the last original wife by dorothea benton frank

So I find that it’s best for me to keep writing. You know the train is coming into your head, stays for a while, while you write that story and then it pulls out of the station and as its pulling out of the station there seems to be another one pulling in right behind it. JCPL: Do you take a break in between writing books?ĭBF: There’s no point in that. I did not go to Mexico City but I’m very familiar with what went on in Mexico City in this book (Full of Grace.) A lot of people who write say that it’s easier to write about a place when you don’t live there because you long for it if you love it. What I didn’t know was that I wouldn’t be able to stop writing, I could probably use a little therapy for that but you know sometimes place is a character itself. Usually that’s how it is, there’s some event in your life that you begin to write.

It was right after my mother passed away that I began to write. I was writing because my heart was kind of screaming to go back to South Carolina. JCPL: How important is a sense of place in your writing? What do you get from those research trips?ĭBF: I think when I started writing it was all about place. Kaye Gibbons I love her work I think she’s just brilliant. But I also read some of the Yankee writers from North Carolina like Lee Smith, just kidding. I love Pat Conroy, I love his wife, Cassandra King, Josephine Humphreys is a wonderful southern writer. You learn a lot from women like them.ĭBF: I try to read all within my genre but I read everybody that I like. They loved us with all the ferocity of a couple of lionesses enjoying a good julep but they also knew the value of a swoon. Johnson County Public Library: You've previously mentioned that you 'grew up in a Southern gothic novel.' What does that mean-and how has it shaped your work?ĭorothea Benton Frank: My mother and her mother before her were unapologetic Camilles when it suited them and Steel Magnolias too. Read an interview with the author before her visit June 8. She is an avid cook, enjoys fly-fishing, reading and traveling.

Now, she divides her time between the New York area and the Lowcountry. Dorothea Benton Frank is The New York Times best-selling author of 17 novels, including “Sullivan’s Island,” ”The Land of Mango Sunsets,” “The Last Original Wife,” “All The Single Ladies” and “Same Beach Next Year.” She was born and raised on Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina.

The last original wife by dorothea benton frank