nora, who is killed in a horrific train crash at Grand Central Station in New York City in 1925. On the anniversary of her death in 1937, a railman named Joe sees Nora at Grand Central, looking disheveled and out-of-place, but beautiful. He offers to walk her home, and on the way there she disappears.

Every year on the anniversary of her death, Nora reappears. She and Joe fall in love and manage to create a life within the confines of Grand Central, as they discover that she is safe within those walls.
It's a beautiful love story, one that completely absorbs the reader in that time and place with these two people.

Lisa Grunwald was researching for another book when she came upon a book about Grand Central Station in the 1940s. She found a story about a man who saw a woman there who asked him to walk her home. She disappeared on the way, but the man continued to the address where he found a woman who lived there, and when he told her his story she said that it was her niece, who died a dozen years ago at Grand Central and that this happens every year on the anniversary of her death.

Grunwald did a great deal of research for this brilliant novel, reading every book she could find about Grand Central's history, going on Ebay where she found uniform buttons for railmen, maps, ticket stubs and more. She called it "going down the rabbit hole." Her attention to detail in the book is what makes the reader feel like she is right there.

She spoke of the main theme of her book- how much do you sacrifice for love? Nora is stuck in this one place and if she and Joe want to be together, is he willing to sacrifice everything else to be with her?

Trigiani and Grunwald spoke about their different styles- Trigiani writes a book a year, Grunwald takes three to four years to complete a book. They spoke about the importance of gestating ideas, just sitting and thinking, which is difficult to do in this fast-paced, immediate gratification world we live in.

An audience member asked if the authors know the endings to their books when they begin to write. Grunwald says that she likes to think she does, and 50% of the time she is right. In the new book she is writing, she knows the ending but not the beginning as of yet. Trigiani says she always thinks she knows the ending, then as her deadline approaches, she keeps adding and changing the ending.

It was an interesting event, and I met some lovely people at my table, Reggie and Joanne, and we had a wonderful discussion about our favorite books and authors. If you ever get the chance to meet an author, take it. It's fascinating to hear about the process of writing.

Both Time After Time and Triagiani's latest book, Tony's Wife (which comes out in paperback on Tuesday, July 23rd- my review is here) have stunning book covers, and they are both set in the 1940's. If you want to get lost in a different time and place (and with all the current national discord, who doesn't?), pick up these lovely novels.

I love the covers of these books

Lisa Grunwald's website is here.

Adriana Trigiani's website is here.

Book Report- Books Make Great Broadway Shows and Movies

Many of the movies nominated for Oscars this year have their roots in books, including a few of my favorites, Colm Toibin's Brooklyn and Emma Donoghue's Room. I discussed this in my March Book Report column in last week's Citizen. Click the link below to read it.

http://auburnpub.com/lifestyles/la-rue-the-revenant-hamilton-and-other-awards-season-darlings/article_b97f731f-8c3a-51f4-97f6-ef59ec08ba42.html

At The Movies- Brooklyn

A few years ago I read Colm Toibin's beautiful novel Brooklyn.  He told the story of Eilis, a young Irish woman who leaves her home, her mother and sister in Ireland to come to America for a better opportunity in 1951.

Eilis' sister Rose arranged for Eilis to move to move to Brooklyn where a kindly priest found her a job working in an upscale department store and a place to live in a boardinghouse with other young women.

Eilis was frightened and very lonely, and Toibin made her loneliness feel palpable on the page. I can remember feeling that so many of our own relatives must have felt the very same way, moving away from home and family all alone to a new country.

Toibin's novel was turned into a movie, also called Brooklyn, and I saw it last week. It is such a beautiful work of art, it felt like an old-fashioned MGM movie from the 1950s. The colors are so vibrant, the costumes just so lovely, and Saoirse Ronan is absolute perfection as Eilis.

Her beautiful face just registers all the emotions that Eilis feels- the loneliness, homesickness, fear, and eventually joy and love. Ronan gives a stunning performance, and is in nearly every scene of the movie. Oscar buzz is already building for her, and I would be shocked if she is not nominated.

Director John Crowley creates a work of art here, and Nick Hornsby's script perfectly captures the essence of Tobin's book. All of my favorite book scenes are in the movie.

As Eilis falls in love with Tony, wonderfully played by Emory Cohen, you can feel Eilis coming out of her shell and believing that she can be happy and have a future. Watching them fall in love was so heartwarming.

Tragedy intervenes and Eilis must return home for awhile. When she gets there, she feels torn between her home and her new life, and you will be on pins and needles waiting to get to the end. And even though I knew how it ended, I still felt anxious, that's how well done this movie is.

In the lobby

I give Brooklyn the movie my highest recommendation. Take your mom or your grandma to see it with you.

The City Cinema 1-2-3 on the Upper East Side had a display of one of Eilis' costumes, a black sweater that I coveted from the movie. Maybe there will be a fashion tie-in with the movie?

A closeup of Ellis' sweater and skirt

The link to the homepage for the Fox Searchlight movie is here.

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

As someone of Irish descent, I found Brooklyn by Colm Toibin, a fascinating look at how one young girl makes her way from her small town in Ireland to the big borough of Brooklyn.

Shy Eilis Lacey lives with her widowed mother and older sister Rose. Rose has a good job, supports her family, and has an active social life. Work is difficult to come by in the 1950's in Ireland, and Eilis works part-time as sales girl in a small grocers.

An opportunity in the form of Father Flood arises. He can arrange for Eilis to come to Brooklyn where he lives, she can find steady work, and go to college to get an accounting degree and a better life. Eilis fears leaving her mother and sister, but Rose convinces her it is for the best.

Leaving everyone she knows far behind, Father Flood arranges for Eilis to work at a department store by day, and attend college by night. She lives in Mrs. Kehoe's boardinghouse, along with several other single women. It is a lonely life for Eilis, and although she is successful as a shopgirl, she finds it tedious.

She concentrates on her studies, working hard to get good grades. On Friday evenings, she goes to the dance at Father Flood's church. There she meets Tony, a handsome plumber from a big Italian family. Tony pursues Eilis, and slowly, Eilis comes to care deeply for him.

Tony wants to marry Eilis, and they plan a future together. When Eilis gets bad news from Ireland, she returns home and finds that the life she left there still has a hold on her. Her dilemma grabs at the heart.

Toibin has been compared to Alice McDermott, and he mines the same territory to similar effect. The reader is immediately drawn into Eilis's life, and feels empathy for her. The reader feels the fear of leaving one's home, traveling overseas where you know no one, and trying to build a new life. Eilis's story is one that many of our ancestors lived, and her story feels authentic.

The characters are interesting, particularly Eilis and Tony. Toibin gets you to care deeply about these characters. The boardinghouse life, and the desire of immigrants to work hard to make a better life is explored with great skill by the author.

You won't easily forget Eilis, or her fascinating story. Rating: 4 of 5 stars








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