New interview series: Midlife authors

Up first: novelist Jennifer Rosner

In my early forties, when I finally got serious about fiction writing, I felt awkward about my age: I had this idea (thank you, media, general ageism, and my own comparisonitis) that real writers publisher their first book in their twenties, or maybe thirties, and therefore I wasn’t—would never be—a real writer. Still, a part of me knew this wasn’t true, and I collected names of stories of writers who published their first books later in life, like Penelope Fitzgerald, Toni Morrison, Tillie Olsen….

But it wasn’t until I was 55, in the months before my novel was published, that I truly began to understand that many writers publish their first books at midlife; I wasn’t an anomaly. When I joined a marketing support group for writers whose first novels were published in 2020, I suddenly got to know a host of debut authors in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. Among their books were Reese’s Bookclub picks, award-winning novels, Read with Jenna picks, literary novels, rom-coms, thrillers. There were writers with multi-book deals and writers with small presses—it was a range.

Since then I've come to see how many authors start publishing at midlife, for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is that it can take many years to learn to write a novel, and it can take many years to get a novel published. Still, the myth that “real” writers are young writers persists. Maybe you’ve encountered or read interviews with midlife authors, which go like this: First, there’s a a shocked-sounding introduction to the author, with the reporter expressing amazement that this person dared to publish their first book at the old age of [40, 50, etc.] And then the questions: Why did it take so long? How does it feel to publish your first book when you’re so old?

So this occasional series, Midlife Authors, is my attempt to push back at this misconception. There are a lot of us midlife authors, and even more midlife writers!

Jennifer Rosner

With that, I’ll introduce you to Jennifer Rosner. Jennifer is the author of two historical novels, The Yellow Bird Sings and Once We Were Home, a memoir, If a Tree Falls, and two children’s picture books. She’s a former philosophy professor who slowly made her way to novel writing. She lives in Western Massachusetts and is the mom of two mostly grown daughters.

Jennifer Rosner’s assured debut novel, The Yellow Bird Sings, was one of my favorite novels of 2020. It follows a Jewish mother and young daughter, Roza and Shira, who’ve survived the Nazis’ attack on their home, and found refuge in a farm family’s barn. Roza must devise ways to keep Shira silent; ironically, both Roza and Shira are musically talented. Roza, daughter of a violin maker, was a cellist before the war, and Shira picks up musical ideas and themes quickly, though she’s only five. Their barn sojourn marks the first section of the novel, and the remaining sections detail Roza and Shira’s journeys, rotating through their perspectives. 

“It's never too late! Life informs art! Also: consistency is extremely helpful. If you keep at it, letting your thoughts and ideas simmer, something will develop.” —Jennifer Rosner

Jennifer Rosner’s novels The Yellow Bird Sings and Once We Were Home, her memoir If A Tree Falls, and a novel she suggests we get to know: Max Porter’s Grief Is the Thing with Feathers. Rosner calls this novel “emotionally wrenching, beautifully written, and full of innovation.”

The Yellow Bird Sings is both delicate and propulsive: it’s closely observed, deep in its characters’ worlds, but the clock of the war ticks forward, creating suspense. Rosner also does a wonderful job with objects, adding emotional weight to the story, and with music, a theme of the novel. And the ending knocked my socks off—beautiful, devastating, and hopeful.

I should add that Jennifer Rosner’s book event at Gibson’s Bookstore, Concord, NH, in March 2020 was the last in-person book event I went to before the pandemic; with that event, her tour was cut short. (Back when we thought the pandemic might last a few weeks…)

Midlife Authors Q & A with Jennifer Rosner

Hi Jennifer! Where, or when, did you notice the first glimmers of writing? Or to put it another way, when did writing start calling to you more insistently? 

I found my way to a writing life soon after becoming a mother of two deaf daughters. I'd earned my Ph.D. in Philosophy but did not find my training to be particularly useful or grounding as I sought to understand the new shapes our lives would take. I turned to creative writing for the first time. It nourished me and revealed pathways to incorporating emotion as well as intellect, and to creatively embracing concerns that were universal and also deeply particular and personal. My early work focused on hearing and deafness, sound and silence. I began with memoir and moved into fiction.

What do you know now as a writer that you wish you’d known starting out?

