April 08 2013 Mon BDE.pdf - Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Book Beat“GypsyBrooklynite’s New Novel ExploresComplexities of Open AdoptionBy Samantha SamelBrooklyn Daily EagleAward-winning author Jennifer Gilmorewill soon release “The Mothers” (Scribner; onsaleApril 9, 2013) – a poignant novel that followsone couple’s complex journey to becomingparents. After years of heartbreakingfailure to conceive, the couple finally decidesto pursue domestic open adoption. Havinggone through the open adoption process herself,Gilmore brings to her novel a rawness andsensitivity that will resonate with her readers,whether or not they themselves are parents.Gilmore’s characters Jesse and Ramonencounter a slew of complicated circumstancesand characters in their attemptsto become parents. As they gather advicefrom other couples at training sessionsand through family and friends, Jesse andRamon are constantly reminded that theirquest is a difficult one.Open adoption – which allows birthmothersto maintain a relationship withtheir child and the adoptive parents – is acontroversial practice, yet Gilmore’s ownexperience allows her to approach the subjectwith an informed perspective. She depictsJesse’s and Ramon’s pain with delicatehonesty, capturing moments that test thecouple’s patience and even their marriage.Despite the heaviness of her subject matter,Gilmore manages to integrate somecomic relief into the story; “The Mothers”is at once a charming and emotional read.Gilmore will appear at BookCourt inCobble Hill on Tuesday, April 9, for a reading,audience Q&A, and book signing. Incelebration of the book’s release, BrooklynEagle spoke to the author about the makingof “The Mothers.” She shares with usthe most difficult aspect of writing thisbook and offers a preview of what she’sworking on now.Was it difficult to separate your ownexperience from the one you created foryour characters?That part was easy—I chose to write anovel, as opposed to a memoir, so I could givethese characters new experiences, emotions,reactions. The seed of the story—that a coupleis struggling to have children—this is truth.And my husband and I did have a very difficultadoption journey. But my reactions to this situationand my protagonist’s reactions divergequite a bit. I am pretty hard on her.Did you have any hesitations aboutwriting about this sensitive subject?The hardest part was allowing myselfto write a book that was so much about awoman’s preoccupations rather than a bigsocial novel. It was ridiculous and dismissiveof women’s concerns, of my own concerns,and I had to overcome that to realizethese issues of wanting to be parents, andof the way that looks in our culture, arebroad and important issues in our culture.How has your family reacted to this work?Brooklyn writer Jennifer Gilmore will appearat BookCourt on Tuesday, April 9, to celebratethe release of her novel “The Mothers.”Photo by Amanda MarsalisMy family has been dealing with me as anovelist for a long time. They know the drill.With this book, my husband has been particularlysupportive. He has said that I havetaken this horrible thing that was happeningto us and made something creative out of it,and that has been a valuable reaction for me.Where in Brooklyn do you live andwhen did you move there?I live in Carroll Gardens. I moved herein 1997 when you couldn’t even make aphotocopy. Apparently that was importantto me then. Now, of course, there arerestaurants and boutiques and a farmer’smarket, though it is still difficult to make aphotocopy. It is getting so expensive I fearwe will have to leave soon.Where do you like to write?Until recently I had a dog and for that reasonI liked to write at home. I loved her undermy desk, another heartbeat. But I needa discrete room to write in and I don’t havethat right now. I’ve been trying to work at thelibrary, but that has its own strange distractions.In general I like to write where I amnot near other humans and it is very quiet.What are you reading now?I teach and so I am reading a lot ofmy students’ work. I just finished MegWolitzer’s novel, “The Interestings,” whichI loved. I want to read Fiona Maazel’s“Woke Up Lonely” as soon as I can.Are you working on a new novel?I have been in and out of a new bookthat takes place in Greece. I have spenta good deal of time there because myspouse’s mother lives on an island in theCyclades. It seems like paradise as I writethis, and it is beautiful, but there is a lot offodder for a novel there, big time.