Suzanne Stroh
Erotic Romance
Welcome to this week's author interview with the sexy Suzanne Stroh. She's a screenwriter and film producer, author of
published case studies on family business. She grew up in Michigan where her
family brewed Stroh’s beer for five generations. She studied art history at
Wellesley College and Newnham College, Cambridge then worked in the New York
art world before turning to writing. A mountaineer and field medic, she lives
with her family in the Virginia countryside. TABOU is her first novel so let's get comfortable as we chat with Suzanne.
Tonya: Please tell us about your current release.
Suzanne: Patience launches my sexy quintet of novels, TABOU, a saga that spans 100 years on four continents and recounts the erotic Odyssey of Jocelyn Russet, the 27-year old brewing heiress born in London and raised in the Virginia countryside.
In each book, Jocelyn meets her destiny on one big night,
when her fate turns on secret histories and forbidden encounters with a
different woman every time. The novels interlock, as in The Alexandria Quartet
by Lawrence Durrell, and they can be read in any order, thanks to the Prologues
that open each novel and the indexes that help readers keep track of the cast
of characters. The whole project hearkens to the heyday of the 19th century
novel, where readers could immerse themselves in detailed worlds peopled by dozens
of characters. Edgy, modern action and full-spectrum erotic writing updates the
series to give it a “classic modern” feel.
Book One is a double love story that is part rollicking
adventure, part sexy romp through the glittering 1980s and 1990s, set in London
and Los Angeles. It’s the tale of two British-born heiresses of different
generations, Jocelyn Russet and Patience Herrick, both coming of age at the
same time. Are they made in heaven, or star-crossed? What forgotten memories do
they share, what secret legacies must they uncover and take charge of, and why
are their families being targeted for terror?
Tonya: Can you tell us about the journey that led
you to write your book?
Suzanne: TABOU began as an unproduced Hollywood screenplay that focused on Jocelyn and Sylvie Russet and Jocelyn’s climbing partner, Zander Duffield. It fulfilled the basic requirements of good drama: three act structure and a compelling narrative with a love interest and an antagonist. I dreamed of Catherine Deneuve in the role of the 45-year-old Cognac heiress, Sylvie Russet, in the vein of INDOCHINE, the blockbuster epic Deneuve had just starred in so magnificently, but the movie project fell through.
My characters had really come to life, and now they wouldn’t
let me go. Early on, I realized that there were deeper stories I wanted to tell
about how love and Eros, business and spy craft, run in families just like
other heritable traits. Telling stories that spanned four generations or more
required a format more ambitious than film, or even a single novel. It took
years for me to find the right “glue” that would bind nine families together on
four continents over four generations. The day I realized Patience Herrick was
an epic heroine strong enough to parry Jocelyn and Sylvie, with her own family
business story that could carry a quintet, I knew I had a series on my hands. Aurore
de Fillery and Valerie Drummond, Countess of Tiffin and Ross, sprung out of
that seed. And soon I could see the organic whole taking shape.
So Book One of TABOU is a love letter to the real Patience.
She is one of only two characters in TABOU modeled closely after a single
person; the rest are truly composites.
TABOU is not autobiographical fiction, but it does draw deeply
from my experience, and it is fair to say that as a mountaineer, motorcyclist,
screenwriter, field medic and family business specialist based in the Virginia
countryside, I truly live what I write about in TABOU.
I worked feverishly on the first draft of TABOU six days a
week while still nursing my baby daughter, completing it in about seven months.
Then I took a break and re-read a lot of period biographies, along with two
great novel cycles from the late 1950s that compliment one another and balance
the stylistic influences of TABOU.
First I re-read The Alexandria Quartet, a literary
masterpiece by Lawrence Durrell, whose artistic aim was to explore the four
dimensions of love in an era when Einstein had just discovered time as the
fourth dimension of space. I followed that with another run-through of the
Peter and Charlie Trilogy by Gordon Merrick, published after Merrick’s death
from 1959-1961. This was a serious work of literary erotica by a successful
author of gay “potboilers,” his explicit, homoerotic romances that critics had
ghettoized. Merrick was a major talent. But as E.M. Forster had done with Maurice,
he refused to publish the Peter and Charlie books during his lifetime. The
subject matter was too taboo.
