Authors Interviewing Characters: Lauren Johnson

The Soufflé Also Rises (The Lizi Cleverly Midlife Badass Detective Series)

A laugh-out-loud midlife reinvention caper set in Paris for fans of Elle Cosimano’s Finlay Donovan series and Deanna Raybourn’s Killers of a Certain Age.

It’s 2008 and Lizi just can’t catch a break. On the heels of a nasty divorce and a paltry settlement agreement—barely enough to reload her Starbucks card—Lizi is laid off from her job during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Flat broke, Lizi takes a job at Whole Foods where she meets Frankie, a twenty-seven-year-old artist half her age whose overly simplistic worldview is exactly what Lizi needs to get on with her life. But after an unfortunate incident involving her ex-husband, his pregnant girlfriend, and a carton of cage-free eggs, Lizi finds herself, once again, out of a job.

So what does a fifty-four-year-old woman with no money, no job, and no prospects do? She sells all her possessions and goes to Paris in search of her long-lost dream: to write her first novel. But when the airline loses her luggage and offers her a meal voucher for the famed Hotel Jolie, Lizi pounces on the opportunity while unwittingly setting off a chain of events which land her at the center of the notorious Harry Winston jewel heist. And when her young partner-in-crime joins her in Paris, the two must outrun the Serbian mafia while trying not to trip over the dead bodies left in their wake.

Interview with Lizi Cleverly and Frankie Dyson by Lauren Johnson

Me: So, of all the cafés in all of Paris, why did you choose this one for our interview?

Lizi: (Looking down the street.) Well, I know it’s not as trendy as some of the others here on rue Cler, but it’s my favorite. 

Me: Why’s that?

Lizi: Before I was married, I used to come to Paris every spring and fall for two solid weeks of uninterrupted writing. Du Marché was my office.

Frankie: Uninterrupted? What about Luc?

Lizi: He never interrupted my writing.

Frankie: But he interrupted your sleep … which is why you never finished your book. (To me.) Sorry I’m late. I had a bloody band-aid situation.

Lizi: (Cringing.)

Me: No worries. Good to see you again, Frankie.

Frankie: (Frankie plops into the chair beside Lizi.)

Me: Okay, where were we? 

Frankie: Best-sex-Lizi-ever-had-Luc.

Lizi: (Shaking her head.)

Me: Oh, right. I’m glad you brought him up. So how did you and Luc meet?

Frankie: Wait! Can we order fries first? I think better with fries.

Lizi: It’s true. She does.

Me: Don’t we all?

(After we all order fries and Diet Cokes our interview resumes.)

Me: Okay, back to Luc. How did the two of you meet?

Lizi: Well, when I first started coming here, there were a handful of other writers I would see every day. So, naturally, over the years I got to know them all pretty well.

Frankie: Over the years, my ass! She slept with Luc the first day she met him!

Lizi: (Elbows Frankie in the rib.) Frankie!

Frankie: Well it’s true!

Lizi: (Reluctantly shakes her head.) It’s true. 

Me: We’ll save the dirty details for another time. In the meantime, what was it about Luc that attracted you to him?

Lizi: It was strictly physical. He looked exactly like Olivier Martinez.

Me: So did you stay in touch after you got married?

Lizi: (Shaking her head.) God, no. Luc was just someone I had fun with whenever I came to Paris.

Me: Sounds very Sex and the City meets Same Time Next Year.

Lizi: (Laughs.) That’s about the size of it.

Me: Okay. So I want to move on to another important relationship in your life.

Lizi: As long as it’s not my ex-husband or ex-best friend.

Frankie: Unless you want your entire interview filled with f-bombs.

Me: (To Lizi.) I’m talking about your relationship with Frankie.

Lizi: (Smiles, then looks at Frankie.)

Me: I know you met while working at Whole Foods, but how did this unlikely friendship develop?

Lizi: (Looks at Frankie.) You mean because she’s half my age?

Frankie: I think she means because you’re twice my age.

Lizi: She just loves to point that out to everyone.

Me: Well, it is a significant age gap. Not unheard of, but Frankie is twenty-seven and you’re fifty-four, and yet I’ve heard you say that you spend time together pretty much every day. Do you have a lot of similar interests or things in common?

Lizi: You, know, I never really thought about that. (Looks at Frankie.) Do we have anything in common?

Frankie: (Chewing her cheek.) Well, we both worked at Whole Foods …

Lizi: Honestly, it never occurred to me. We just clicked from the beginning. Not because we shared interests or had things in common. I don’t even think we view the world through the same lens. But I think we clicked because we shared a lot of the same values. So I guess you could say we have that in common.

Me: I love that answer.

Lizi: I love that Frankie pushes me to look at things differently and to try different things. And she encourages me to stop taking myself so seriously.

Frankie: And I love that she lets me! She’s like a fresh lump of clay. 

Lizi: A fresh lump of clay?

Frankie: I don’t mean you’re lumpy. I just mean you’re … you’re … you’re open to suggestions!

Lizi: Nice save.

Me: (To Frankie.) And how has your relationship with Lizi influenced you?

Frankie: Oh, so you want me to be serious? Well, she makes me stop and think. Which is annoying because thinking is, like, my least favorite hobby.

Lizi: (Rolls her eyes.)

Frankie: No, seriously. I used to think that if I was the center of everyone’s universe, they must like me. Lizi kinda showed me those aren’t the same thing.

Me: I take back what I said about this being an ‘unlikely friendship’. It totally makes sense. Alright, just a couple more questions. Lizi, I’ve often heard you refer to it as ‘My best friend slept with my husband’ instead of ‘My husband cheated on me with my best friend.’ Why phrase it that way?

Lizi: Because for me, it wasn’t that my husband cheated on me. By that point, I wouldn’t have shed a single tear if he’d slept with a thousand other woman. But my best friend? It’s not that he slept with her, it’s that she slept with him. That was the betrayal.

Frankie: Can I just add that those two motherfuckers deserve each other?

Me: (Laughs.) You may. But I might have to tidy up the language. 

Frankie: “Good luck with that.”

Me: (Turning to Lizi.) Okay, final question. I’ve often heard you say that life begins at menopause. Care to expound?

Lizi: I could expound all day. But what I will say is this … The older you get, the less you worry what people think about you. True freedom comes when you can honestly say, ‘Fuck it’ at least twice a day. Not because you’ve given up. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Because you’ve finally stopped trying to be the person you thought everyone else wanted you to be.

BUY HERE

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Lauren Johnson is an American author who believes that life begins at menopause—not conception.

Whether pre-, peri-, or postmenopausal, Lauren loves to write about women of any age: women who may stumble at first but ultimately learn to embrace life’s challenges. Her characters are quick-witted and fearless women who know how to kick ass and look great doing it. Regardless of where you fall on the menopausal spectrum, The Lizi Cleverly Midlife Badass Detective Series reminds us all that no matter what our age or circumstances, or what others may have to say about it, it’s never too late to be a midlife badass.

Lauren lives in Oak Park, Illinois with her three kitties: Bob Dylan, Jimmy Page, and Johnny Winter. “The Soufflé Also Rises” is her first novel.

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Interviews, On Writing