PERFECTION: AUTHOR INTERVIEW AND GIVEAWAY

GIVEAWAY ENDED
PERFECTION
BY JULIE METZ

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Julie Metz had seemingly the perfect life—an adoring husband, a happy, spirited daughter, a lovely old house in a quaint suburban town—but it was all a lie.

Julie Metz’s life changed forever on one ordinary January afternoon when her husband, Henry, collapsed on the kitchen floor and died in her arms. Suddenly, this mother of a six-year-old became the young widow in her bucolic small town. But that was only the beginning. Seven months after Henry’s death, just when Julie thought she was emerging from the worst of it, came the rest of it: She discovered that what had appeared to be the reality of her marriage was but a half-truth. Henry had hidden another life from her.

Perfection is the story of Metz’s journey through chaos and transformation as she creates a different life for herself and for her young daughter. It is the story of rebuilding both a life and an identity after betrayal and widowhood, of rebirth and happiness—if not perfection.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

I am a writer, graphic designer, and artist. In addition to Perfection I have written essays and commentary for publications including The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Hemispheres, Glamour, and mrbellersneighborhood. I received a MacDowell Fellowship in 2008 where I completed work on Perfection and began work on a novel. I live in Brooklyn, N.Y.

I am a born and raised New Yorker. I grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan during the 1960s and 70s, before it got fancy. I still miss the old neighborhood and the marigold yellow kitchen of my childhood where I did most of my homework on the kitchen table—round, white, Formica.

I often forget names but I never forget a face.

As a young child I attended a Waldorf School and I credit these years with supporting my creative drive. Later I switched to a private girls school on the Upper East Side, quite the opposite kind of environment, though I still found a refuge in the art room. I did not love my middle and high school years but we did learn how to write. I took Latin for six years and still regret that I didn’t study harder.

I have always been a letter writer, which is how PERFECTION began.

I love cats, even the scraggly ones. I used to pick up sad strays, but now we have two and that’s plenty. I get to know dogs one at a time, but I think there might be one in my future...

I love to dance and I think I’m pretty good at it. It’s a time when my natural shyness fades away.

Some other jobs I’ve had in my life: summer babysitter, art class model, envelope stuffer, restaurant dishwasher, canvasser for the failed ERA Amendment, paste-up artist in the advertising department at Carnegie Hall, junior staff designer at Harper & Row Publishers, freelance designer before computers. The most challenging and rewarding job I’ve had is being a mother, because the job description changes every day.

I am the world’s biggest skeptic, but try me.

Website: http://www.perfectionbook.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Julie-Metz/132749525472

AUTHOR INTERVIEW:

Q: Welcome and thank you for agreeing to do an interview for Bookin with Bingo. Is there any personal information you would like to start out with today?
A: Thanks so much for having me as a guest! For those who are not familiar with me or my book, I am Julie Metz, author of the memoir Perfection. This is my first book and was a New York Times bestseller. I live in New York City with my boyfriend and my daughter, who is now 14.

Q: Where did you get the inspiration or idea for this book?
A: Seven months after my husband’s sudden death, I discovered his secret life. The events happened to me, all in a rush, I had been keeping a journal and writing to friends. Several friends suggested that I write about what had happened. One friend in particular was a writer and she gave me the following advice: go home, sit for twenty minutes a day, see what happens.

Q: How did the title of your book come about?
A: The title Perfection is somewhat ironic…and not. At the time of his death my husband was working on a food book about Umami, the Japanese concept of perfection. So my title evolved as a comment on how our search for perfection often leads women to cover over the aspects of themselves that might feel less than perfect.

Q: Do you see yourself in your characters? Which characters are easiest or more difficult to write?
A: In fiction, I think writers often bring something of what they have observed in themselves or others to their characters. In writing a memoir the task is to recreate actual people and events. It’s hardest to write an unsympathetic character in a way that creates sympathy in the reader.

Q: What books would you say have made the biggest impression on you, especially starting out? What are you currently reading?
A: I’ve been a lifelong reader. I love Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Dickens, E.M. Forster, Joyce, Virginia Woolf. My education was pretty traditional so I read a lot of classics at school and that continued after college. More recently I am a huge fan of Alice Munro, Richard Ford, Jennifer Egan, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kiran Desai, Lorrie Moore to name a few. I read mostly novels and short stories, even when I worked on my memoir. Right now I am reading Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, selected by my book group!

Q: What project are you working on now?
A: I am working on a novel…

Q: What is something about you that you would want people to know about you that we probably don’t know?
A: I spend much of my time at home, often in some version of pajamas.

Q: Do you own an eReader of any kind and how do you feel about their impact on books as well as you as an author?
A: No e-reader yet…I am a late adopter. I do love my laptop and my iPhone, so I am sure I’ll get one in the future, though for now I still like the feel of paper. I am happy when people are reading, it doesn’t matter to me much what the format is. I wonder if e-Readers might have a negative effect on the world of book cover design.

Q: What is your advice to anyone, including young people, who want to be writers?
A: Read good books—even when it makes you doubt your own talent, you’ll learn so much from reading good writers.
Go home, sit at your desk for twenty minutes a day. See what happens. In a year you’ll have a lot of pages.

GIVEAWAY

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