Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.
Zilla: We’re always here for love, but love doesn’t always return the favour. Darlene Madott’s anthology of linked love stories, Closing Ceremonies, takes us through the aftermath. Darlene, can you tell us about your take on love?
Darlene: Who among us has not suffered the after-shocks? The sorrowing souls that inhabit these tales struggle at various stages of the grief cycle: from denial and paralysis to anger and desire for revenge; to bargaining and, ultimately, for some characters and for others incompletely, acceptance and reconciliation. Some of the stories handle the love quandary comedically—for example, the triptych of stories about Francesca and Concetta, who embrace a sisterly friendship born of betrayal. Others are more elegiac, such as the story of Thor and Lovise: unsanctioned lovers who get to orbit about each other, however briefly. “Appropriation” is a coming-of-age story where the longed-for first kiss is obtained, but not in the way the kiss was desired. What links these stories? Human yearning to move out of love away from an obsessive attachment, to a selfless state where genuine love becomes possible again.
Zilla: What inspired you to write this book?
Darlene: Having toiled as a family-law lawyer for some 35 years, I shouldn’t have been blindsided at the sudden abandonment by a man I had loved for over two decades and who I thought had loved me. But what haunted me most, other than the way he left me—a typed memo in my mailbox in the middle of the night—was the fact we go through life thinking that the person who sleeps in bed beside us is someone we know, the dreams so seeming real we believe that other person must be dreaming them too. But the real mystery is that we ever find each other, in the first place, that our lives intersect and some of these result in moments of miraculous grace.
So, heartbreak was the inspiration—that universal experience. The surprise, here, was that it came so late in my life. The accumulations of a lifetime of heartbreaks and disappointments made it imperative to try to understand this as part of my life’s journey, purpose, and meaning. If I were to have a chance at happiness as I turn the pages on my own life’s last chapters, I had to grapple with this, and struggle I did. I’m grateful for Closing Ceremonies and Dying Times. It took some 10 years to write, but in some respects, it took a lifetime.
Zilla: If you could meet your characters, what would you say to them?
Darlene: Did I do right by you? Did I allow you to bust out of the confines of my own control-freak needs and write your own story? The same question I might ask my son.
Zilla: How would they respond?
Darlene: Thanks, Mom, you gave voice to my reality. You said some things I couldn’t say myself, even if you crossed some boundaries. But from now on, I’ll choose my own clothes, do my own dressing…
Zilla: If you weren’t a writer, what do you think you’d do instead?
Darlene: I have always been a lover of stories, and a writer since I could write. I wrote my first novel (41 pages) in Grade 2. It was a pirate story, and ended with the words “A shot rang out,” as the female pirate stood on a beach between the bullet and her son. I reluctantly became a lawyer, needing to find a way of being in the world, and toiled in the vineyards of matrimonial misery for some 35 years – all the while continuing to write. I published seven works of fiction by the time I retired, at the outset of COVID, and three books since. Writing was like my secret lover, meeting up clandestinely in the margins of life, and has now become my legitimate spouse, with consequent occasional ennui. Being a writer gave me access to some incredible stories—the whole gambit of human experience, were it not for solicitor/client privilege! So, you see, I’ve had to invent, amalgamate, alter. It’s the truth, the truth, nothing but the truth; and if it’s not the truth, it could have been…
Zilla: Do you have any lines you’re particularly proud of? What about them are you proud of?
Darlene: “No one leaves country home, all he has loved, unless driven by a powerful necessity.”
—Making Olives and Other Family Secrets
Because this is true: Our entire world is in migration, and this is as relevant today as when I wrote it.
“You don’t have to believe in a game to learn to play by its rules.”
—Winners and Losers
Because this is true—lesson learned in the trenches, sparring with other lawyers, mostly male at my outset.
“Having presided over the death of so many marriages, I figure I owe it to the universe to be responsible for at least one good match.”
—Winners and Losers]
Because this is true, how I made peace with the work I did to make a living—lawyer by day, match-maker (and writer) by night.
Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?
Darlene: Author’s Website:
https://www.facebook.com/dpmadott
Purchase Links—Guernica: https://guernicaeditions.com/products/closing-ceremonies-and-dying-times
