Today I’d like to welcome not the author of the book Want, but the protagonist, Julianne Casquette for an interview.
Blurb: Julianne counts the days until she can pack her bags and leave her old-money, tradition-bound Southern town where appearance is everything and secrecy is a way of life. A piano virtuoso, she dreams of attending a prestigious music school in Boston. Failure is not an option, so she enlists the help of New England Conservatory graduate Isaac Laroche.
Julianne can’t understand why Isaac suddenly gave up Boston’s music scene to return to the South. He doesn’t know her life depends on escaping it before she inherits her mother’s madness. Isaac knows he must resist his attraction to a student ten years his junior, but loneliness and jealousy threaten his resolve.
Their indiscretion at a Mardi Gras ball—the pinnacle event for Mobile’s elite—forces their present wants and needs to collide with sins of the past.
Will Julianne accept the help she’s offered and get everything she ever wanted, or will she self-destruct and take Isaac down with her?
1. Why did you choose to play piano and not another instrument?
My mama noticed early on that I loved to bang away on my purple toy piano and every time I visited my grandparents’ house, I’d make a beeline for their antique upright, annoying the daylights out of everyone in hearing distance. She figured I might as well learn to play properly if I insisted on making that much noise.
2. Aside from piano, what instrument would you like to play?
I’ve always loved the bassoon, but I think it’s a little late to start a new instrument.
3. If you could play with any orchestra in the world, which would it be and why?
Probably the New York Philharmonic, just to say I’d done it. I mean, Lincoln Center! This is going to sound weird, but I’d also like to play with the Boston Pops. Keith Lockhart is kind of adorable.
4. Ashkenazy or Horowitz?
I should probably say Horowitz because he’s still a household name, but my heart belongs to Ashkenazy for this work with inner-city kids. And yet … I think Horowitz was conflicted enough in his private life to adequately interpret Rachmaninoff. I don’t know. Ask me in a couple years after I’ve had more time to study them and think about it. 🙂
5. If you could take any composer, living or dead, to dinner, who would you take and why?
Rachmaninoff, hands down. I have so many questions for him, and I’d like to maybe smack him for saying, “Without color it is dead.” If I hear that one more time … It might also be fun to take a deaf Beethoven to dinner. You know, mess with the guy a little. Does that sound cruel? I don’t mean it to be.
6. If you were a scale, which one would you be and why?
Hmm, what a good question. C-Sharp Major because we’re both complicated and difficult, but worth mastering.
7. Who’s the better pianist, Dave or Isaac?
On the whole, I have to go with Isaac. He’s got both technical and interpretive skills. It’s rare to find someone who has both in equal parts, but he’s got it. He’s got that something extra–around here we call it lagniappe–that can make grown men cry and old ladies swoon. It’s not fair. And don’t get me wrong, Dave is fantastic, too, but since he also plays French horn, his time and talent is divided.
8. Who’s the better kisser, Dave or Isaac?
Depends on what you’re in the mood for. 😉
9. It’s Dave’s birthday, what do you do to spoil him?
His birthday’s coming up, so thanks for reminding me. I know what he’d really like, but he’s going to have to settle for a card and a tube of Preparation H since he’s so old now. 🙂 Okay, in all honesty, I’ve been watching eBay and there’s an original movie poster from A Streetcar Named Desire signed by Karl Malden, the actor who played Mitch. You think he’d like it?
10. What’s your favourite piece of non-classical music and why?
I don’t get a chance to listen to much music besides classical these days, but Dave sent me a link to a song called “Angels on the Moon” by Thriving Ivory. It’s a couple years old, but I can see why he likes it and why he wanted me to hear it. There’s a line that goes, “I wanna feel, all the chemicals inside, I wanna feel.” It gives me chills everytime I hear it because I know what he’s referring to. But then there’s another line that goes, “Do you believe, in the day that you were born, tell me do you believe? Do you know, that everyday’s the first of the rest of your life.” And that’s when I miss him the most. I wish he were here or I was there. SOON.
Now for a bit about the author:
After collecting a couple English degrees in the Midwest, Stephanie Lawton suddenly awoke in the deepest reaches of the Deep South. Culture shock inspired her to write about Mobile, Alabama, her adopted city, and all the ways Southern culture, history and attitudes seduce the unsuspecting.
A lover of all things gothic, she can often be spotted photographing old cemeteries, historic buildings and, ironically, the beautiful beaches of the Gulf Coast. She also has a tendency to psychoanalyze people, which comes in handy when creating character profiles.
On her thirtieth birthday, she mourned (okay bawled) the fact that in no way could she still be considered a “young adult,” so she rebelled by picking up Twilight and promptly fell in love with Young Adult literature.
She has a love/hate relationship with Mardi Gras –where does all that money come from?–and can sneeze 18 times in a row.
Please feel free to leave a comment for the author or protagonist below.
