Author Q&A

A: It’s a story of an unlikely friendship that ultimately became the most powerful I’ve ever had. I met Denise Katz when I was as lonely as a woman can get. I was 39, too young to be the “empty nester” I was. My kids were newly out of the house, my boyfriend had just dumped me, and my grad school friends had all moved away. I’m a social person who suddenly found herself alone. So I placed an ad in a newspaper for $1.75 stating that I was forming a group called WOW: Women on the Way—to an insane asylum, rehab, whatever. It was nuts, but I wanted to meet people. The week after I placed my ad, my phone was ringing off the hook so clearly I wasn’t the only one. Based on our phone conversations, I invited six of the women who called to meet in my living room one Wednesday night. In walked Denise, a savvy business woman and award-winning artist who, through luck and life, ended up being a cosmically chosen best friend to me.

Cheap Cabernet is about how life is much wilder, much more unpredictable, and—ultimately—much greater than we ever imagine it could be. Really, it’s about not giving up because no matter your age, no matter how much you think you’ve got it all figured out, you don’t know what’s around the next corner—or who might be there for you.

A: I don’t have a clue. So many writers, if you look at their early bibliographies, published in different genres at different times in their lives before their “big public break” came. I’ve had short stories published in literary anthologies and academic publications for years. I’ve also written longer feature stories that read like literary short stories for newspapers and magazines. Cheap Cabernet is a natural outgrowth of all of that previous work. In fact, when I first drafted it, I honestly said to myself, “Okay, let’s write a short story, but a longer one.” And then I created a first draft of 90 pages.

A: It’s a metaphor that came from the process of telling this story. So much of my childhood and young adulthood felt cheap. But humor always prevailed. Something about humor + low-rent circumstances makes me laugh and want to write country western songs. Cheap Cabernet—the title—honestly fell from some crazy, heavenly place into my lap. To me, the title and the metaphor, have all the mirth and fun and humor and “low-brow” feel of a sassy, funny country western song.

Denise had a profound affect on my life. On the surface, we might at times have appeared—and, ahem, behaved—in something of a “low-brow” fashion. We certainly had sass, fun and a big-hearted “low-rent” vibe in our friendship. As it turns out, our story is anything but cheap. It’s profoundly priceless—just like the extraordinary Spanish wine divinely bequeathed to me at the end of the book.

A: This is a fact: When Denise came into my living room that first night at the WOW meeting, something happened. There was a palpable energy between us. You might think I’m making that up. I’m not. The only thing I can compare it to is the “love at first sight” experience. But I don’t believe even thatadequately captures the joie de vivre, the silly, delicious humor, the innate understanding the two of us felt throughout that evening. We were cerebral girls and we shared a wicked sense of humor. It was a glue that worked.

As with any intense and profound relationship, a number of factors ultimately fed our relationship, and timing was everything. For the first time I didn’t have children at home and Denise was childless. My life-long sense of vulnerability was starting to lift, and I believe she was feeling a profound vulnerability due to her illness that she had not felt in her youth. One person who read the book said, “It’s like you two were on the same staircase, you going up, and Denise going down. And you met on the same step.” Bingo.

A: It’s about humor and not taking yourself too seriously. Jerry Jeff Walker sang those lyrics because they reflected him—even though he wasn’t trashy—he was a successful recording artist. But Jerry Jeff knew the soul of the “trashy women” he sang about.

Denise sang those lyrics for the same “opposite” reasons: she wasn’t trashy and she wasn’t from any rural or country western culture. But she was a woman with a sense of humor and she fully appreciated where Jerry Jeff was coming from. Sing those lyrics in your head to any melody you’d like. Don’t they make you grin?

A: We both somehow knew this secret of life: “Perfect” is when things look rotten. “Rotten circumstances” offer a fountain of opportunity. I know that sounds all new-agey and Wayne Dyer-like. But the two of us somehow knew, and knew the other was also well aware, that when circumstances are upside down and despair is your middle name, have a party. If we didn’t know that before we met each other, we learned that throughout the life of our four-year friendship. It was an extraordinary, life-changing gift to us both, and we never saw it coming.

It liberated us, this knowledge. And we both delighted in finding another person who thought this way. It liberated us to laugh at just about every single thing that happened. It also allowed us to cry our eyes out, unashamedly, to fight — with others and with each other — because aren’t emotions supposed to be used and experienced? And really, what the hell good comes from suppressing emotions anyway? Isn’t that how addicts and serial killers are born?

A: Aren’t smart, independent women often alone by choice? Isn’t it their way? Don’t they often live in their heads—and therefore spend, out of choice, a lot of time alone? I know I did, and I believe Denise did, too.

