Renee Rosen – Park Avenue Summer

Renee Rosen’s latest book has been described as “Mad Men meets The Devil Wears Prada,” and explores Helen Gurley Brown’s first brazen year as Cosmo editor. And while the most scandalous woman in 1960s New York dares to talk to women about all things off-limits, her young PA Alice is pushing boundaries of her own. Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and Renee Rosen talks about what Gurley Brown would have made of Me Too, the legendary brothers who created the Chicago Sound, and the thing she loves most about writing. Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: The “bottom drawer’ novels that will never be seen Why re-writing is Renee’s favorite thing What she learned from the Blues Helen Gurley Brown and Me Too? The literary fiction she most admires Renee’s latest project Where to find Renee Rosen: Website: http://reneerosen.com/ Facebook: @reneerosenauthor  Twitter: @ReneeRosen1 Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/412370.Renee_Rosen Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reneelrosen/ What follows is a “near as” transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions. Jenny: But now, here’s Renee. .  Hello there Renee and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us. Renee: Thanks, Jenny, it’s good to be here. Writing ‘a life-long dream’ Jenny: Renee, was there a Once Upon A Time moment when you decided you wanted to write fiction, as distinct from any other writing you might have been doing? And if so, what was the catalyst for it? Renee Rosen – always wanted to be a writer. Renee: You know, it’s weird. I’ve known that I’ve wanted to be a writer ever since I was a little girl. I’m not even sure exactly where this came from, because I wanted to be a writer before I was a reader, which is so backwards. I was writing ad copy for a long time, but I was always working on a novel. And I would get up at 4:00 in the morning to write. And I was always late for work because I would get carried away with whatever book I was working on. And lot of ‘bottom drawer’ novels, lots of books that didn’t go anywhere. But it’s just something I’ve always known since I was a little girl. It’s weird. I have no idea where it came from. Park Avenue Summer Jenny: It is unusual that you think about writing almost before you could read, but I’m not surprised because your books read as if you are someone who has had a professional career as a writer. That’s for sure. Renee: Thank you. Jenny: So the latest one. Park Avenue Summer has been described as Mad Men meets The Devil Wears Prada. And it focuses on Helen Gurley Brown, Cosmopolitan’s first  editor. And it brings the New York of the 1960s very much alive. I mean, to someone who actually is old enough, I hate to admit, to have read Sex and the Single Girl first time round, even in New Zealand, it had an impact. What drew you to Helen and Cosmo as a story? Renee: Well, it’s interesting. I’d been binge watching the TV show Mad Men and I really just fell in love with New York during that time period. I knew I wanted to set a book in New York. I thought, well, I’ll do it during the 60s. Helen Gurley Brown ‘obvious’ I was searching for another glamorous type of industry – not advertising –  to use as a backdrop. And initially I had started working on a fictional magazine with all fictional characters. And then I was talking to my editor about the book, and it was like a blinding glimpse of the obvious. We were like, oh, my God, Helen Gurley Brown and Cosmo. And so that’s where that came from. And then we were off and running. Jenny: That’s great, because you have made it to your thing really to have a combination of true life, factual people and fiction, haven’t you? Renee: Yes. I’m backing away from that in the book that I’m working on now. We can talk about that later maybe.  But yes, other than really one book, I’ve always worked in a fictional character. What would she make of Me Too? Jenny: Yes. Sex and the Single Girl was very influential for a whole generation. But Brown herself was not really widely accepted as a feminist at the time. And I wondered how you felt about her by the end of your research. Renee: You know, a lot of people did not consider her a feminist. I do. I think that she opened a conversation and a dialogue that no one else was having at that time. I think she really liberated women and had a greater impact on our lives than most of us realize. She was limited in her view of men and sex and how she embraced all that. I’m not quite sure she’d understand Me Too, I think she’d be all for women standing up for themselves. But I just everything that I’ve read about her, I don’t know that she would quite get Me Too. Light years ahead – in her time For example, when the Anita Hill hearings were going on, she went on record saying, you know, girls, you should be flattered when someone makes an advance in the office. You should start worrying when they don’t. So I think she is a bit out of step with where we’re at now. Sure. But I do think, given the 60s and where she was at, I think she was light years ahead of where a lot of women were. And I think that she led the charge. Cosmo editor Helen Gurley Brown – a complicated life Jenny: What do you think that women under the age of 40 would make of her? Renee: You know, it’s interesting. I’ve heard from a lot of younger readers and they’re fascinated because if they were or are Cosmo readers, they knew a different editor. They didn’t even know about Helen Gurley Brown. But I think they found her fascinating and gutsy and quirky.  