Amy Bloom Interview
Better
Audra: Well if you’re looking for a new book to read Best Selling Author Amy
Bloom has one that’s already gaining a lot of praise right there. Rhiannon
spoke with the author about the book and why readers might like this book
even more than the last.
Rhiannon: Passion, infidelity, divorce, don’t let the innocent cover fool you Amy
Blooms new book gets real.
Amy: I am not the Little Mary Sunshine of fiction I think that’s safe to say. You
know I think that love is a very powerful force but that doesn’t make it
entirely benign. Not everything that people do because they love is sweet
and like a box of chocolates. I mean they can be dark and powerful. It’s
like the ocean sometimes it’s beautiful in a sunny day and sometimes it
takes you out to see and you never return.
Rhiannon: Thanks to her writing style Amy has fans of all ages.
Fan: She cuts to the bone and she’s talking about real emotions and even if you
know it sort of makes you cringe. It makes you recognize something deep
within yourself.
Rhiannon: Amy’s writing may make you squirm but she also has the skill to make
you laugh unexpectedly.
[Amy Reading Her Book]
Rhiannon: What’s up with the title Where the God of Love Hangs Out, what does
that mean?
Amy: Well I think what I had in mind actually I have to say was sort of a crappy
bar and a crappy town and my own feeling that these things are always
quite unexpected. I really did sort of have this vision of cupid and sort of a
full grow bright gold man who was sort of lolling about at subway stations
and bus stops just waiting to see what unlikely person he might hit with
his arrow.
Rhiannon: And is that where your inspiration comes from just all those unlikely
places?
Amy: I think so very much the unlikely places. There’s a great quote from—
which he says “We do not choose whom we love” and I think that’s true.
You can choose how you can behave. You can’t choose how you feel.
Rhiannon: Three years ago Amy captured people’s attention with her book away set
in the 1920s about a Russian woman in search of her lost daughter. The
book was on the New York Times Best Seller list and one critical praise
but Amy says she felt no pressure to compete with that success with her
new book unlike her last book Where the God of Love Hangs Out is a
collection of short stories.
Amy: For some people who have read away and really loved it. They actually
prefer this because they like the fact that it’s contemporary. It’s set in
America now though people are, people you would meet at the
supermarket or at work or at the movies they are no different than the rest
of us.
Rhiannon: This is why fans say they couldn’t put the book down once they started
reading.
Fan: I do like her because she’s talking about real things and you got the sense
that she’s talking about you know humanity and it isn’t necessarily being
self indulgent.
Rhiannon: Amy says there is talk of her last book away being made into a movie but
she won’t believe it until the contract is signed and it’s playing in theatres,
Audra?
Audra: Thanks a lot Rhiannon. Amy Blooms new book where the God of Love
Hangs out is in stores now.
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