No longer! What really gripped me about the Peter and
Charlie books, besides the first class erotic writing, was the family saga.
What other gay epic gave the heroic lovers children—and the struggles of
parenthood pitted against Eros? Merrick was taking Durrell’s “fourth dimension”
(the enduring powers—both creative and destructive--of love over time) to the
next level. Literary giants like Forster, Lawrence, Woolf, Sackville-West and
others had dreamed about it—but never accomplished it. I wanted all that sexy continuity
for TABOU…and more.
For readers around the world, generations of their own
family histories have been lost because of taboos that forbid truth telling about
the wide range and variety of sexual desire and experience, not to mention its
power to transform history. Helen’s face launched 1,000 ships, remember?
Bosie’s charms landed Oscar Wilde in prison. Who paid the price? Who inherited
the spoils?
Historians and biographers have become franker in writing colorful
and meaningful gay, lesbian and bisexual lives. Recent biographies of Alan
Turing and Walt Whitman vie with my personal favorite by Victoria Glendinning, Vita,
in the pantheon. But the living legacies of these lives remain unclaimed by
their heirs, or else squandered. Who knows the adventures of her great-great
gay uncle, or the heroic deeds of his three-greats lesbian aunt? Greta Garbo’s
niece threatens legal action against those who pry too deeply into Garbo’s life
story, as if their consanguinity is still a threat. For those of us who crave
connection and continuity across generations, James Joyce made much of the
difference between spiritual paternity and actual paternity in Ulysses, but
does anybody remember? Dolly Wilde told anyone who would listen, in Paris
between the wars, that she was more like her uncle Oscar Wilde than he was like
himself. But when she died, that continuity appeared to have vanished…until,
out of the blue, Jamie O’Neill wrote a brilliant novel called At Swim, Two Boys,
which revealed him as the spawn of the gay Wilde and the hetero Joyce. Why have
so few talented writers addressed this huge gap in consanguinity and continuity
between us and our queer forebears?
This is the great question that spurred me on through many
drafts to finish and publish TABOU now. My mission: to mind the gap. Then to
bridge it, one erotic fiction at a time, since we have lost the links in the
real human daisy chain over the last century.
I bring an unusual perspective to TABOU. As a descendant of John
Hart, who signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, and as a
fifth-generation owner of the international Stroh’s brewing business that had
been in my family since 1848 in America, then back to 1509 in the Palatinate
(Germany), it seemed like nowhere was this yawning gap more visible than in my
own milieu. So I built the mythology of TABOU around the world I was born into
and raised in and now pass down to my daughter: the world of political dynasties
and business families that bears some resemblance to the Olympian heights. Here
on Earth, with the help of the “chattering classes,” it’s a world that has
taken such painstaking care to trace its own history from generation to
generation for centuries. But it’s a history that has left out the biggest
change agent of all: the wide variety of sexual experience that perennially
inspires us, nourishes our souls, enlivens our art, and strengthens our
connections between love and Eros in every generation.
I don’t want to spoil it for you, but one of my beta readers
summarized what I’d accomplished like this:
“At first I was like, ‘who are these people?’ And then I got it! They’re
dripping rich and saving the world!”
Tonya: Wow! That's quite a background and definitely basis to build the story around. Can you tell us about the story behind your
book cover?
Suzanne: Great question. I’m very proud of this.
I worked with a very talented young designer, Andrea
Kuchinski, on the cover design. We’ve been collaborating creatively for a
decade, ever since Andrea was a teenage apprentice at the design firm that won
a Hermes award for my web site, suzannestroh.com.
For this project, we needed to incorporate several key
elements. We had a series title, and there are five books in the series. So we
needed a family of covers, not just one cover. The series title, TABOU, is
incomplete without the mysterious mirror reflection of currency symbols, £$F€£,
used throughout the series as section dividers. I can’t explain the meaning of
this, or else I’d be ruining the climax of Book Five, Valerie. So trust me: the
title and the series of currency symbols are inseparable. We also had to
incorporate the tree of life, with its nine withered branches representing the
nine dynastic families of TABOU, and with its entangled root system. And
finally, we wanted to express the eroticism and good taste that sets TABOU
apart from contemporary trends in literary fiction.