She was vulnerable and yet she was really strong. She’s a complicated woman. Brown’s husband a safe anchor Jenny: She sure was, because her relationship with the husband, it’s kind of like a subterranean thing. She presented herself almost as a woman against the world. But it was obvious that she had that huge anchor in her husband, didn’t she? Renee: Absolutely. I mean, David Brown was really the person who suggested she write write a book about being single in the first place. And she wrote Sex and the Single Girl. And then he was the one that put her up to running a magazine and basically convinced Cosmopolitan to take her on, even though she had no editing  experience and no magazine experience. So he was incredibly influential in her life. And even though she was this independent feminist, she really leaned on him. And David, despite having a very successful career as a movie producer, always put her career first. Mid century nostalgia hard to beat Jenny: That’s interesting. You’ve concentrated mainly in the mid century –  20th century and Chicago and New York in your books haven’t you?. Renee: Yes. Jenny: What drew you to that time period? The 50s and the 60s in general, although, of course, your department store story was set in the late 1890s. Renee: I really have written in all different periods from the Gilded Age up to the 60s. But I would say, you know, I’ve done three books I think during the 50s and 60s and it’s trickier in some ways because your readers, many of them, were alive during the events that you’re talking about, that you’re writing about. They know the places that you’re mentioning, and some of the people. They knew Helen Gurley Brown or they knew some of the other characters. So you have to get it right. But I love the nostalgia of this newer historical period. It does  freak me out a little bit that novels set in the 50s and 60s are considered historical fiction. It makes me feel really old, but. But I like the nostalgia of that era. ‘Bad ole days’ for working women Jenny: Now, you mentioned you were a copywriter. Did you work in an advertising agency yourself? Renee: Yes, I worked in several of them. And, you know, I was literally the cliché with the novel in the desk drawer. Jenny: And so that obviously would make Mad Men very appealing to you. But did you find some of the attitudes in Mad Men towards women abhorrent? Mad Men – a different time, with different attitudes Renee: Oh, absolutely. But I even when I started in advertising, there was no one to go to. If your creative director, or the art director was chasing you around the desk, there was no one to go to and say, hey, this isn’t right. So even though I absolutely thought the behavior was just awful, it was also sadly familiar to me. What’s your problem? Jenny: Yes. I was in journalism in the 70s and 80s, and it was very much the same there. We talk about it today and say really, it was just par for the course in those years, wasn’t it? Renee: Yes. And you couldn’t go to HR and say my boss said XYZ to me, because those were just a bunch of men and they didn’t care. Jenny: No, they’d probably say, ‘grow up.’ Or ‘If you can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen.’ Renee: Exactly. ‘What’s your problem, little girl?’ Jenny: Yes. So the book that you published before Park Avenue Summer –  Windy City Blues also treats a very tender subject. You have a black musician and a Jewish record company worker in Chicago’s emergent blues scene.  Even today, I think, that would still be quite a difficult and controversial topic to tackle. Would you agree with that? Music and Civil Rights Renee: Well, you know, it’s interesting. When I started Windy City Blues, I had no intention of having an interracial love affair or even touching the Civil Rights movement. It just felt to be too sensitive of a subject. And I wasn’t sure that I could do that material justice. But as I started, the characters took over, I had no idea that Leeba (the record company woman) and Red were going to fall in love or like I said, that I was gonna go near the Civil Rights movement. But in the 1950s, in segregated Chicago, if you were a mixed couple, you had to get involved in the Civil Rights movement.  You were fighting for your relationship, for yourselves. Jenny: Yes. And I guess if you were involved in the music scene, too, you you’d have to make decisions and choices whether you wanted to or not. Music changed Renee’s world Renee: Yes. And that was one thing that really struck me the deeper I got into the book and the research. And that was that you really could not separate what was happening in society from the music because they were so interconnected. One influenced the other. Jenny: Were you deeply into blues before you started that book? Windy City Blues – Renee Rosen – the story of the blues Renee: Surprisingly, no. My idea of the blues was maybe Stevie Ray Vaughan and Bonnie Raitt and Eric Clapton, but I didn’t know the greats. I didn’t know Muddy Waters music or Howlin Wolf, I didn’t know any of that. So I had a huge learning curve. But I fell in love with music, with the stories of the musicians. We still listen to a lot of blues now. In fact, we’re heading to Nashville to go hear someone who does a lot of blues music as well as rock and roll. But that book really did change