Authors Interviewing Characters: Laurel Schmidt

Laurel Schmidt, author of How To Be Dead: A Love Story, interviews the main character, Frances Beacon.

How to Be Dead — A Love Story by Laurel Schmidt explores what it means to be fully alive — even in the afterlife. A tale told with humor, heart, and intelligence, it celebrates the power of memory and the lifesaving potential of an excellent espresso.

Frances Beacon, longevity guru and best-selling author of Sex, Drugs and Social Security, is at the peak of her second career when a New York City cab catapults her into the afterlife. Shocked, confused, and royally pissed, all she wants is to go home. Instead, she’s enrolled in the University of the Afterlife, where over-achiever Frances turns into a dropout after being hit with a tsunami of obstacles.

She spars with a host of bureaucrats, misogynists, and a mysterious Court that can condemn her to frigus repono — permanent cold storage. But her fiercest opponent is her own heart, the force she must explore and embrace to win her freedom.

In this compassionate, comedic saga of self-discovery, Frances learns that the only way to live again is to learn how to be dead.

LS: You were the famous Longevity Guru who wanted to live to 100, but you also said you were “against olding”. So how does that work? 

FB: Olding is road-testing various angles of repose, bitching about every ache and pain, and blurting out your ailments to total strangers. I mean, what’s the point of longevity if you spend it as a crash-test dummy for big Pharma? But aging? That’s different! Robust aging means curating your life to include the finest it has to offer. That’s why I wrote my best-seller, Sex Drugs and Social Security. To convince people that life at any age is a gift, and you should grab it with both hands. Stay up late. Wake up early. Fine-tune your passions. Get yourself plenty of sweat, sex and socializing. If you do, you’ll find companions, causes, and a real sense of purpose. In fact, you can invent a life so rich with possibilities that it makes old age look like something you wouldn’t want to miss.

LS:  But you did miss it, Frances. You enjoyed 15 minutes of tabloid fame when you tangled with a New York City cab at the tender age of 65. And lost. The Post had a field day with that. I remember the headline: TAXI TO NOWHERE! 

FB: You had to bring that up? I had a lot on my mind, Schmidt, so how about if we change the subject?

LS: Sure. Tell me your theory about love at first sight.

FB:  It’s all about reincarnation. To me, it’s the only rational explanation for those irrational moments that filled me with wonder. Especially the thunderstruck sensation when you gaze into the eyes of a total stranger, but your heart lurches like it’s a long-awaited reunion. Past lives crossing paths again. I felt the same way about Paris. It wasn’t a foreign capital but my real home, the only place where I truly belonged. 

LS: You loved books, too. What did they give you besides escape?

FB: Simple. You only have this one life—or should I say, one life at a time. Novels let you see how other people view the world, handle their problems, love, create and mourn. The novelist, Val McDermid, recently noted that “Governments that seem to have done best (during Covid) are led by people who read fiction,” naming Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland, Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand, Katrin Jakobsdottir in Iceland and Sanna Marin in Finland among them. “They are all people (women) who read fiction. What fiction gives you is the gift of imagination and the gift of empathy. You see a life outside your own bubble.”

LS: Quite a few readers have mentioned a resemblance between us. 

FB: You don’t have to be in the high IQ set to spot that! We both love art and dogs. There’s the impulse toward workaholism arm-wrestling with a deep longing to hole up with a book and a glass of wine. And neuroses! Too numerous to list, but I think you may be ahead in that category. We both lie about our weight on official documents and read ourselves to sleep at night. In short, this novel couldn’t be more revealing if you broadcast your therapy sessions, posted your DNA on Twitter, and ran in the Naked Olympics with your social security number tattooed on your butt! Unlike me, you’re not dead—yet.

LS: Speaking of Olympics, you were quite a crusader for physical fitness. 

FB: You’re damned right! After all, if you don’t take care of your body now, where do you intend to live when it falls apart?  Actors get body-doubles. We’re stuck with the original model. And it’s not just about your body. It’s all about the brain. That’s right. The leg bone’s connected to the head bone. Exercise increases both the volume and efficiency of the brain with particular, even spectacular improvements in attention, decision-making and memory. Simple resistance activities can give you lobes of steel—frontal lobes—the part of your brain where you store your personality and secrets for getting laid. Believe me, daily physical activity works, starting at any age. Even after years of office sloth, it’s not too late. 

LS: You were also a big feminist. Almost got arrested at a demonstration for women’s rights in DC. 

FB: We’d be fools not to be on our own side. Need I say more?

LS: I was just wondering, who would you like to be in your next life?

FB: A gardener at one of the royal properties where the passage of time is marked by seasons, not minutes. Birth, growth and death each year, beautifully arrayed in nature. Or perhaps a medieval scholar. Maybe a really good painter, like Alice Neel. Most of all, I’d like to fall in love again. I think I’d be better at it.

LS: So, is there anything you’d like to tell your readers?

FB: Do what I say, not what I did, especially when it comes to love. Love all you can. It’s a mistake not to. 

LS: Well, we have to wrap up now, but I just want to say that you’re a real character, Ms. Beacon. It’s taken five years and all of my brain power to keep up with your adventures in the afterlife, but it was worth every minute. I love you, Frances.

FB: Same to you, Schmidt.

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About the Author: Laurel Schmidt is a lifelong educator, art lover and author of four non-fiction books on art, learning and brain development. She taught for decades while working with major museums in Los Angeles and New York. How to Be Dead is her first novel. She lives with her writer husband in Santa Monica, California. Next life—Paris. Find out more at www.laurelschmidt.com.

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Interviews, On Writing