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Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld
Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld have collaborated on fiction, stage, and other writing projects. For more information, visit them on the Web at www.cheriebennett.com.
INTERVIEW
 March 2004
Authors Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld talk to Carol Fitzgerald from Teenreads.com about why they decided to write A HEART DIVIDED, how they collaborate on their writing and the staging of their work for the theatre.
TRC: What made you decide to write a book that had the Confederate flag as a theme?
CB/JG: Ten life-changing years in Tennessee.
But more than that, we wanted to write a novel that rests on the four supporting legs of an outstanding story for teens. First, a great romance, in which readers can see the characters as themselves. The romance of Jack and Kate meets this criteria. Second, a huge personal journey for the protagonists. Kate's artistic journey, and Jack's coming-of-age struggle vs. his own mother and his town's expectations for his life, are both gripping. Three, drama and conflict, and lots of it. There's plenty in A HEART DIVIDED. And fourth, the story unfolding against a social or political backdrop – in this case, the controversy over the proper place of the Confederate flag in twenty-first century America. The Civil War concluded almost a hundred and forty years ago, and we're still not sure how to reconcile it.
TRC: Typically teens and younger people are the ones who inspire change. Yet in your book, the teens seem as strident about their heritage as the adults. Why do you think this happens?
CB/JG: This is a great question. In the novel, Kate and Jack and especially their friend Nikki are the major catalysts toward change. Because of them, Redford, Tennessee is never the same. But kids are polarized in A HEART DIVIDED just as are the adults. We think it's because the Confederate flag means different things to different people, and it's nearly impossible without a novel like A HEART DIVIDED to walk in the shoes of those who feel different from you. Plus, teens do tend to see the world in a --- no pun intended --- black and white, win and lose, you or me way.
And one more reason: they learn from their parents.
TRC: You lived in Nashville for years. Before you moved there, had you given any thought to the Confederate flag as a "hot topic" issue, or was this something that surprised you once you moved there?
CB/JG: When we moved from New York City to Nashville in 1991 --- a couple of Jewish Yankees --- the Confederate battle flag, memory of the Civil War, and memory of the slaves was the furthest thing from our mind. But those years in Nashville changed us, and made us reexamine some of our most basic attitudes. When we first came to Nashville, we had the same reaction to the Confederate flag that's spoken by our teen heroine Kate when she first sees it: "It may as well be a swastika." As New Yorker Kate learns through her romance with Jack Redford, and in her time in Redford, Tennessee, that's not exactly accurate. And here's the conclusion she reaches: "While racists love that flag, not everyone who loves it is a racist." That transformation in us is mirrored in Kate's transformation.
TRC: What do you want readers to take away from the book?
CB/JG: Most of all, a great reading experience.
A HEART DIVIDED is a novel, not a documentary or a newspaper article. And for God's sake, it's not a speech! It's a story. If the story isn't a page-turner for our readers; if there's any temptation to put the book and not care about what happens next to Kate and Jack, then we haven't achieved our goal. What we've heard is that A HEART DIVIDED is as easy to read as popular fiction but packs the power of serious literature. To us, that's a great compliment. It's exactly as we wanted it to be.
As far as the embattled Confederate banner is concerned, we hope that readers can see that there might actually be a solution to the furor; a context for the Confederate flag in twenty-first century America on which we can all agree. Getting to that conclusion --- and seeing how Kate and Jack and even Nikki get there --- should be a roller-coaster ride for our readers.
TRC: We often wonder how writers collaborate on a book. How do you work together?
CB/JG: There aren't too many husband/wife teams writing fiction together, probably because it's an outstanding way to ruin a relationship. But in our case, we're lucky. We have artistic mind-mind. We almost never argue about books, or movies, or TV, or plays. Still, the only way we can work is to outline carefully. Very carefully.
Before we sit down to write a word of a novel, we use file cards to outline the story, beat by beat by beat. For A HEART DIVIDED, there were upwards of a hundred file cards on our office wall, each with a summary of what happens at that particular moment in the story. We talk about these cards. Obsess over them. Only when they're perfect do we start to write. Usually we'll swap chapters and then edit each other, then swap again. By the time we're done, we can't tell who wrote what.
TRC: We know the book is just out, but have you heard from any schools that are planning to showcase the play that is found at the end of it?
CB/JG: We developed a play last summer from A HEART DIVIDED at the Youth Theatre at the U (of Utah), and it will have its world premiere there in July, 2004. Then, it'll be produced at Trustus Theatre, in Columbia SC --- ground zero for Confederate flag controversies. That should be interesting. We grant permission in the novel for classroom use of Kate's play that is found at the end of the novel. What's interesting is that our stage play and Kate's play in the novel are actually quite a bit different from each other.
TRC: Can you share with us some stories about staging some of your past works? What would you like to see in the staging of A HEART DIVIDED?
CB/JG: One of the great things about novel-to-stage and stage-to-novel adaptations is that you've got two versions of the same story, and they're both out there for people to enjoy. For example, right now, Cherie is in Cincinnati, working on her stage adaptation of LIFE IN THE FAT LANE (Delacorte, 1998), which premieres at the Cincinnati Playhouse in a few days. Now, that's a wonderful theater, and it's going to be a superb professional production. But because our plays are published by Dramatic Publishing Company (dramaticpublishing.com), they're available to schools to produce, too. And sometimes, the productions with the most "heart" are those that take place at schools. Not the ones at the theaters with the biggest budgets.
For A HEART DIVIDED, here's what we'd tell our actors: respect the characters. We spent a lot of time in the South, and the characters in A HEART DIVIDED are very real. Regardless of your own suppositions about the Confederate flag, memory of slavery, or any of the other issues in the play, you can't let those suppositions get in the way of playing your role.
TRC: What are you working on now, and when can readers expect to see it?
CB/JG: So much. But the most important one that we can talk about is our next hardcover novel. It's also for Delacorte, and it's called BELOW THE BELT. That should be ready in 2005.
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PAST INTERVIEW
April 18, 2001
Cherie Bennett has written award-winning fiction for teens, and she also penned the best-selling pop teen series Sunset Island. For some "serious" critics, that "Young Adult" writing makes her a trivial figure, condemned to slang-infested stories of teen romance. But Bennett does not comply with the YA rules. In 1995, she and her husband, Jeff Gottesfeld, wrote "Anne Frank and Me," a play about an American teenager (a Gentile, even!) who time-travels back to Nazi-occupied Paris. It had a successful off-Broadway run; The New York Times called it "eloquent and poignant."
Now Bennett and Gottesfeld have transformed their play into a novel --- a YA novel just published by G.P Putnam's Sons. It's not like most YA fiction, but then, it's like no other book about Anne Frank.
Teereads: Why the leap from the American suburbs to Nazi-occupied France?
Bennett: Because in Paris, the Holocaust unfolded in a milieu to which 21st century American teens can actually relate. Most teens who visualize the Holocaust see these mental images: Anne Frank in the attic, Oscar Schindler's Jews or starved camp prisoners in striped uniforms. It's so far removed from their lives as to be science fiction. But before June 1940, Paris was the coolest place on the planet: the center of art, fashion, and music. Teens in Paris were the hippest of the hip. And the Holocaust unfolded around them, anyway. If it could happen there, it could happen anywhere. Maybe even here.
Teenreads: You wrote "Anne Frank And Me" as a play first. Why did you turn it into a novel?
Gottesfeld: Six ago, at AFAM's stage premiere, there was no Internet to speak of. Now there are 2000+ hate Web sites, some so well disguised that if you didn't know better, you'd think they were the official site of the Encyclopedia Britannica. This is scary, because a lot of kids don't know better. A disguised denial site similar to ihr.org (check it out, but bring a barf bag) plays a big part in the contemporary parts of AFAM.
Teenreads: This play has been widely performed by youth groups. To what effect?
