In her unique debut novel, "Constance," Catherine Cantrell, who has spent most of her adult life writing poetry, has figured out a way to make poetry the showpiece of a novel.
Cantrell, who speaks very "New York," said during a telephone interview from her home in New York City that she prepared by "turning the classics inside out.
"Reading the classics is good training for a writer."
She also had a very lucky break. She met famed novelist William Styron, author of "The Confessions of Nat Turner" and "Sophie's Choice," when she was a student at Duke University, Styron's alma mater. Cantrell was completing an internship at McCall's Magazine (which is now Rosie, Rosie O'Donnel's magazine) and attending classes at New York University when Styron came to speak. When he was informed that four Duke students (including Cantrell) were in the audience, he arranged to take them to dinner with him and his wife.
"It was very exciting for a 21-year-old college student," said Cantrell. "Then I met him again many years later, and I showed him some of my writing. Whatever you do first, it makes a difference if you have someone who believes in you. I didn't show it to him until I'd brought it to the highest level I could. He read the manuscript for my book, we talked and I surrendered it to his publisher, Random House, and his editor, Bob Loomis."
Loomis is executive editor at Random House and has edited all Styron's books. He and Styron were also classmates at Duke. "When you go to the same college, there is a bond," said Cantrell, who is now 38.
After graduation from Duke, she spent a couple of years reading more of the classics and then tried her hand at poetry. "One of the things I learned from Styron was the importance for a writer to find his or her own voice. That became my goal. Poetry seemed to be the most comfortable medium for me."
When she decided to write a novel, Cantrell studied the work of Sylvia Plath, who successfully made the transition from poetry to the novel. "She only wrote one novel — but that's how 'Constance' came to be.
"I was fascinated with Plath. Although most people associate her with depression and suicide, all of her poems are not depressing. Her most beautiful work is about the parent/child relationship. Her prose is inherently life-giving. I wanted to emulate her if I could."
Knowing how difficult it is to make such a transition, Cantrell spent a lot of time thinking about the story she wanted to tell. She had learned from English teachers and from Styron that structure is vital to writing. "Finally, I wrote an eight-page, detailed outline, and it worked very well. I outlined each chapter, so I knew what I had to do each day. That's how the book came together."
Between her poetry writing and the appearance of the novel, Cantrell worked with corporate publishing Web sites. In the process, she learned a great deal about the publishing world. "When I thought about this novel, I was watching a documentary on the making of 'Gone with the Wind,' and one of the actresses was talking about the lace petticoats used in the film. She asked David O. Selznick, the producer, why he spent so much money on them 'because no one will know.' Selznick said, 'You'll know!' "
Cantrell knew that if her main character was a poet, she would have to show it. "I wrote the poems first, and I only used a fraction of them in the book. Sometimes, I couldn't use the whole poem. I had to choose the ones that fit the structure of the story, so it was a learning process. I had to choose poems that would illuminate Constance's inner life."
Cantrell also spent many hours studying the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Emily Bronte and Truman Capote. "The last paragraph of (Fitzgerald's) 'The Great Gatsby' is as beautiful as any poem. 'The Dialogue of Silence' was the first poem I wrote where it all seemed to come together. E.B. White once said that 'If you can read your own work without cringing, it's a good sign.' I really like that statement." (In the book, Cantrell uses "The Dialogue of Silence" as the title for Constance's collection of poems.)
A lot of the credit for her work, she says, goes to Fitzgerald. " 'Gatsby' really taught me how to write a novel. If you take a book you really love, study its structure, re-read it again and again, something happens inside. You actually learn how to do it. It sinks in."
Although Catherine Cantrell has a lot in common with the title character in her novel, Constance Chamberlain — her name, her dedication to writing, her talent as a poet — Cantrell maintains that all the characters are products of her imagination. "This is not an autobiography, but the characters are elements of me. They come out through my own thoughts and view of the world, out of my heart."
The story, she says, is also "invented — the idea of having someone believe in you and is connected to you in a spiritual sense, the way Styron was with me. Nowadays, so many people are grappling with their own spirituality. Some find it within a church and some don't. But people need to be connected to something bigger than themselves.
"An artist would say the only thing that matters is the work you leave behind — which, with me, is the character. I wanted to write a story to show how complicated life is and leave to the reader whether the relationship was as perfect as it seemed to be."
E-MAIL: dennis@desnews.com