By Brendan O’Meara
Madeleine Blais, author of several books, her latest (now in paperback) is Queen of the Court: The Many Lives of Tennis Legend Alice Marble. It’s published by Grove Press.
Maddy is a special person in my life, has been a friend and mentor going on twenty-one years, dating back to a Diaries, Memoirs, and Journals class I took with her at the helm in Tobin (?) at UMass, Amherst back in the fall of 2003. May you have someone in your corner as generous and kind as I’ve had in Maddy over a couple decades.
She won the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing while at the Miami Herald in the 1980s. She’s also the author of In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle, and the memoirs Uphill Walkers and To the New Owners.
In this conversation, we learn lots about Alice Marble, but also Maddy’s first soiree into biography, the specificity of research, and writing out of chronology (even if the book plays out chronologically).
Too Long; Didn’t Listen: Writing a Chronological Story Unchronologically
Brendan: When you were getting into the into the into the writing of it, how did you set up your day in your writing time to accomplish that?
Maddy: Well, I think one thing I’ll say is that sometimes, when I was writing this book, and I feel this way about my current project, too, I think the expression in my head probably is, go with your strengths. I don’t always write everything chronologically. If something is in the middle of the book, middle of Alice or partway through, it is just coming more readily. I give myself permission to work on that. And it’s kind of cool because maybe it’s Chapter Eight. So finally, I do get the first seven chapters drafted and look, Voila, Chapter Eight is just waiting to just be installed, and another, 5000 words are in the book. So that’s the one technique that I have never minded writing a chronological story, unchronologically, it makes sense to me to do it that way.
I also like to know what the end is. Now you’re going to say, well, in the end, you know, a person lived their life, in the biography, the end is somewhat a given, and their life is over if they’re no longer here. But I knew that I had to build, in this case, to a complicated … she led more than one life, she had a life of her mind and her fantasy was part of what I had to address at the end. And I ended up creating a file for that, that I would just add, to add, to add to, and when it came time to put it, towards the end of the book, I knew I had a very strong amount of data that I could present to the reader. It’s the most forensic thing I’ve ever written, because data arguing, it’s evidence. You know, it gave me this slight fantasy, that very slight, that I could have been a lawyer, which is ridiculous.
Brendan: I love hearing you talk about the writing out of chronology. You might have good material here. You might be a little stumped early on, but, you know, just to get momentum doing what you did by writing something that might be a little further down the timeline and going back to it. And then some, maybe some of those earlier chapters, suddenly they start to crystallize, because they’re feeding towards something.
Maddy: Right, right, exactly. And when you have that chapter, down the line a little bit under control, and you encounter it, and it’s seems to be working, it’s also the other thought I always have is, oh my god, I have money in the bank.
Brendan: I love the sound of that, too. And in terms of the the research and the reporting of this book, what elements of it, or what parts of it posed the biggest challenge for you?
Maddy: I think the biggest challenge was the more I recognized that things that had been presented to me as givens about her life, including the brief early marriage and the work as a spy, were not true, and I was going to be in the position as a biographer of saying that someone was a liar. That’s a harsh word to me. Maybe this is just me, I have this kindly relationship with Alice Marble, I guess, but I consider her a fantasist more than a liar, in some ways. And the fantasies were really about how she wanted her life to be different. They weren’t lies that were meant to steal money from people or result in a crime. Then I began to think, this is way more interesting. And the challenge of trying to make sure that the reader isn’t surprised all of a sudden when I go, Oh, this isn’t true. This is why they go, what the heck.
So from the very beginning, I make it clear that she there were some there was some dispute about some of the things that she said about her life, pretty much from the prologue, because I didn’t want someone to be to feel I had suddenly jumped out of a bush and said, Hi, I’m here, and I have a whole different story to tell you.
Parting Shot for Ep. 425: Floating Along
I’m not usually one to use journal entries as jumping off points for parting shots, mainly because my daily journaling is this vapid collection of career angst and body dysmorphia, but I stumbled on a topic I’ve been wrestling with as I submitted a late draft of the Prefontaine book.
If I had to equate what this past week has been like, despite my best efforts, it’s being in a boat without a rudder, without oars, without a motor, without a mast, without a sail, and look, there’s a breach in the hull and we’re taking on water. Oh, and there’s no bucket. We’re bobbing along at the mercy of the currents. Iceberg straight ahead? Bring it on.
It’s a sit-and-wait time, which is good for any book, but when you’ve been so deeply immersed, and then suddenly you’ve come up for air, you’re left with this time, and it feels weird. I wish I was the type who could be OK with this notion of doing nothing, of resting. But do I really need rest? I’m sorta the laziest biographer and writer in the business. When I see what other biographers do, I’m like, fuck, probably shoulda done more of that. … Instead I’m trying to catch up on some podcast reading, keep the podcast machine humming on whatever 2-cylinder engine it operates on, looking ahead to the marketing plan, reaching out to people who want to waste an hour talking to me about the book, tracking down photo permissions, maybe writing an essay or two, trying to keep the house from falling into ruin because I’m such a shit show … I’m like Pig Pen, I leave a trail of destruction and dirt in my wake no matter what . As you can tell, this is the current I’m floating in without a paddle. Waves are crashing over the gunwales.
It would be nice to be at peace, in writing, sure, but just in general. What must that feel like? To be at peace in your mind, in your body, in your work, to have hobbies, to have friends who don’t cringe when they see your name pop on caller ID.
I did the math … I’m 44 … good chance, if I’m lucky, I have 36 years remaining, but I’m taking the under given my blood pressure is on the edge of Stage 2 and go to the ER. That’s a little over 1,872 weeks and 18,000 beers to go before I sit on my deathbed awash in regret. I know I will feel so much regret weighted down from the judgment of ghosts. In some ways, I’ve hedged against the one big regret, which is not being true to yourself. Being a writer and not a lawyer — unless that’s your calling — was a tick in the column of following my path and not the approval of others. Hosting a podcast IN MY VOICE, even if that means I’m a “cheesy shock jock high energy d bag.” IYKYK …
There are so many judgemental people in my life that I worry about getting a tattoo, or wearing bright colors, or experimenting with anything besides binge drinking. If my beard gets too scraggly, I have people in my life that have told me I should shave. I have people who have told me not to gain any more weight. How many voices live in your head? How many voices, besides your own, at the EXPENSE of your own, are you trying to appease? That deathbed is coming, man. Scares the hell outta me all this time I’ve wasted, all this time I waste while others haven’t had a fraction of the luck and privilege I’ve had. I’m gonna call a friend, maybe you should text your crush or something.
And this, CNFers, is what happens to your brain when you turn in your fucking book, something that I’ve been so privileged to work on at the near exclusion of everything else. Are there drugs for this kind of anxiety? Like weed? The making of horcruxes? Stay wild, CNFers, and if youc an’t do, interview, see ya!
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