Our process at the beginning of each new project is to talk things
through over a coffee. Sometimes Andrea will record our conversation, but at
this stage in our collaboration, we can pretty much read one another’s
aesthetic. I leave her to work freely and come up with a concept.
As you can see from the Facebook page, Andrea’s first
prototype was a family of covers that evokes the South Pacific imagery where
Sylvie Russet grew up on Hiva Oa, near Tahiti. Dominated by the tree, the
covers were whimsical, blocky, colorful and fun—but not edgy. We agreed we
wanted to go for something deeper, bolder, starker and more profound, more
beautiful.
To me, an art history major in college, nothing is more
beautiful than the human body. I started looking for nude photographs that
would hint at the mysteries of TABOU, showing the variety of sexual experience
(and more critically, the powerful union of sex and love) that is central to my
theme.
Meanwhile, Andrea had a breakthrough. She noticed that our
tree of life contained elements in the root system which, if lifted out of context,
resembled beautiful, flowing tattoos. By overlaying the root system on the
nudes, we began to get some really extraordinary imagery that still evoked the
South Pacific. We knew we had what we wanted, stylistically. What remained was
layout.
Andrea drives this part of the iterative process, which
usually goes very fast. It’s a back-and-forth exchange where we home in on
color, typeface and layout until we feel that we’ve reached the full expression
of our concept. Very soon we’d built a unified family of covers. Et voilà.
We were both completely shocked when the iBookstore judged
the cover of Book One too “explicit” and asked for a redesign—or else they
would refuse to sell the book. I wasn’t happy, but agreed to the redesign. I
love the aesthetics of Apple devices, and I myself am totally “Macked-out.” But
the idea of censorship by Apple still sticks in my craw.
Since before the Renaissance, the highest measure of
artistic greatness (in painting, sculpture and modern media) has always been
depicting the nude--the magnificent form and structure of the human body. I
disagree profoundly with the conventional American notion that expressing
nudity, especially artistic nudity, is “obscene,” when expressing graphic violence
is not. Censorship is not just a problem for authors. It limits filmmakers as
well, as I know from my work as a screenwriter and film producer, driving the
marketplace through the Hollywood rating system, which determines what movies
our children can see—or cannot see.
I shouldn’t have been surprised when the iBookstore rejected
the cover of Book Two. But I am still disappointed. As with Book One, I have
redesigned the cover of Jocelyn for iPad readers. You can see the original
artwork on my Facebook page.
Tonya: Censorship of the covers and what the public wants to see don't always go hand in hand, yet...as you've stated, violence on covers and at the movies that our children are exposed to is far worse than some of our erotic covers. Moving on, what
approaches have you taken to marketing your book?
Suzanne: This is an all-eBook publicity campaign organized through my publisher, Publish Green. To let readers know about TABOU, I am building momentum through word of mouth and Facebook advertising. With my Facebook page, Tabou by Suzanne Stroh, and my web site, www.workwithstroh.com, I am forging the authentic, personalized, one-to-one connection that readers crave from authors in a world of McMedia.
I’m also organizing a blog tour, and I’m available to
support the book through interviews and personal appearances on blogs and web
sites like yours.
Tonya: I'm glad we were able to make this week's visit happen, Suzanne. What book on the market does yours compare
to? How is your book different?
Suzanne: TABOU is a literary reader’s Fifty Shades of Grey, without the BDSM. It has great sex writing, like Fifty Shades of Grey, but it is neither mommy porn nor genre fiction built on the formula for stock erotica. The gaps between the sex scenes are much longer, and those gaps are filled with more intriguing plots that involve many more characters. It also presents all kinds of couples in love: gay, straight, bisexual, single and partnered, young and old, able-bodied and disabled, faithful and unfaithful to their spouses.
