Authors Interviewing Characters: Kate Brandt

March 7, 2023 | By Women Writers Women Books | Reply More

Author Interview for “Hope for the Worst” by Kate Brandt, published by Vine Leaves Press

About the book:

HOPE FOR THE WORST

★★★★★ “A thrilling journey into the heart of Buddhist thought on pain, truth, and desire… will pull you deep into the thorny beauty of American Buddhism—and leave you wondering and moved.” Blair Hurley, author of The Devoted

Ellie is twenty-four years old, stuck in a dead-end job, and questioning the meaning of life when she meets the much older Calvin. It’s as if her deepest wish has been granted. Star of the Buddhist teaching circuit in New York’s Greenwich Village, his wisdom is exactly what she’s been seeking.

When she becomes the center of his attention, it’s almost pure bliss… until it becomes clear that Calvin expects sex as part of the bargain. At first reluctant, Ellie gradually falls ever more deeply in love, until Calvin is all she can think about.

Calvin’s lectures stress the Buddhist concept of non-attachment, but that doesn’t salve her wounds when he abandons her. Suddenly alone, Ellie must find a way to heal from her loss—but not before devotion to her teacher takes her halfway across the world to Tibet, and puts her life in real danger.

Hope for the Worst asks how far we will go for love, and what happens when we reach our limit.

KATE BRANDT INTERVIEWS ELLIE

Find your character. Interview her. That was the assignment, so here I am in Central Park on a January afternoon. Forty years later, but so much is the same: the cement dome of the bandshell, the vendors selling garish portraits of Madonna and Michael Jackson.

There she is, huddled on a green park bench in her long white Macy’s coat, hands slipped into pockets, knees dancing from the cold.

“Ellie.” She turns and I see the shock in her face as she takes me in—her older self, with the vertical lines on the upper lip, the flabby chin, the 30 extra pounds. Is she going to run?

“Can I sit?” I say.

She nods. I lower myself to the bench. We don’t look at each other.

“So you wrote about me,” she says. I try to read her voice—anger?

“I did.”

“Why?”

“You were so alone. Everyone left you. Your parents. Seth. Calvin.”

She doesn’t answer.

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Ellie,” I say. “What happened with Calvin?—that wasn’t your fault.”

“How can you say that? she says. “I was such an idiot. I hate myself.”

“You were in transition,” I say firmly.

“That sounds like something you read in a book.”

I laugh. She’s close. It’s what the actress from the Raniere cult said in a TV interview. The only characteristic that cult victims share is that they are in a time of transition in their lives. I’ve been holding on to that one. An explanation.

“We have to forgive ourselves, Ellie,” I say. “Both of us. We need to let go of it.”

“Is that why you wrote the story?” she says.

“I guess.”

She lifts her legs straight up to look at her saddle shoes briefly, then glances at me.

“I just don’t think anyone would understand it,” she says. “How it was when I met Calvin. How beautiful everything was. The way he talked about New York City? It was like there was this other, secret world behind the world we lived in. There were signs pointing to it—every bit of graffiti was like some Mayan glyph that had a secret meaning. It was like a promise. It was all leading somewhere—” she breaks off. “Somewhere so good I couldn’t even imagine.”

I sigh, watching a rollerblader glide by. “Yeah,” I say. “I get it. I do. Who would ever want to leave Wonderland?”

It felt so right,” she says. “It felt like the story I was supposed to be in. And then…”

“Yeah,” I say. “I wanted it too. Wonderland.”

Neither of us speaks, and then I have to make the joke: “Wonderland, a place created by a pedophile on opium.” She looks at me. We laugh. I knew I could count on Ellie’s sense of humor.

I lean back, looking up at the dark tree branches against the white sky. “I used to walk here all the time,” I say. “The statues around here—” I wave my arm. “Daniel Webster, Robert Louis Stevenson…I used to think of it as The Gallery of Great Men.”

“The Great Men of New York City,” she says.

“They should have put a statue of Calvin here,” I say. “The late, great hippy of Greenwich Village.”

“The founder father of New York City Buddhism.”

“With a bulge in his pants as he watches the young girls walk by.”

This time Ellie actually cackles.

A moment passes. “So why are you here, anyway?”

I straighten up. Here’s what I came for; my big ask.“Permission,” I say.

“My permission?”

“Yes. It’s our story, Ellie—not just mine. The book is coming out in a week or so. Is it—will you let me go ahead?”

“But it’s written already,” she says.

“I could pull it. It’s still possible. If you want me to, I will.”

I look over. Her face is dark. “It doesn’t feel like much of a choice if it’s written already.”

I wait.

She gets up and walks a few steps away from me as she hugs herself. Then she turns to me. “Does it get better in the end?” she says. “Do I ever find someone? Am I ever loved?”

“No spoilers, Ellie. I’m sorry. I’m not allowed that.”

She turns away again, starts walking, and now I’m worried. What if she says no? What will I do? I count steps. Almost to Central Park South. I start to close up inside. All this work.

But then she turns, comes back.

“Do we evolve at least?” she says. “Do we learn something?”

“Yes,” I say. “That I can say. We do grow.”

She gazes at me, sighs—loudly. “OK,” she says. “You can do it. I give my permission. Publish away.”

I didn’t know the relief would be this strong; I sag into the bench. But then I force myself up, step forward.

“Thank you,” I say. Our faces are close now. “Can we hug?”

We do, awkwardly.

“We thought we needed someone like Calvin to save us, to make us better.”

I stand back, look her in the eye. “We don’t,” I say. “You know that right? Ellie, we’re going to save each other, you and I.”

BUY HOPE FOR THE WORST HERE

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Kate Brandt is a writer, adult literacy teacher, traveler, and student of Buddhism. She is a graduate of the MFA Writing program at Sarah Lawrence College, and her work has appeared in literary anthologies and a number of publications, including Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Literary Mama, and Redivider. Hope for the Worst is her first novel–a book about being in love, despair, magic, and the redemption of female friendship. To read more of Kate’s writing, go to her website, Katebrandt.net. You can also find her on instagram and twitter @Kbrandtwriter.