Bennett: It blows them away. But since many kids in the American heartland have theatre experiences limited to "Grease" or some intelligence-insulting "Just Don't Do It" issue "play" funded by the National Association of Just Don't Do It, this shouldn't be surprising.
Teenreads: In the novel, a teacher gives a homework assignment to watch a Holocaust movie on TV. Only five of 31 students do it. A Holocaust survivor comes to talk to the class; the kids are bored. Your heroine confronts Holocaust Denial on the Internet --- and, briefly, believes it. Do you really think American kids are immune to history?
Gottesfeld: True story: Recently we spoke at a huge California high school. When I said the words "concentration camp," a boy called out, "What's that?" He's not unique. Factual ignorance about the Holocaust, especially among Gentile teens, is jaw-dropping. To their credit, Catholic schools and some states are making an effort to change this.
Teenreads: So why not set the story in a concentration camp?
Gottesfeld: Camp survivors have written those stories far better than we ever could. We wanted to explore moral ambiguity, of which there was little at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Teenreads: What "moral ambiguity" does your time-traveled American girl encounter in Paris?
Gottesfeld: Would I risk my family's lives to bring food to a Jewish friend in hiding? Would I join the Resistance and throw bottle bombs at a Nazi post if it meant innocent hostages will be shot in reprisal? Would I jump from a cattle car if it meant leaving my sick little sister behind? Teens can't grapple with these questions and re-main immune to history.
Teenreads: Your own families suffered losses in the Holocaust. How did it affect your writing?
Gottesfeld: It had an impact on our decision to set the story in Paris; a French cousin of my mother was a hidden child in France.
Bennett: It made the writing very personal. I dedicated AFAM to my grandfather, Joseph Ozur, who lived, and to his family, who died.
Teenreads: In the New York Times, Robert Jay Lifton recently wrote, "The Holocaust creates a sense of awe in the writer or playwright, along with the responsibility for a near-perfect moral tone, which together can lead to immobilization." Was that your experience?
Bennett: Uh. Kinda. Writing a Holocaust-based novel means exposing yourself to the prejudices (in the strictest sense) of every reader. With YA fiction, there are also the prejudices of the Keepers-of-the-gates: those adults whose mission is to determine for young people what's good or bad to read. We knew going in that for the Keepers-of-the-gates, AFAM would be risky stuff.
Teenreads: In fact, Publishers Weekly dismissed the book: "long on gimmickry and short on history."
Bennett: Yes, and Buddy Elias, Anne Frank's last surviving relative and her first cousin, president of the Anne Frank -Fonds foundation in Switzerland, wrote us to praise the book: "I like your book very, very much. It is exciting and true to the facts, which is not always the case. I can see that your research was done in perfect manner…You are to be congratulated and thanked."
Teenreads: A fairly dramatic difference of opinion! What do you think drove Publishers Weekly crazy?
Bennett: While the history of our narrative is scrupulously accurate (and was vetted by major-league Holocaust scholars), our story is very frank about Nicole's love life and growing sexuality, present and past. New YA novels do deal with sex, drugs, and the dysfunction du jour. But they're all contemporary stories. It's as if some Keepers-of-the-gates believe that to be honest about teen love and lust under the shadow of Nazism somehow cheapens the work.
Teenreads: Anne Frank and s-e-x?
Bennett: Re-read Anne's diary. At 14, she was crushing big-time on Peter. Now, imagine Anne at 17, which is how old Nicole is toward the end of AFAM. Guess what Anne would have been obsessing about doing with Peter? Anyone? Bueller?
Teenreads: Short of a threat like the Nazis, what would it take to inspire kids to be activists? Or is activism alive, but ignored?
Bennett: Let's say it's on life support. Most kids define life narrowly: self, family, friends, school. But they're capable of great passion and mobilization against injustice if given the right example by adults. Miep Gies wrote, "There had been just two kinds of Dutch people: those who collaborated and those who resisted." It was no different in France. What we tell teens is, when you see injustice, big or small, realize that by doing nothing you are also making a moral decision.
(c) Copyright 2003 Jesse Kornbluth. All rights reserved.
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