Authors Interviewing Characters: Diane Josefowicz

L’AIR DU TEMPS (1985)

In 1985, the shooting of Mr. Marfeo disrupts the quiet suburban neighborhood of Maple Bay and prompts thirteen-year-old Zinnia Zompa to reorganize everything she knows about her parents―their preoccupations, obsessions, and above all, their battles with each other. As her understanding of the world grows, Zinnia sees how the violence she witnesses is part of a larger pattern of domination, one that shadows the world far beyond her neighborhood, and her coming-of-age means reckoning with this darkness.

Interview with Zinnia Zompa, age 13. Zinnia is the central character in L’Air du Temps (1985) by Diane Josefowicz, forthcoming in March from Regal House.

Thanks to an advance in time machine technology, I was recently able to catch up with Zinnia Zompa, a legendary bookworm who’s going on fourteen, in the New England suburb of Maple Bay. We met for a quick chat at the public library; as I walked in, I passed a group of kids huddled around a boombox blaring a song from the soundtrack for St Elmo’s Fire, and I thought I saw Zinnia among them, her hands stuck deep in the pockets of her jean jacket.

The library was almost empty. I found a pair of empty seats in by a window overlooking the main road and the movie theater, an enormous concrete structure fronted by a two-story glass entryway lit by a huge chandelier. The day of our meeting was rainy; the chandelier frankly glowed, and I learned from the marquee that The Breakfast Club was coming back for a one-week encore. 

Zinnia arrived a little damp, with her backpack slung over one shoulder. She kicked off her sneakers and tossed her jacket over the heater. As we talked, she kept her feet on the baseboard to dry out her socks, baby blue to match her Reeboks.

DJ: How often do you come here?

ZZ: I’m here every day after school. 

DJ: Is that how you get all your books?

ZZ: Here, yes. Or from the school library. There’s a Waldenbooks down the road where I like to browse. They don’t mind if I sit and read either. Some books I’ve read entirely in the store. 

DJ: Which ones?

ZZ: Kid stuff mostly. The Bridge to Terabithia, that was a good one. And The Chocolate War. 

DJ: I understand you’re a fan of Stephen King. Have you read Pet Sematary? 

ZZ: Yeah, that’s the new one. I like it. I like him. He gets what’s dirty about [gestures hugely] all this.

DJ: Suburbia?

ZZ: Everything’s peaches and cream until your neighbor takes a bullet to the head.

DJ: I heard about Mr. Marfeo.

ZZ: Who hasn’t heard about Mr. Marfeo? The shooting was only headline news for months. Everyone has their theory about who did it and why. Me, I have no clue—but I’ll tell you this, he should have stayed far away from those wise guys at the bowling alley. 

DJ: That’s some life advice right there. Tell me about your day.

ZZ: Oh, my day. Well, in first period, this kid asked to cheat off me in English. I told him he didn’t need to. Because, like, any idiot can write an essay on nature symbolism in Thoreau. How hard is it to read his descriptions of the pond and the weather and his stupid hut and figure out what he’s trying to say about life? For God’s sake, his publisher returned all his unsold books and he just stacked them against the far wall and praised their qualities as insulation.

DJ: He did what?

[ZZ extracts a dog-eared paperback from her backpack.] 

ZZ: Never mind, check this out. It’s the new Sweet Valley High.

DJ: Love Letters?

ZZ: I found it in my sister’s room.

DJ: You should stay out of there.

ZZ: She appropriated my jeans. I’m holding the book as collateral. 

DJ: Any good?

ZZ: The jeans are awesome. But no, the book is not good. What I don’t understand is why I can’t stop reading it. All I can say is that the writer gets a lot of mileage out of the sisters being twins. One’s wild and crazy, the other’s a nerd. They switch off sometimes, to make life more interesting. But the twin switcheroo—well, we’ve all heard that one before. Why do I even care?

DJ: The studious twin usually gets the upper hand by the end.

ZZ: But even when she wins, she never gets to be the lively one. 

DJ: Family roles can be very limiting. What do you know about the author, Francine Pascal?

ZZ: Zip. Zero. Nada.

DJ: You may want to look into it. 

ZZ: Why? Are you saying Francine Pascal doesn’t write these books?

DJ: I’ll tell you a secret: She has people who write for her. One of them is a graduate student in literature at Harvard. She’s getting a PhD. You get me?

ZZ: Oh, I see—she’s the studious one. Art imitates life.

DJ: I heard you enjoyed Madame Bovary.

ZZ: Flaubert also understands suburban grit.

DJ: Stephen King would be pleased by that comparison. What about Pet Sematary?

ZZ: Look, it’s so obvious, I can’t believe I have to say it. Once you set the horror stuff aside, Pet Sematary a drama of identity just like Sweet Valley High. 

DJ: ???

ZZ: Think about it. Something happens in your life, and it’s so wild, it’s like getting hit by a truck. You’re just not the same anymore. How could you be? You’ve been hit by a truck! But that’s also just like life. That’s how life happens. You get hit by a truck, you scrape yourself off the pavement and you come back different, just like all those dead pets and people, kids, in the Sematary. You’re still the same, but you’re also different. Think about it. I’m not who I was at three years old. Neither are you.

DJ: In Pet Sematary, they all come back as monsters, as zombies. But you’re talking about growing up.

ZZ: I don’t think anyone’s so much improved by life. At least in Pet Sematary, the monstrosity’s up front. Though it’s is really only a symbol. 

DJ: Of what?

ZZ: Of how, sometimes, people in change in ways we don’t like. [She falls silent.] Like, by dying.

DJ: I’m sorry about your grandfather. 

ZZ: Thanks. I do miss him. And Bixby.

DJ: I hear you. 

From outside there comes a honking.

ZZ: My ride’s here.

DJ: Before you go, can I give a word of advice?

ZZ: Sure.

DJ: Spend more time with your remaining grandparents, Zinn. As much as you can. 

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Novelist and historian Diane Josefowicz is the author, most recently, of L’Air du Temps (1985), published by Regal House. Her debut collection, Guardians & Saints, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in 2025. She is also the author of a novel, Ready, Set, Oh (Flexible Press, 2022). As a historian, she is the author, with Jed Z. Buchwald, of two histories of Egyptology, The Riddle of the Rosetta (2020) and The Zodiac of Paris (2010), both from Princeton University Press. Her fiction, essays, and reviews have appeared in Conjunctions, Fence, Dame, LA Review of Books, and elsewhere. She serves as reviews editor at Necessary Fiction, associate fiction editor at the West Trade Review, and managing editor of the Victorian Web, the internet’s oldest and largest website devoted to Victoriana. She holds an MFA from Columbia University, a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a BA from Brown University. She grew up outside Providence, where she now lives with her family.

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Interviews, On Writing