Author Interview: Gwendolen Gross, Author of "The Other Mother"

by Amy S.

I discovered The Other Mother not too long ago when I ran out of  books to read and did a search on npr.org for recent book reviews. The Other Mother looked like a great read, and of course relates to this blog since it covers the friction between a working mom and a stay-at-home mom.

While I was reading it, an email arrived in my mailbox titled "Are You The Other Mother." It was an email from the author herself, Gwendolen Gross, asking me if I'd be interested in reading the book and doing an interview with her. Perfect timing!

Gross has been called "the reigning queen of women's adventure fiction"  and this was a new direction for her. The Other Mother is the story of Thea, a stay-at-home mother of three, and Amanda, a publisher and first-time mom who has just moved in next door. When a fallen tree destroys Amanda's house, Thea invites Amanda's family to move in temporarily. She builds the tension between Amanda and Thea the way it might well be built in real life - those subtle moments that pass between women and ultimately become the basis for our opinions of one another. She displays with pinpoint accuracy the challenges for both stay-at-home moms and working moms - and the delicate balance that all women face on a daily basis.

Learn more about Gwendolen Gross and The Other Mother in our interview, conducted by email:

Amy: Tell us a little about yourself.

Gwendolen: I grew up in Massachusetts, slowly made my way west (Oberlin College in Ohio, then 6 years in different parts of California), and quickly made my way back east. I'm living in New Jersey now, and I'm writing and teaching writing and raising kids with a little singing on the side. I have had many jobs--teaching environmental science, performing live animal and physical science demonstrations at a science museum (think porcupine, boa constrictor, and hair-raising electricity), editing text and children's books, painting rooms in a rental house (I am not very good at painting, sadly), and singing in the San Diego Opera. I've loved writing since I started, and I must've had some good teachers along the way, because I actually made it through school and still believed I could write. (There were some dreadful people in there as well, but thankfully I ignored them...at least after the fact.) Thank you, encouraging teachers!

Amy: What made you decide to explore the relationships among mothers in your third novel? Were you influenced at all by the "mommy wars" we read so much about today?

Gwendolen: I started writing The Other Mother soon after my first child was born. I was amazed how entrenched those identifications are: working or stay-at-home mom. I was some of each--writing, teaching, momming--but I felt like both, or maybe neither. Either way, the feelings were very strong--community, friend feelings, and the social identifications ("Are you going back to work?") started before my son was born. I thought, here's something that matters on a large scale. And it matters because we're so anxious about our own choices that we start judging other people.

Amy: How did you write such very different takes on motherhood?  Did you spend time with different "types" of moms as you wrote the book?

Gwendolen: As I mentioned above, I am kind-of both mothers. I also had the examples of my mother (stay at home, but also an artist who was very busy with her work) and my step-mother (working mom, all the way), two people I respected and loved. I also felt as though I was pressured (by my peers) to be one or the other--to belong to a group--not unlike being in high school. I'm me, and as a writer, I'm already not quite like other people, which is a comfortable thing for me as an adult (don't ask my teenage self!), so I wanted to give both sides of me a voice.

Writing fiction is the most freeing thing--you get to be a little god (Tom Lux used to say "the poet is a small god" in workshop in graduate school all the time--it's certainly true for fiction!)--you get to give your characters pieces of you and pieces that are entirely invented. You get to help them muddle along through their problems and make mistakes. And I really, really wanted two first-person voices with distinct and complicated lives of their own, viewing each other, judging each other, and themselves.

Amy: You captured the new working mother's sense of guilt and the intense juggling act of that first year back so accurately in your portrayal of Amanda - do you think that part of her friction with Thea stems from her own internal struggle as she returns to work?

Gwendolen: Absolutely. Moms seem to have a guilt organ that grows along with the placenta (or something. I'm quite sure adoptive moms have it, too). Suddenly, our choices are even more complicated and fraught. The last generation had super-moms who were expected to do everything; this generation seems to be trying out more of a range, and with that comes the guilt and judgment of the other mothers.

Amy: Suspicions grow between Amanda and Thea on multiple levels as the book progresses - many of which are based on simple misunderstandings or lack of empathy for one another's lifestyle. Do you believe there are similar "suspicions" between working moms and stay-at-home moms today? How might moms re-focus their efforts to be more supportive of one another?

Gwendolen: YES. I am thrilled by the reaction to the book so far--even though it's fiction, I was hoping it would help us (all of us, me included) think about how we judge other mothers, how we direct our own guilt or ambivalence about having children and having our own lives into a sort of camp-collective. We are all moms, we are all making choices and figuring out what works best for us, and for our children--sometimes there's no choice about working, but if there is, there should be no social punishment. There should be support of each other, our decisions, our children. Personally, I like to base my friendships on respect and common interests--sometimes that includes children, and sometimes it doesn't. I think I'm getting off topic here. I'm bowled over when people (like my neighbor) tell me the book made them think about their own lives, choices, and how they treat other women. Kudos to all the amazing readers out there!

Amy: As a working mom yourself, how do you handle the balance of work and family?

Gwendolen: Whew. Well, it's always balancing and rebalancing. My son just went back to school today, and my daughter recently started kindergarten. Sometimes there isn't enough time to work, sometimes there isn't enough time to be with the kids (the former is more common than the latter, if I'm being honest). Sometimes I have babysitters and sometimes I don't. But the kids grow, change, have their own lives and relationships--it's all in flux, and comes back to balance from time to time. Recently, they're playing with each other, which gives me freedom I didn't have before. But I can never write (sometimes I can edit, but not write) when I'm caring for them, my slate isn't clean. So I schedule writing hours when they have school, and if sometimes there aren't enough, there will be more later.

Amy: What type of feedback are you hearing from moms who are reading the book? Have there been any big surprises?

Gwendolen: The biggest surprise is how much people project their own lives onto the lives of the characters--and how much people say they related to one, and then the other, as much as they expected to "side" with the working or stay-at-home mom. I love that--it was one of my goals in writing the book, but it shows me just how exceptional readers are--looking for themselves, but also staying open to ideas. I'm thrilled.

Amy:  Tell us what's next for you.

Gwendolen: I'm working on two more books--I don't know which will be published next. One is a first-person narrative about triplets with a family secret; one takes the point of view (close third person) of different neighbors when a college-bound girl disappears. Both are a pleasure to work through. I'm teaching, and writing--always writing; it's my greatest pleasure other than family, and I hope to do it for the rest of my life.

The Other Mother is available at amazon.com and at a bookseller near you.

Comments

[Stephanie]

Sounds like an interesting read.Enjoyed your blog..

[Gwendolen Gross]

Thanks so much--it was a pleasure to meet you, and I love what you wrote about The Other Mother! Work It rocks!
Best,
Gwendolen Gross
http://www.the-other-mother.com