Like the novel series by Edward St. Aubyn, TABOU is set in a
glittering world of bluebloods and elites. But these elites are not your
typical “1%.” Unlike St. Aubyn’s abusive elites, TABOU’s international elites
are productive, not destructive. They are on a mission led by a moral code, a reason
for being—a higher purpose that is revealed progressively as characters accept
hidden legacies and face life-threatening challenges after discovering secret
histories.
Tonya: What would you say is your most interesting
writing quirk?
Suzanne: I’d start with the sex writing. Very little literary fiction published today has truly great sex writing in it that explores the full range of sexual experience. And almost no erotica delivers the deep satisfaction of a good literary novel. My work bridges this gap. You won’t find hot sex every 30 pages, as in genre fiction. But you’ll keep every volume of TABOU by your bedside, no matter whom you share your bed with!
My writing is a personal blend of deep artistic influences
in several genres, including biography, giving rise to some unconventional
quirks. One of my goals has been to counteract
the predictability of so much contemporary fiction, in part by re-inventing the
experience of really getting lost in a juicy 19th century saga peopled with
dozens of fascinating characters, each with his or her own vivid storyline. To
make it easier for readers to follow all the characters, I’ve provided
character indexes, the way a biographer would index a biography.
Technically, TABOU requires commitment from the reader, in
the way that the music of Kanye West is challenging—but worth it. It’s not a
breezy read; nor is it a slim volume. It takes at least 100 pages to “get into”
a novel cycle this big, but then you’re hooked, if you’re like 50% of my beta
readers who became addicted! TABOU’s pleasures are deeper. They grow on you.
For instance, TABOU is ambitious in throwing out the
conventional linear narrative in favor of the pleasures of being able to peek
into the future and to jump back into the past instantaneously. A benefit of
blending the past, the present and the future together in every book is that
you can read the books in any order. It’s kind of like enjoying the possibility
of multiple endings in a computer game. You will have a unique experience of
TABOU, depending on how you choose to read it. The dual narratives begin, in
Book One, on the same March day in 1993 and 2003, each progressing from there. You
know you’re in a flashback, recalling past events, when you see dialog ‘in
single quotes like this.’ Dialog in the main story “looks like this.” And future
events are written in bold italics. You won’t get confused because all this is
explained in the Author’s Note that appears in the end matter of every TABOU
eBook.
Readers will also notice lots of interior dialog, reflecting
multiple points of view, along with lots of verb phrases in my books. Screenwriting
has taught me to craft edgy sentences that begin with verb phrases. It’s a
screenwriters’ convention that energizes the pace and adds immediacy to the
narrative.
Tonya: I hope our readers are taking notes! This series is sure to explode on the market, Suzanne. Good luck with the books. Now...open your book to a random page and tell us
what’s happening.
Suzanne: It’s 4:00 p.m. in Los Angeles in 1993 at the height of the “British invasion” of Hollywood. Patience Herrick, daughter of the three-time American ambassador to Great Britain, pretty much rules the city’s social calendar. Tonight she needs to get out of throwing a dinner party in Bel Air for a French champagne princess, where the Hollywood elite will mingle with the US Vice President—all so she can celebrate her tenth anniversary with Jocelyn Russet, the love of her life, the brewing heiress Patience seduced in a London ballroom. So tonight is a date made in heaven—that Patience completely forgot about.
She calls her best friend Calandra Seacord for help.
Calandra can definitely host the party in her place; she’s Greek and gorgeous, an
Arianna Huffington double, married to the man running for Governor of California.
Calandra and Patience grew up together in London. Patience knows her well and
loves her like a sister.
But Patience doesn’t know everything. Calandra is a secret
agent working for the champagne princess, hunting down unprosecuted Nazi war
criminals, kidnapping them, and bringing them to mock trials in order to
recover stolen assets. Calandra can’t risk being seen socially with the
princess, so she has to make up a plausible reason why she can’t do this
important favor tonight for Patience.