the way I hear music and the way I see a lot of situations in the world. The legendary Chess brothers Jenny: Windy City Blues revolves around two legendary brothers, Leonard and Phil Chess, who are real people who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.They created that Chicago Sound by recording the electrified blues. Renee: They were really pretty amazing because you see these two Polish Jewish immigrants who had no musical abilities whatsoever. They didn’t play instruments, they didn’t read music, they didn’t sing. They knew nothing about the recording industry. And yet they launched this record label that introduced not only Chicago but the world to this great electric blues sound. And these artists. Jenny: Yes. And it comes over in the book that really the thing that perhaps gave them any edge was their Jewish background, their immigrant background, which put them into a position where they could understand and sympathize with the black folks. Right? Black plus Jews equals Blues Renee: Yes. I wanted to name the book Blues and Jews. My publisher wasn’t really on board with that. But the parallels between the blacks, the musicians and the Jews were just uncanny to me. That really surprised me when I got into the research of that book. Jenny: And had people picked up on that before? The Chess brothers recording empire – ‘Blacks plus Jews equals Blues’ Renee: Yes. There was an expression,”blacks plus Jews equals blues.” Everybody knew that, the Jews provided the business, and the blacks provided the talent. Both  groups needed each other because in Chicago, especially in that time period, no one wanted a Jewish family living next door to them anymore than they wanted a black man. These were two isolated groups that came together in this part of town called Maxwell Street, where the only color that mattered was green. Places to pay homage to the blues Jenny: And I saw in the back notes of the book that you did a tremendous amount of research. You did a ‘homage to blues.’ And I thought from the reader point of view, you must be visited most of rock and roll monuments in the course of that research. Was there any one place that particularly impressed you? Anywhere that somebody listening and coming to the States might think, oh, that would be a good place to visit? That captures that feeling of the time? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAN6CDzb3t4 Renee: Oh, definitely. So in Zachary, Louisiana, we went to Teddy’s Juke Joint, which was just amazing, it’s really Teddy’s house that he just opens up to musicians. Clarksville was wonderful. Memphis, the Stax Museum, Sun Studios, the Civil Rights Museum is there. In Cleveland, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Blues Heaven in Chicago And here in Chicago, definitely Blues Heaven, which was the original 2021 South Michigan Avenue Chess Records studios. They still refer to it as Leonard and Phil’s office system there. And it’s Willie Dixon’s grandson, Keith is the one who actually gives the tours of that. And it’s really a worthwhile. If people are in Chicago and in the States, those are the places I would send them. Jenny: Yes. I saw Willie’s museum online and it looked pretty good. But it’s nice to have that endorsement. What would you say that the Chess’s secret was? Renee: I think they just had a gut feeling. They were they were businessmen. They were entrepreneurs. Phil saw a need in the marketplace. No one was producing what were called ‘race records’ at the time for a black audience. And they just trusted their gut. Phil was the guy that took care of the musicians and Leonard took care of the more the business side of it. Chicago in the 50s and 60s A lot of accounts – like the movie Cadillac Records, for example, only focus on Leonard, but Chess Records was the product of both brothers. And I don’t think it would have been nearly as successful if they hadn’t had each other. Jenny: And what drew you to that topic? Renee: I had done several books set in Chicago, one during Prohibition, one during the Gilded Age and one in the 50s and 60s with the Daley machine and all the corrupt politics and all that. I wanted to do another Chicago book and we were racking our brains to think of what topic. And my editor said, well, what about the blues? And I said, well, let me go do some research. And that’s when I first stumbled upon the Chess Records story. I got back to her and I said, ‘Oh, my God, we’ve got some good stuff there.’ Themes with contemporary echoes Jenny: So I think it was Robert McKee, the script writing guru, who says that historical stories need to have resonance with contemporary audiences. And I wonder if when you were assessing the interest in a story? How much resonance do you think these stories have with people today? Renee: You know, I think he’s absolutely right about that. But I don’t know that’s a conscious part of what goes into deciding what topics I’ll work on. What really excites me is either a subject or a character, not so much a time period. So I’m either drawn to, you know, some place and time. Or a certain person like –  once I got going, then it was all Helen Gurley Brown. She was driving that book or it was the Chess Brothers and the artists in Windy City Blues. So I don’t know that I consciously think about how to make a story, a historical story, resonate with today’s times, although if you take  Windy City Blues, even though that was happening in the 50s and early 60s, the racial tensions, the anti-Semitism, it’s actually very timely for where we are today, sadly enough,  And the issues of Me Too, and feminism is all still something we’re discussing today, even though I was writing about it in the 60s. White Collar Girl Jenny: Sure. And White Collar Girl. The other one that you’ve alluded to, is set in a newspaper in Chicago in the 50s, and includes quite a bit about the notorious Mayor Daley. Was Mayor Daley the figure that drew your interest? Renee: It was really the newspaper world as a whole. I had friends that had worked at the Tribune. And I saw the Tribune  like newspapers across the country, just starting to shrink in their coverage and going to online publications. And so I wanted to capture what had happened in the newspaper world. And if you’re writing about the Tribune, how could you not write about Daley? Because I knew Chicago was corrupt, but I just had no idea. And a lot of the stories in that book just came straight out of the headlines of the day. White Collar Girl, Renee Rosen – Chicago in the 50s Jenny: Unfortunately, that too has a resonance today in terms of the control of power and how much transparency there is around that. It’s in the forefront again, I think.  History repeats itself Renee: And I think the lesson here is that history repeats itself. You know, it’s a cliche, but I think it’s true. Jenny: That’s right. Look, moving on from talking about specific books to talk with you a little about your wider career. You’ve mentioned that you were copywriting. How did the experiences that you had prior to becoming a full time writer influence your writing? Renee: You know, I think because I was a copywriter and you never wrote anything in advertising without it being scrutinized and pulled apart. Your best work ended up in the trash and all that. It’s made me very open to feedback.  My editors will say it’s weird for them to have a writer who’s so open to revision. That’s my favorite part of writing. So I think I owe that to my copywriting days because I don’t take it personally. I will rip a scene apart and put it back together again, another in another order. The joys of deep research And I think that just came from the discipline of writing and realizing that even in novels, even in publishing, it’s still a business at the end of the day. Yeah. As romantic as people like to make it seem, there’s still still a bottom line and it still has to be something that’s going to be marketable and is going to resonate and work. Jenny: We’ve already alluded to the very deep research that you do. And I saw some way that you commented that while a lot of writers use research assistants and allow them to do this work for them, that you prefer to do it yourself. And I just wondered about that process. Could you tell us a little about that process? What the Lady Wants – the story of a Chicago department store Renee: Well, you know, for me, I go down a rabbit hole. I don’t know what I’m going to discover. And if I were to hand my research off to an intern or someone else, they may gloss over something that they think is insignificant. And it might be be a little nugget of something that really triggers another idea or another thought. Not missing out of the gems I think that for me, I want to get right in there.  Plus, it’s a fun part of the process, learning about a new culture or new period in time or new subjects. So I can’t see me ever wanting to hand that off to someone. I just think that I’ve come across too many things that I could see somebody else just completely passing over and glossing over.  For me, that’s the richest part. It just led me down a path that proved to be very significant in the book. Jenny: Yes.  Do you do a lot of research before you start writing or do you write and research at the same time? Renee: Each book has been a little bit different.  With Windy City Blues, I tried writing before I had done all my research and it was disastrous. So I put the pen down and then went and did all my research. With What the Lady Wants, the Gilded Age book, I researched and wrote at the same time. Usually I need to have enough of a foundation, so I’ll do some reading. But for me, whenever I can, I go and visit a place and see it, touch it, feel it. That’s what I want to do. The secret of Renee’s success Jenny: I see. If there was one thing you’ve done more than any other that’s been the secret of your success, what would you say it was? Renee: Re-writing. You know, I really think that that’s where the story comes together. I will turn in a draft and I think it’s pretty tight. And I think we’re pretty much there. And then as we go through and we revise it and I get some fresh eyes and some feedback, I’m always amazed at how much richer the story becomes. There’s actually themes and storylines that are just waiting there, that I didn’t even realize. So, you know, and I think that polishing, that going over that scene one more time, is what really makes makes the book that much richer in the end. Renee as reader Jenny: Fantastic. Now turning to Renee as a reader, because this is The Joys of Binge Reading podcast. I suspect that you’ve been a very busy reader your whole life. What do you like to binge read? Renee: I love literary fiction. Like I’m looking my bookshelf right now. Like Rebecca Makkai’s, The Great Believers. https://youtu.be/6RsUHiT9mbg Favorite author – Kate Quinn I thought was wonderful. Amor Towles Rules of Civility and. A Gentleman in Moscow.   Love those. But then I also love World War II fiction. I’m looking at Pam Jenoff’s books and Kate Quinn’s books.  And Susan Meissner, The Last Year of the War, I thought was wonderful. And Chanel Cleeton, Next Year in Havana and When We left Cuba.  I think she’s an author that just keeps getting better and better with each book. Jenny:  Yes. Would you categorize your own fiction as literary fiction? Renee: I think I fit more in t historical fiction. I would love to be a literary writer and to feel that my  work would be considered literary. But I also hope that it’s accessible to people.  I think it’s probably more historical than literary. Jenny: It’s hard to know where the boundaries are really drawn sometimes, isn’t it? What would Renee do differently? Renee: It is. And some people, there’s a hard line in the sand of what’s literary and what isn’t. But I haven’t figured out exactly what that is. Jenny: That’s right. I mean I  would think Chanel is historical fiction if we’re going to use that kind of accessibility as a measure because they’re very readable. Renee: Yes. And you must read a ton. Jenny: Yes, I do. In fact, it’s funny. I mean, I really enjoy it, but I rarely have time these days just to read something I want to read. You know what I mean? There’s always a reason for me to read it, beyond just simple pleasure. I have to read for the podcast and I’ve discovered some really good people. And because I’m trying to write myself, it’s actually a wonderful way to learn very quickly. Now – circling around and looking back from the beginning to where we are now, because we starting to come to the end of our time together. At this stage in your career, if you were doing it all again, what would you change, if anything? The ups and downs of writer’s life Renee: I think when I first started, I had all these very high expectations of what my first book was going to do, and I think that my career so far has rolled out exactly as it should have for me. So I have no complaints. There’s been hard lessons learned with each book and wonderful experiences with each book. And I just feel really, really grateful that this is what I get to do every day. It was a dream, as I said, in the beginning for me when I was a young girl. Let’s face it, all of us have more books on our bookshelves than we will ever have a chance to read. And, you know, anytime someone picks up one of my books,I’m very appreciative of that. That’s never lost on me. Jenny: If there was one of those  “lessons” that you wanted to talk about, what would be the first that came to mind? Moving on to write the next book Renee: Just that not every book is going to perform the way you think it’s going to or that people are going to see the heart in it, or all the hard work that you put into it. Yes. And all you can do in that instance, once you’ve written the book, it’s pretty much out of your control and no one knows if all the stars are going to align or not. And I think the lesson there is after you’ve done the best that you can with the book and you’ve put it out there, you just move on to the next one. Fortunately for me, I absolutely love writing. That’s my favorite part of the whole publishing world. And whether a book does great or a book doesn’t do so great, you still have to write the next book. Jenny: Yes. And that’s a really nice place to land because my next question is what is next for Renee, the writer? What’s next for Renee the writer? Jenny: So right now I am working on a book called The Social Graces. It’s set in the Gilded Age in New York and tells the story of Mrs. Astor and Alva Vanderbilt vying for control of society. Jenny: Sounds like a lot of fun. Renee: It’s a lot of fun. They were a bit over the top. Jenny: So you just you work obviously on one book at a time. Have you got any idea what’s beyond that? Renee: I have a couple ideas but I’m a little too superstitious to talk about them. Seems like when I talk it ends up killing the idea somehow. Jenny: So that one will be out next year? Renee: It will be out in 2021. Yes. We’ve got a little ways to go yet. Connecting with Renee Jenny: You do a lot of public appearances, I can see from looking online and I see that you also meet with book clubs through something called Novel Network, which is a free service that connects authors with book clubs. I’m suspecting that it probably only operates in the US, does it? Renee: You know what, I don’t know. I can definitely Skype with book clubs outside the US. So if anyone’s interested, they can reach me through  Novel Network or direct through my website, which is www.reneerosen.com. Jenny: That’s fantastic. You obviously enjoy interacting with your readers because you do quite a lot of it, don’t you? Renee: I do. I really enjoy that because, you know, writing is very isolating. So whenever you have a chance to connect with book lovers and fellow readers it’s really nice. Jenny: Fantastic. Are you on social media? Social media maven Renee: I am. So I’m on Facebook. @ReneeRosenauthor and  on Twitter.  I’m trying to get the hang of Instagram. It’s a little challenging for me, but I’m  over there as well. And on Goodreads also. Jenny: Right. That’s great. Well, that’s wonderful. Rene, thank you so much. It’s been fun talking to it. Really has. Renee: Thanks, Jenny. I’ve enjoyed it, too. If you enjoyed Renee Brown’s books you might also enjoy Chanel Cleeton’s Cuban mysteries.