Authors Interviewing Characters: Amanda Brainerd
“A total time machine–I loved it.”
–Maria Semple, New York Times bestselling author of Where’d You Go Bernadette
Named One of the Best Books of the Summer by Good Morning America, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, and PopSugar
A daringly honest, sexy debut novel about three young women coming of age in 1980s New England and New York–a bingeable summer read
We asked Amanda Brainerd if she would be willing to interview her character Eve for us, and to our delight, she said yes!
—
At a dinner party several years ago, a writer friend and I were discussing how different parenting is today from the late 1970s and early 1980s. Then we began talking about our friends and the hijinks their parents got into. A lightbulb went off and I realized, I am going to write this story. I began by interviewing friends and their parents, and bit by bit, it evolved into a novel.
AGE OF CONSENT is about three young women in the 1980s, who negotiate fraught friendships, sexuality, class, and predatory older men on the journey from innocence to independence. The narrative begins at a Connecticut boarding school, then follows the characters to New York City.
INTERVIEW WITH EVE
Amanda: Thanks for joining me today.
Eve: It’s a miracle that my parents gave me permission. They never let me do anything.
Amanda: It’s not as if being interviewed is life threatening.
Eve: It’s not that for once. My mother says a lady should be in the newspaper only twice, in her wedding announcement and in her obituary.
Amanda: Ah, yes, that is the old-fashioned view. Being a lady. Does she also call the fridge an icebox?
Eve: Oh my God, are you psychic?
Amanda: Let’s get started. What would you have done differently if you had a chance to go back to Griswold Academy?
Eve: Not go back! Just kidding. No, not kidding. Going to Griswold was the most ill-considered decision of my life.
Amanda: Even more than…
Eve: Sneaking off campus and going to the Bowie Concert? NO WAY! That was the best decision I ever made. That concert was like a religious conversion! I’d get kicked out of school every day for Bowie.
Amanda: If you could meet Bowie, what would you say?
Eve: I’ve imagined that scenario a million times, but probably I’d be speechless. I’d act like an idiot.
Amanda: Why did you suddenly decide you needed to get out of Beaverton and had to go to Griswold?
Eve: I’ve tried to figure out what really was bugging me about Beaverton. I think at the end of 9th grade high school just yawns in front of you and it seems that the slog will be endless. I mean three whole years of doing nothing but slaving over books? And add that to an all girls school with 48 people in the grade? I’ve known most of them since we were five. I was just so sick of the same thing over and over.
Amanda: But then you got to boarding school. Can you tell us a bit about what that was like?
Eve: It felt like a jail full of flouncy blonde girls from Connecticut.
Amanda: Is that a bad thing?
Eve: Not in itself, but they looked at me like I was a total freak. I’d never felt like that before. They called me “punk” and were afraid of me. And the music they listened to! Oh my god, the worst.
Amanda: Why was this such culture shock?
Eve: It’s really bizarre. I never thought about it before, but in New York I was cool. A lot of girls dress like me. But then I got to Griswold and I was a loser. It was awful.
Amanda: Is clothing that big a deal?
Eve: I see where you’re going with this, and I’m not trying to be superficial. For me it’s symbolic of an outlook on life. Those kids were all uptight Reaganites and had never met a Jew like me, or a black person in their lives. They were just so narrow minded, and that was reflected in the uniformity of their boring fashion and music choices. Those things are statements about your identity.
Amanda: I guess when you’re a teenager there are not that many ways to define yourself, and you either want to set yourself apart, or be part of a crowd.
Eve: I don’t think that’s particular to teens.
Amanda: Hmm, maybe not. Tell me about your friends at Griswold.
Eve: It’s ironic, because although I hated Griswold with a passion, I made some of the best friends of my life. Like Justine. I met her right at the beginning and I knew immediately. It was like a total coup de foudre.
Amanda: I love it when that happens.
Eve: And then, right after I met Justine I saw this weird guy in a trench coat dancing in a field and I was sure he was on drugs. So I asked him and he said “Bowie is my drug.” That is going to be engraved on my tombstone.
Amanda: Right after you appear in the obits.
Eve: Exactly.
Amanda: That was Stanley, right? You can’t nod, you have to speak, we are being recorded.
Eve: Oh, sorry. Yes, that was Stanley. He’s probably my best guy friend. Stanley’s a genius. One of the smartest people I know.
Amanda: Did you find a lot of smart people at Griswold?
Eve: Funnily enough, yes. But I still could not believe we’d read Catcher in the Rye in English in tenth grade. That was ridiculous.
Amanda: Tell me about your English teacher.
Eve: The Wanker? I have mixed feelings about that one. How much do you know?
Amanda: Everything.
Eve: Do you think I fucked up?
Amanda: No, I think he did.
Eve: He couldn’t help himself!
Amanda: It’s his responsibility to help himself. He’s in a position of power.
Eve: Really? I felt pretty powerful myself.
Amanda: No offense, but you’re fifteen, he’s what, thirty?
Eve: Something like that. I know, that’s seriously old.
Amanda: Watch it.
Eve: Sorry! I meant relative to me. I know what he did was wrong, but lots of teachers are doing stuff with kids. And the girls want it, believe me. Boys my age are such fumblers. Girls are much more mature, it’s just a natural imbalance. I don’t feel like he took advantage of me, I was totally complicit.
Amanda: Do you think fifteen is old enough to give consent for something like that?
Eve: What? It was only third base. Justine lost her virginity when she was fourteen!
Amanda: Yikes! That is crazy. Just wait until you have daughters of your own.
Eve: You sound like my mother.
—
It’s 1983. David Bowie reigns supreme, and downtown Manhattan has never been cooler. But Justine and Eve are stuck at Griswold Academy, a Connecticut boarding school. Griswold is a far cry from Justine’s bohemian life in New Haven, where her parents run a theater and struggle to pay the bills. Eve, the sophisticated daughter of status-obsessed Park Avenue parents, also feels like an outsider amidst Griswold’s preppy jocks and debutantes. Justine longs for Eve’s privilege, and Eve for Justine’s sexual confidence. Despite their differences, they form a deep friendship, together grappling with drugs, alcohol, ill-fated crushes, and predatory male teachers.
After a tumultuous school year, Eve and Justine spend the summer in New York City where they join Eve’s childhood friend India. Justine moves into India’s Hell’s Kitchen apartment and is pulled further into her friends’ glamorous lives. Eve, under her parents’ ever-watchful eye, interns at a SoHo art gallery and navigates the unpredictable whims of her boss. India struggles to resist the advances of a famous artist represented by the gallery. All three are affected by their sexual relationships with older men and the power adults hold over them, even as the young women begin to assert their independence.
A captivating, timeless novel about friendship, sex, and parental damage, Amanda Brainerd’s Age of Consent intimately evokes the heady freedom of our teenage years.
Category: Interviews, On Writing
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