It takes trust!  Trust in oneself, most of all. Each project unspools in its own way, and it requires faith, perseverance, and patience.  

What makes a midlife writer a stronger writer?

By midlife, having faced all kinds of challenges, we're often stronger and have greater perspective! (As it turns out,  perspective really helps in life and in writing!) Life experience often helps us build strength, perseverance, confidence—qualities we need to continue working in the face of setbacks or feelings of being stalled out. 

Can you share your advice for someone who’s just getting started with writing, or who thinks it’s too late? 

I'd say: it's never too late! Life informs art! Also: consistency is extremely helpful. If you keep at it, letting your thoughts and ideas simmer, something will develop. 

Tell us about your your latest novel.

My most recent book, Once We Were Home, is a historical novel about children stolen in the wake of World War II and their subsequent struggles to re-root after great rupture. Through the interwoven stories of four characters, it raises questions of belonging and identity, complicity and responsibility, good intentions and unforeseen consequences, as it confronts what it really means to find home.

Ana and her baby brother, Oskar, are placed for safety with a Polish farm family and remain there after their parents perish in the war. When a woman from a Jewish reclamation organization seizes them, believing she has their best interest at heart, Ana sees an opportunity to reconnect with her roots, while Oskar sees only the loss of the home he loves.

Roger grows up in a monastery in France, inventing stories and trading riddles with his best friend in a life of quiet concealment. When a relative seeks to retrieve him, the Church steals him across the Pyrenees before relinquishing him to family in Jerusalem.

Renata, a post-graduate student in archaeology, has spent her life unearthing secrets from the past--except for her own. After her mother’s death, Renata’s grief is entwined with all the questions her mother left unanswered, including why they fled Germany so quickly when Renata was a little girl.

Two decades later, they are each building lives for themselves, trying to move on from the trauma and loss that haunts them. As their stories converge in Israel, in unexpected ways, they must each ask where and to whom they truly belong.

And can you share the title of book that you think deserves more attention?

I absolutely loved Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter. It is emotionally wrenching, beautifully written, and full of innovation. 

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Watching: The Greatest Night in Pop (and what to watch if you’ve already watched it)

If you’re a Gen X-er, and you haven’t watched this Netflix documentary about the making of the 1984 song “We Are the World,” run and stream it tonight! The documentary is mostly narrated by Lionel Richie, of Commodores and ‘80s solo work fame. Richie and Michael Jackson wrote “We Are the World, ” a fundraiser for USA for Africa, much like the British “Do They Know It’s Christmas, after Harry Belafonte wanted to do something about the famine in Ethiopia, and a couple of agents got the ball rolling. It’s fascinating to see how this small group of people wrangled all these pop stars, and what happened on the long night they recorded. The one-night recording session went from about 11 pm, after the American Music Awards, until 7 am for the last solo.

I want to tell you about the funny and surprising moment with Bob Dylan, a tender musical moment with Harry Belafonte, the knockout sound of Cindi Lauper’s voice, Quincy Jones’ remarkable energy and drive to herd all those cats and make the song into something good, and a lot of other things, but better if you watch it for yourself. Let me know if you watch it, and what you think.

And if you’ve already watched The Greatest Night of Pop, I’d suggest another Netflix documentary, Quincy, from 2018. Made by his daughter Rashida Jones, Quincy surveys Quincy Jones’ life’s work from the perspective of an ailing 80-year-old Quincy, who’s still working, still at it. Quincy Jones’ musical career runs through the entire American songbook—big band, bebop, jazz, soul, pop, and on through hiphop. It’s an amazing legacy.

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I’ll leave you with these two images from Virginia, where I’m visiting my mom: a hellebore (Lenten rose), blooming and vivid in late February; and a 1788 portrait of a Baltimore mother and two daughters by Charles Wilson Peale, seen in the Colonial Williamsburg Art Museums. Did the little daughters cut their own bangs, or is that a child-hairstyle? And note the big-haired Barbie-like doll the younger girl holds!

Charles Wilson Peale’s portrait of Louisa Airy Gilmour, and daughters Jane and Elizabeth. It’s a study in hands and textures, with a doll at the center of things. In that fancy pink dress, the doll looks uncannily like a Barbie.