If you’ve been keeping up with novelist, poet and short story writer, Rosalind Brackenbury, you might know that she was literary editor at Key West newspaper Solares Hill, and you might know she was Key West’s second Poet Laureate (2014-15), but you probably don’t know that her first job locally was as a deck hand on the Schooner Wolf.
She’s didn’t talk much about her deck hand days, when she and Jessica Argyle, author of No Name Key, got together Dec. 18 2018 to discuss Roz’s new novel The Lost Love Letters of Henri Fournier. But she did answer a few questions for us, including talking about the real-life letters that inspired her new book.
Q: What was the genesis of The Lost Love Letters of Henri Fournier?
A: The Lost Love Letters had its genesis in my finding in a rural used book store in France, a copy of Fournier’s embryo second novel as put together by some Italian academics in a sort of proof-style format.
I’d always loved Le Grand Meaulnes (The Lost Domain) and this got me excited – I hadn’t known he was writing another when he went to war. Reading about him brought me to Pauline Benda, his lover from 1912-1914. A French writer friend sent me in Key West an enormous package of books and photo-copied letters and excerpts of writing by and about Pauline. I read, translated, starting thinking about a novel.
It was far the most difficult one I’ve ever written.
The second “layer” – Seb interviewing the old Pauline – came next, as yes, I am fascinated by old age these days! Then a reader in London suggested a third ‘layer’ with Seb in the present. He was a woman at first, but then I wanted the challenge of a male protagonist. And so on, for years…
What fascinates me about juxtaposing history and contemporary stories is the idea that we do all face very similar challenges in life, when it comes down to it – but deal with them in different ways, because of the times we live in. I’m hooked on writing about war and its aftermath, having been born in the middle of one – but this time it’s World War I. I’m a historian by training but a novelist by choice – a sort of hybrid, I suppose.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’ve just finished a lot of edits on a novel coming out next July, called Without Her. Also edits of a poetry collection Invisible Horses, due out in May. So – looking forward to writing rather than editing!
Q: Where are you when not in Key West?
A: I spent most of the summer months in France and/or England and Scotland. Paris, because it’s great for writing and I’ve always loved it. England, Scotland, because my family and old friends are there. I love Key West for winter weather – yes, becoming a snowbird – and so many friends, and our house here in Old Town that my husband has worked endlessly on, and the ocean – and it’s now my “home port.”
Q: How did you end up in Key West?
A: I went to a poetry reading on Caroline Street 25 years ago, met a man – the rest is history.
~ Robin Wood, Associate Manager
And when you get down to the wire this holiday season, we’ll be here for you. Note our extended hours (10 am – 8 pm) Friday, Dec. 21 to Monday, Dec. 24. We’re going to take Christmas off for a long winter’s nap.
As Thanksgiving approaches, we hope you will all have a few peaceful moments to reflect upon all that you are grateful for before jumping into the frenzy of the holiday season. We are thankful for all of you, our customers, social media fans, donors, volunteers and friends. We would not be the thriving indie bookstore we are without all of you.
The winner of our Summer Art Contest is Cricket Desmarais with “On the Blue Shores of Silence,” inspired by On the Blue Shores of Silence by Pablo Neruda. I caught up with Cricket after her Friday morning yoga class in the Sanger Galley at The Studios of Key West and asked her about her prize-winning art.
A: On the Blue Shore of Silence: Poems of the Sea is a beautiful book put out by Harper Collins in 2003 that celebrates what would have been the 100th birthday of one of my favorite poets, Pablo Neruda. It collects 12 of his ocean poems translated by Alastair Reid and paired with abstract paintings by Mary Heebner. There are so many incredible lines in it that fully transport me to that salty, watery world I love and that dreamspace world between worlds within us that Neruda is so skilled at naming without compromising its intangible quality. He speaks to me at a very cellular level, and his ocean poems even more so.
No red/orange leaves here, but summer is over and we are jumping into an exciting fall/winter season of bookstore events. Kick October off with the opening reception for the second annual art contest on Oct. 4, followed by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jack E. Davis, discussing his book The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea on Friday, Oct. 5. Friday, Oct. 12, will feature an all-ages event, Newbery award-winning author Kwame Alexander and guitarist Randy Preston.
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Read about what we’re up to on our newsletter page: