{"id":15110,"date":"2018-03-22T18:17:49","date_gmt":"2018-03-22T22:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katrinakenison.com\/?p=15110"},"modified":"2018-03-22T18:17:49","modified_gmt":"2018-03-22T22:17:49","slug":"a-chat-with-anna-quindlen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/a-chat-with-anna-quindlen\/","title":{"rendered":"a chat with Anna Quindlen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"“Look around at the azaleas making fuchsia star bursts in spring; look at a full moon hanging silver in a black sky on a cold night. And realize that life is glorious, and that you have no business taking it for granted.” \u00a0 \u00a0~ Anna Quindlen<\/em><\/p>\n

I<\/span> have been having a lively conversation in my mind with author Anna Quindlen for about twenty-five years. She\u2019s my wiser, more observant, funnier best friend — albeit, the one I\u2019ve never actually met. Still, I\u2019m pretty sure if we were neighbors we\u2019d get together to walk our dogs every morning and compare notes on what\u2019s going on in the world, what we\u2019re making for dinner, what we\u2019re reading and thinking and worrying about. (I\u2019m also pretty sure every other Anna Quindlen fan feels exactly the same way I do. To read Anna Quindlen is to wish she lived next door.)<\/p>\n

So when Ann Patchett asked if I\u2019d like to come to Nashville to interview Anna about her new novel I leapt at the chance. At last! Our conversation would finally move out of my head and into real life.<\/p>\n

Alternate Side<\/strong> sneaks up on you. It begins simply enough, with a middle-aged man\u2019s acquisition of a permanent parking space in his affluent, tightly knit Manhattan neighborhood and his wife\u2019s less than enthusiastic response to his good fortune. And from there it goes on to explore just about all the questions I lie awake pondering at two a.m. \u2013 everything from Is my family ok<\/em>? to Is our country ever going to be ok again? <\/em><\/p>\n

With great insight, tenderness, and humor Anna creates a portrait of a long-lived, seemingly happy marriage, and then she reveals the fissures beneath the surface. She draws us into a tranquil community of privileged people and introduces the dedicated, far less privileged men and women who make such lives possible. And then, pulling no punches, she reveals just how little we actually know of the people closest to us and how precarious even the most carefully constructed life really is.<\/p>\n

F<\/span>rankly, it was a little eerie, reading Alternate Side<\/strong>. Whether you live in Kansas or California, New Hampshire or New York, it\u2019s the kind of book that asks you to stop and take a closer look at the divisions, tensions, and alternate sides of your own world. It may also make you feel as if the author is hanging out on your doorstep, reading your mind, eavesdropping on your phone calls, debriefing your kids, and listening in on the argument you just had with with your spouse at the breakfast table.<\/p>\n

Perhaps, given our long relationship with Anna Quindlen \u2013 nine best-selling novels and eight works of memoir\/nonfiction — this should come as no surprise to anyone. She knows us so well! She is<\/em> us. (A critic once called her \u201cthe sanest person in America,\u201d and it\u2019s easy to see why.) Still, when a book hits this close to home, when it cracks your heart open and makes you rethink all of your assumptions, you can\u2019t help but sit up and pay attention.<\/p>\n

And when a novel comes along that\u2019s as timely and as unsettling as Alternate Side<\/strong>, you also want everyone you know to read it \u2013 soon<\/em> — so you can all get together and have a chat about it. It\u2019s a page-turner. And once you turn that last page you\u2019re going to want to have someone to talk to.<\/p>\n

I wish you could all come to Nashville on March 28 to join me and Anna Quindlen for our conversation at the Nashville Public Library. (If you live nearby, do come! Ticket info for this free event is on the Parnassus Books site, here<\/strong><\/a>.)<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the next best thing: \u00a0I\u2019ll come home with a signed book from Anna to give away here.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"P.S.<\/strong> It just so happens that the arrival of Anna\u2019s galley coincided with a brief family vacation in Florida, hence my goofy sun hat. But the truth is, Alternate Side<\/strong> should be the beach book of 2018 — and the book club novel of the year as well. \u00a0With my appetite whetted for more, I went straight back to one of AQ\u2019s earliest and best-loved novels, One True Thing<\/strong><\/a>, which is really one of the great classics of mother-daughter relationships. \u00a0And if you want to know exactly why I feel such a kinship with Anna, treat yourself to her most recent collection of personal essays, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake<\/strong><\/a>. \u00a0You’ll wish she lived next door to you, too.<\/p>\n

\n

to enter to win a signed book <\/span><\/h3>\n

Just leave a comment below to enter to win a signed first edition of Alternate Side<\/strong>. Have a question you\u2019d like me to ask Anna? By all means let me know. (She says nothing is off the table.) If you\u2019re willing to share an \u201calternate sides\u201d situation from your own life, I\u2019d love to hear about it. Or you can simply say, Count me in<\/em>. \u00a0I’ll choose a winner at random after midnight on Thursday, April 5<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

If you want to be sure of getting your own signed<\/em> copy, you can pre-order one from Parnassus right\u00a0here<\/strong><\/a>. \u00a0(Or, order from Amazon here<\/strong><\/a>. This is an affiliate link.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Look around at the azaleas making fuchsia star bursts in spring; look at a full moon hanging silver in a black sky on a cold night. And realize that life is glorious, and that you have no business taking it for granted.” \u00a0 \u00a0~ Anna Quindlen I have been having a lively conversation in my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,20,44,15],"tags":[64,68,70,331],"class_list":{"0":"post-15110","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-book-reviews","8":"category-books","9":"category-reading","10":"category-writing-and-reading","11":"tag-alternate-side","12":"tag-ann-patchett","13":"tag-anna-quindlen","14":"tag-parnassus-books","15":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/600x600.png?fit=600%2C600","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}