* * *Jennifer Gilmore is the author of two novels,“Golden Country,” a 2006 New York TimesNotable Book and finalist for the Los AngelesTimes Book Prize and the National JewishBook Award, and “Something Red,” a New YorkTimes Notable Book of 2010. Her work has appearedor is forthcoming in Allure, Bomb, Bookforum,The Los Angeles Times, The New YorkTimes, The New York Times Book Review, Salon,Self, Tin House, Vogue, and The WashingtonPost. She has been a MacDowell Colonyfellow and has taught writing and literatureat Cornell University, Barnard College, EugeneLang College at the New School, and New YorkUniversity. Currently, she teaches at PrincetonUniversity and lives in Brooklyn, NY.* * *The April 9 event will begin at 7 p.m. Book-Court is located at 163 Court St. in Cobble Hill.* * *Visit Book Beat online at www.brooklyneagle.com/arts/literatureand www.brooklynbookbeat.com.If there is an event or writer youwould like us to feature, please email books@brooklyneagle.net.NY Aquarium Will PartiallyReopen Next MonthDirector of the New York Aquarium, John Dohlin, poses for a picture at an exhibit ruined duringSuperstorm Sandy at the aquarium in Coney Island, New York, Monday, March 25, 2013.(AP Photo/Seth Wenig)From Associated PressThe New York Aquarium will partially reopen on May 25, a milestone that will be celebratedabout seven months after Superstorm Sandy devastated the 14-acre aquarium campus.“We have worked nonstop to ensure that the marine life in the aquarium was safe andsecure,” Cristián Samper, president and CEO of the Wildlife Conservation Society, said ina statement Friday. “We want to share this progress with New Yorkers and be a part of theConey Island comeback.”Sandy’s surge overran carefully calibrated tanks with oily, debris-filled water, knockedout even backup power to all the exhibits and made it impossible to check on some ofthem for days. Managers contemplated shipping animals away and wondered whetherthe institution itself could survive in its spot on Coney Island.Mitik, a baby walrus who survived the flooding of his enclosure during Superstorm Sandy, at theWildlife Conservation Society’s New York Aquarium in Coney Island, New York, Monday, March25, 2013. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)But more than 80 percent of the collection is intact; a planned expansion remains ontrack, now coupled with rebuilding and flood-proofing an institution that aims to be anobject lesson in enduring on the shore.The partial reopening will include Glover’s Reef, which features sea life found in Belize;and exhibits in Conservation Hall that highlight the Coral Triangle of Fiji, the GreatLakes of East Africa, and the Flooded Forests of the Amazon.It also will include the outdoor spaces of Sea Cliffs, with walruses, sea lions, harborseals, sea otters and penguins; and a fully remodeled Aquatheater, with a new sea liondemonstration.Education programs will resume on a limited basis at the facility.Jon Forrest Dohlin, WCS vice president and director of the aquarium, thanked itsneighbors “for supporting us through these difficult months.”“The community spirit has inspired the WCS aquarium staff to work hard every day,”said Dohlin, “so we can reopen and again bring economic stimulus to Coney Island and toshare the wonders of the oceans with New Yorkers and tourists.”& the Bully Door”: A StagedReading at Brooklyn Public LibraryOn Saturday, April 13, the Brooklyn Public Library’s Dweck Center will host an eventcelebrating the tenth anniversary of the Center for Black Literature and The Biennial Symposiumon Toni Cade Bambara. This staged reading of Nina Angela Mercer’s adaptation ofBamabara’s novel, “The Salt Eaters,” is a story of race, class, sex, dreams, and the magic weconjure to make it in America and the world. Several of the characters are veterans of thecivil rights, feminist, and anti-war movements of the 1960s and 1970s. It is set in the fictionaltown of Claybourne, Georgia. The event is presented in partnership with the Center forBlack Literature and the Norman Mailer Writers Center.The reading begins at 3 p.m. at the Central Library’s Dweck Center (10 Grand Army Plazain Prospect Heights)8 • Brooklyn Daily Eagle • April 8, 2013