Authors Interviewing Characters: Caroline Leavitt
With or Without You, by New York Times Bestselling author Caroline Leavitt, starts with a long-time couple arguing about the course of their relationship. Simon, a former rock star, wants her to help him regain his fame, but Stella, a very practical nurse, wants him to grow up, to buy their New York City apartment, to maybe have a child before it’s too late. They keep drinking, and there is a drug. In the morning only Simon wakes. Stella is in a coma, and when she wakes, she’s a stranger to both herself and to Simon, and to her best friend and doctor, Libby. Plus, she has a startling new talent that gives her the fame Simon’s still desperate for, and that she isn’t so sure she wants.
With or Without You is a Good Morning America online pick, and a Best Book from People, Bustle, PopSugar, and more. Here Caroline lets Pre-Coma Stella interview Post-Coma Stella!
INTERIOR: Hospital sunroom. DAY. Pre-Coma Stella, in nurses’s scrubs, a stethescope around her neck, is sitting opposite Post-Coma Stella, who is in paint spattered jeans and a black t-shirt. While Pre-Coma Stella has bitten nails and her hair slick backed and tamed as much as possible, Post-Coma Stella is calmly sprawled. her hair wild, curly and so long it hits her clavicle.
Pre-Coma Stella: This is a little weird, isn’t it? I mean we’re two sides of the same person, right?
Post-Coma Stella: Well, not really. I think we’re pretty different now.
Pre-Coma Stella: You can say that again. You’re so famous now! I never wanted that and I cannot imagine that you do.
Post-Coma Stella: Well, you know, fame isn’t what you think it is. It isn’t what Simon thought it was, either, that his father might finally love him, that people would really see and appreciate him. But there are better ways to do that. You find something you love and you do it, and then you stop thinking about fame. Or you find someone to love.
Pre-Coma Stella: (snorts) Simon didn’t feel that way. Not that I know of. I bet he’s still thinking about fame, investigating every angle just to be 25 on that stage again, instead of..40, which is what he is.
Post-Coma Stella: He doesn’t feel that now, that’s all I can tell you.
Pre-Coma Stella: Can I talk with the him you know?
Post-Coma Stella; No. Not anymore, Not as pre-coma Stella. That person doesn’t exist anymore.
Pre-Coma Stella; I beg your pardon? (She pinches her leg.) From where I sit, I’m still here!
Post-Coma Stella (laughing): I know. It’s weird to think about, all of us having these parallel lives and realities. One thing I wanted to ask you is, are you still seeing Libby?
Pre-Coma Stella: She’s my best friend—what do you mean?
Post-Coma Stella: Didn’t you read With or Without You? Don’t you know what happened? How we were betrayed?
Pre-Coma Stella: (uncomfortable) I skimmed just my sections. I don’t think I liked the way things were going. Maybe I just didn’t want to know because I wanted things to stay the same.
Post-Coma Stella (sighs): That’s a major difference between us now.
Pre-Coma Stella: So you see your subjects inner lives, right? Can you see mine?
Post Coma Stella: Coma really can give survivors hidden talents, musical, artistic, with languages. But do you want me to paint you? Really? Think about who you are.
Pre-Coma Stella: Or who I will be…I guess not, then.
Post-Coma Stella. (She sighs and then straightens up.) So let’s change the subject then. So let’s talk about Caroline Leavitt. How did you feel when you saw all the things she was putting us through? (Laughs).
Pre-Coma Stella: I was pissed! Oh, I know she herself was in a coma for weeks, but still. All kinds of things might have happened if she had let them! Simon and I might have gone to California together! He might have gotten his shot! I could have still been with Simon. (She stops and stares at Post-Coma Stella.) Are you with him? Like right now?
Post-Coma Stella: Nope.
Pre- Coma Stella: Oh, I am so, so sorry!
Post-Coma Stella: Don’t be. I mean, like you, at first, I was annoyed at what roads Caroline was sending me down, but then I came to realize that out of all this pain, all these surprises, something incredible was happening. I just didn’t see it coming at first. And I loved her last line of the book, which sort of sums things up. “Listen: any moment a miracle can happen.”
Pre-Coma Stella: Did it? For you?
Post-Coma Stella: You’ll have to keep living your life to find out! And so will I.
BIO:
Caroline Leavitt is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of With or Without You, Cruel Beautiful World, Is This Tomorrow, Pictures of You, Girls In Trouble, Coming Back To Me, Living Other Lives, Into Thin Air, Family, Jealousies, Lifelines, Meeting Rozzy Halfway. Her books have been translated into Italian, Chinese, Russian, Turkish, French, Brazilian, Greek, German, Dutch and more. A New York Foundation of the Arts Fellow, she was also shortlisted for the Maine Readers Prize, and was a Goldenberg Fiction Prize winner. A recipient of a Costco “Pennie’s Pick,” her work has also garnered a Best Book of the year from The San Francisco Chronicle, The Providence Journal and Kirkus Reviews. Her work has also been
a Jewish Book Council Bookclub Pick, a WNBA National Great Group Reads, a May Indie Next Pick, and twice was, the winner of an Audiofile Earphones Award.
Caroline was the founder of the Nothing is Cancelled Virtual Book Tour, an initiative she started when the Pandemic began. It quickly grew and she and novelist Jenna Blum co-founded A Mighty Blaze, which promotes independent book stores, authors who lost their tours, and helps readers. The Blaze has hosted such luminaries as John Irving, George Saunders, Elizabeth Strout, Lauren Groff, and more, and now employs over 30 passionate volunteers. See more at amightyblaze.co
Her many essays, stories, book reviews and articles have appeared in Salon, Psychology Today, The New York Times Sunday Book Review, The New York Times Modern Love, Publisher’s Weekly, People, Real Simple, New York Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and numerous anthologies. She also runs a blog/column for Psychology Today called “Runs in the Family.”
As a screenwriter, Caroline was a Nickelodeon Screenwriting Fellow Finalist, and is a recent first-round finalist in the Sundance Screenwriting Lab competition for her script of Is This Tomorrow. She and novelist Gina Sorell also won a finalist shot at Sundance for a pilot they co-wrote.
Follow Caroline at @leavittnovelist on Twitter
@carolineleavitt on Instagram
Facebook.com/carolineleavitt on Facebook
@Carowriter99 or @bookspairedwithearrings on Tiktok
Category: On Writing
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