She owned a business, she was an artist, and she was married. That’s a full life and Denise didn’t court frivolous relationships. Her family lived out-of-state. For these reasons, she might not have had a gaggle of friends or companions circling about as other women might. And she had MS. Having a chronic, debilitating illness encroach upon a strong woman’s life, I believe, contributes to isolation. I think all of these circumstances lead to me meeting Denise at a time when there were not a lot of other people occupying her life.

A: Honestly, so many, many moments are emblazoned upon my heart; it’s nearly impossible to choose one. The two of us watching “Seinfeld,” the ease with which she completely ignored me, illustrates the comfort of our relationship. Reviewing restaurants for my column, especially the ridiculous, hip-thrusting belly dancer restaurant was so typical of our many, many escapades. We laughed a lot together.

Perhaps the “Urethra’s Got Two” escapade best captures our rhythm, our in-tandem unity, our luscious, shared laughter at what can often be this crazy thing called life. We made up names to sneak into the beauty school (with the really nasty title). We paid pennies to have our nails painted. Denise gave me a moniker only SHE could produce off-the-cuff.

And it made us both so damn happy that day, I can’t even put it into words. All for $12.

A: My soul wrote a little of this book every single day for the ten years following her death. But you can’t write about things on paper right away. You need time and distance so all the parts can settle and sort themselves out.

My grief at the loss of Denise exhibited itself in odd ways over the years. Sometimes, I’d hear a Jerry Jeff Walker song and, forget it. The rest of the day was spent on the couch with a 5-pound bag of Peanut M&Ms. Once, I couldn’t find the coffee pot for days and then discovered it in the back of the refrigerator. Another time, I pulled over to the side of the road because I couldn’t remember why I was driving or where I was headed.

A year after Denise’s death, the tragedy at Columbine happened. I was paralyzed by the surrealness of the scene: kids jumping from windows, policemen running alongside the kids, the fact that it was a few miles from my house. Watching those kids run from a school building, terror in their bodies, their hands above their heads, it opened up something in me that allowed me to sit down with the notion: I want to tell you a story about an extraordinary friendship.

I can’t explain why the two events—Columbine and Denise’s death—converged for me. Sometimes a catalyst is just that. It’s a catalyst and you act.

A: I miss the “psychic connection,” the knowing we understand each other even before we’ve spoken. I’m very lucky in that I’ve managed to accumulate decades-old friendships and more recently made new friends. But Denise and I could, truly, glance at each other across the wide expanse of a Costco warehouse—and know, in detail, exactly what the other was thinking. And then burst out laughing at the same time. I’ve never had that exact, symbiotic, unexplainable connection with any friend before or after her.

I don’t approach new friendships any differently as a result of Denise. Each friendship is its own entity. I do, however, try to be open to new relationships and remember how much delight and potentially devilish fun there is in them. You can’t force stuff, you know?

A: Absolutely: Raymond Carver, Sherwood Anderson, Anne Lamott, Dorothy Parker, Chekhov, Barbara Kingsolver, Augusten Burroughs, David Sedaris, John Updike, Tolstoy. These writers and others make my heart stop when I read them.

A: My parents never owned a home and we moved often. This one fact—throughout my childhood and into my young adulthood—unrelentingly unsettled me. While I was raising my own children it tortured me that I was unable to buy a house for them, no matter how hard I worked.

It caught me off guard that Denise struggled with the same fear: that someone else had control of the roof over her head. We were united in the fact that we couldn’t relax because we didn’t feel like we had a safe haven. People who live in houses they own have an extra self-confidence in a way they don’t usually realize. They have a solid shore upon which to look at the rest of the world. Unlike decades-long renters, they can relax.

It was a strange adhesive that Denise and I shared: a visceral “Dorothy and The Wizard of Oz” anxiety. There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home. What if there is no home? What if you come home and find it’s disappeared?

A: Spain makes great red wines in the $10 range. The 2007 Juan Gill Jumilla and the 2007 Las Rocas Garnacha are a couple of great wine secrets. I’ve seen them listed on restaurant wine lists at $40, but you can find them at liquor stores for about $10.

Spain was late getting on board with international marketing strategies. Just walk straight to the “Spain” aisle at your liquor store. Grab several in the $10 range. It’s like drinking $25 Italian wine. Trust me.

Alternatively: Take a $7 Italian table wine. Fill a glass to the top with ice. Fill half the glass with the Italian table wine and the remainder of the glass with ice cold Diet 7-up. Stir it with your finger. Trashy Women Sangria!

————————————————————————————————————————————————————