There’s another problem: Patience is a world-class judge of
character. Nothing slips past her. Calandra can’t let Patience on to her
secret. So in order to distract Patience, Calandra reveals the biggest secret
of Patience’s life. And when she does, Patience begins a journey of recalling
lost memories that will change her life forever….starting with her anniversary
date tonight….
Tonya: *scribbling notes in the back of my copy so I can keep up*....oh, sorry, please continue. I just want to get all this down! Do you plan any subsequent books?
Suzanne: Book Two, Jocelyn, is now available. Book Three, Sylvie, will go on sale in time for the 2012 holiday season. The cycle will conclude with Books Four and Five in 2013. Each TABOU book features a sneak preview of the next book.
Tonya: The series, as well as each book, sounds amazing. What a saga! Tell us what you’re reading at the moment and
what you think of it.
Suzanne: I’ve always got a few books going at any given time. I love reading in multiple genres. Do you?
In erotic fiction, I’ve started Fifty Shades Darker by EL
James, and while it’s a fun, breezy read with the sex writing as good as ever,
I’m not surprised to find the thin plot growing even thinner. I love to read
great sex writing, but I like it in better taste and more measured doses with
deeper character development, more going on with more characters, and exciting
story lines. I much preferred The Last Nude by Ellis Avery, which I devoured,
almost in one sitting. It’s about the cocaine-fueled obsession of Modernist
painter Tamara de Lempicka for her 17-year old model Raphaela, whose portraits
secured Lempicka’s rock star status in Paris between the wars. I’m also reading
Afterimage by Helen Humphreys, the fictional account of another muse obsession,
this time by pioneer English photographer Julia Margaret Cameron for her
housemaid.
Two graphic novels have captured my attention. I just
finished reading Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. It’s the first work by Bechdel I can
really connect with. It’s a very compelling, but heavy, memoir by a Midwestern
intellectual whose closeted father took his own life when Alison came out as a
lesbian. I’ve turned now to Logicomix, the story of Bertrand Russell’s quest to
lay a unified foundation for mathematics, set in Edwardian England and beyond.
Apart from The Invention of Hugo Cabret, it may be the most beautiful graphic
novel I’ve ever read. It took four authors and artists to make it: Apostolos
Doxiadis, Christos Papadimitriou, Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna. What a
cool collaboration.
Nonfiction titles are always by the bedside and on my Kindle.
By the bedside is Marina Warner’s scholarly book about the Tales of the Arabian
Nights, Stranger Magic. It’s well researched and beautifully published. Comprehensive.
Kate Summerscale’s biography of Toughie Carstairs, The Queen of Whale Cay, made
me laugh out loud. She was the very butch Standard Oil heiress who ran an
ambulance unit in World War I and then became “the fastest woman on the water”
racing hydroplanes between the wars. My father would have seen her challenge
the Harmsworth Cup on the St. Clair River in Detroit in 1929 and 1930. After
she lost both races, Toughie retired to the Bahamas, where she became the
autocratic ruler of her own island.
I try to read in French as much as I can. Right now I’m
gripped by Francesco Rappazzini’s biography of Elizabeth de Gramont, set in
Paris during the first half of the 20th century, which has never been
translated. The “red duchess” Lily de Gramont, from one of France’s oldest
families, was Proust’s fact-checker; she was the best friend of the man Proust
pined for; and she was the only woman Natalie Barney could never control: they
were lovers for 45 years. If you don’t read French, you can get an idea of
“Natly’s” escapades with Lily de Gramont in Diana Souhami’s wonderful and
hilarious book, Wild Girls.
Tonya: Suzanne, I'm nearly speechless at the research you've done, the reading you do, and that you're also a screenwriter and film producer. I take my hat off to you on your accomplishment and have no doubt that your books will and are climbing the charts!
Readers, don't forget to get in on the contest below for an e-copy of book one in the Tabou series!
Tonya: Suzanne, I'm nearly speechless at the research you've done, the reading you do, and that you're also a screenwriter and film producer. I take my hat off to you on your accomplishment and have no doubt that your books will and are climbing the charts!
Readers, don't forget to get in on the contest below for an e-copy of book one in the Tabou series!
Suzanne’s Links:
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