Skilled Story-teller Turns to Novel Form

“The Orange Blossom Special” author Betsy Carter has built an astonishing career out of crafting good stories.

Carter has found material in everything from sewers and sewer treatment plants (she was a reporter for McGraw Hill’s Air and Water Pollution Newsletter right out of college) to the travails of the modern woman (in the 1980s she founded New York Woman, a magazine that was in its day the apotheosis of the urbane, witty women’s magazine).

But that’s not all. Carter has also done stints as a writer and editor at Newsweek and The Atlantic Monthly—and as the editorial director of Esquire. And as the editorial director of Harper’s Bazaar. As the editor-in-chief of New Woman, too. She even successfully catered to the “early retiree” demographic when she founded My Generation, an AARP magazine for the 50-to-60-year-old set (“not working, still swinging”).

After My Generation was folded into the AARP’s main magazine, Carter set out to tell yet another story—her own.

Carter’s 2002 memoir, “Nothing To Fall Back On,” rivals Lemony Snicket’s “A Series of Unfortunate Events” for Job-esque disasters faced with perseverance worthy of, well, Job, including a traumatic childhood move to Florida, a closeted husband, a house-destroying fire, a folded magazine, and breast cancer. Although she emerged on the other side married to the love of her life, she demonstrated a playful ease with pain that only comes with experience and a damned strong sense of the absurd.

In conversation, Carter’s interest in anecdotes is immediately apparent. She leans in and listens intently and patiently. It isn’t a search for gossip, but for the reality of the raconteur’s life. In return, she’ll tell of her own life, digging into her feelings and her actions and making her listener quickly understand why this or that emotion or incident is worth hearing. It is a personality that shimmers as few do.

Carter’s impressive résumé proves one thing incontrovertibly: she knows how to tell a story. Carter’s recently published first novel, “The Orange Blossom Special,” continues the streak. It is the story of widow Tessie Lockhart and her 13-year-old daughter Dinah as they move from Carbondale, Illinois, to Gainesville, Florida, in the 1950s. The novel traces their interaction with the Florida town’s residents, particularly the prominent Landy family—with whom the Lockharts quickly become intertwined—and the historical events of the next 20 years.

The Crimson talked to Carter about the lesbian and Baptist undercurrent in her book, why she started writing fiction, and why the political situation outlined in her book looks so familiar.

THC: Why would college students be interested in “Special?”

BC: It is about a time in history that I think has affected everything that is going on right now. The period had such a large social and political impact and I think the ramifications of it are still being felt.

Also, it’s a kind of universal story: it’s about people coming together forming friendships, dealing with loss, and forming friendships out of loss. And about what happens when you allow magic in your life.

THC: How did you come to write your first novel?

BC: I always wanted to write fiction. But I’ve had a fairly eventful life, and I knew that if I didn’t write a memoir the people and the events from my life would keep showing up fictionalized. I kind of needed to get rid of them in the memoir before I could start this project. The day I handed in the memoir, I started writing a short story and that short story became this novel. As a journalist I find fiction a very liberating form of writing: not everything has to be true.

THC: How does the process of writing a novel differ from that of a memoir?

BC: I had to stick to the facts. In fiction, you can kill a character and then you miss her and you can bring her back to life. It doesn’t work that way in memoir writing.

THC: I was somewhat surprised by the strong Baptist element. Where did that come from?

BC: The religious undertone came because I was interested in exploring characters whose lives are fed by their faith. Their complete and utter faith gets them through.

THC: There seems to be a strong Lesbian element to many of the female relationships, particularly between Victoria Landy [the Landy family matriarch] and Sonia [the local hairdresser]. Why did you make that choice?

BC: I wanted to do that because it was a time and a place, the late ’50s, early ’60s, where people might have those feelings and wouldn’t go anywhere with them. I was curious as to how those feelings would be expressed and I was curious as to how far a character who never denied herself anything [Victoria Landy] would take the lesbian attraction thing.

I hadn’t intended to show a lesbian undercurrent between the two mothers or between the two daughters, but that does not mean it is not there.

THC: You say that you wanted to try things like lesbianism and passionate religion to see how the characters played off of it, indicating that the characters’ paths are unplanned. Can you talk a little about your process of character and plot development?

BC: I don’t plot things out. I know my characters very well and from there, it’s a little bit like reporting. I kind of interview the characters and find out what they would do in certain situations, what they would say and then I sort of write as I go.

THC: There are many similarities to our own political situation in the book. Is this meant to be political commentary?

BC: Only in so much as history tends to repeat itself and in that we tend to repeat our stupid actions. Otherwise, it is very much a commentary on that war, that situation.

THC: You don’t seem to have a character that is clearly heroic. Were you trying to create a hero?

BC: Each character has another character they see as a hero. I didn’t mean for there to be one hero. I think, in life, there isn’t only one hero or person who acts only heroically. Everyone finds their own heroes for different reasons.

THC: What do you hope readers will get out of the book?

BC: I think it’s a very hopeful book. I think that, in life, everyone gets into a lot of these tough situations and you can get out of them. In this book, there are a lot of situations where these characters can fall into despair and they don’t. They find hope within themselves and they find hope within the friends around them, who they make their family.

THC: So much of this book is about life in Florida. Why did you set it there after spending so much of your professional life in New York?

BC: I grew up there. Other than Long Island, it’s the strangest place in America.

Every weird thing that happens, happens there. Florida is also a very good place to hide: everything that grows, grows there. It’s a very good place to hide between the weirdness and the growth.

I go back there at least once or twice a year.

THC: Did growing up in that environment prepare you for the craziness of magazine life in New York?

BC: I’m at such an advantage because I’m not a real New Yorker. I am pretty sure it has served me well, but in what way I am not sure.

THC: In both your books, there is a higher quotient of loss and sadness than in most books. Why did you decide to go that route?

BC: In every life there is loss. [The novel] covers a broad spectrum of these people’s lives, and loss is just part of their life.

THC: Are there any similarities between “The Orange Blossom Special” and “Nothing to Fall Back On”?

BC: I really hope there aren’t. There is a fire, I had a fire. Everything else [in the novel] I really tried to keep away from my life.

THC: What are you working on now?

BC: I am working on my second novel now, the title of which you can now reveal: “Delores Taurus: An Underwater Novel.” It is due to my publisher by Labor Day.

THC: What advice would you give to students interested in publishing?

BC: Just keep writing. It doesn’t matter what you’re writing about—it could be shoes or lumber. Just write.

THC: Do you have any general advice for college students just coming into the real world?

BC: Try everything within reason.

I think that, if you really want to do something, you can probably do it. I think the scariest thing in my mind is wanting to do something badly and then, for whatever reason, not trying it.

—Staff writer Scoop A. Wasserstein can be reached at wasserst@fas.harvard.edu.