Marianne Maili

I came across this draft of a post today–near the end of the year–of a moment during the middle. July 9. This was after I was interviewed by Brooke MacBeth at The Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles. It was one of the best nights of my life, and when Karen Seeberg (friend pictured here) asked why, I said that it was the kind of conversation I had dreamed about having with readers since writing the book. Intimate and open. Respectful and playful. Curious and magical. It was Karen who introduced me to this society, this soothing place. I have no photos of the interior of the alchemical library, where we sat, in a space visited by so many thinkers, dreamers, peacemakers over the many decades it has existed, and surrounded by books of the same soul and spirit, speaking more intimately than I ever have about the novel and what inspired it. In these days of social media, technology, and so much sharing, it feels exquisite to know the memory of those hours are with each person and in the place, but no where else.

The way I felt when I first visited PRS, invited by Karen (who I met in Spain on a shoot for a car commercial for France in the early ’90s) , and while listening to its president, Dr. Greg Salyer, in January of 2019, is part of what drew me to Los Angeles to live.

The year is ending. The curiosity continues. Magic, too.

The second book, which I am currently revising, is delighting me as it unfurls and I do with it. The audiobook files of Lucy, go see. will soon be delivered to me. My narration experience deepens. I have not written much on this blog since I arrived here. When I ask myself why it seems to be about a drawing into myself, a cocooning of sorts.

I am also very excited to start the year at the Key West Literary Seminar in Key West, Florida. The girl from Key West, Iowa, is now a grown-up woman headed to Key West, Florida, to listen and talk to Francine Prose, a writer she greatly admires, talk about reading as a writer. I am honored and grateful to the seminar as a recipient of one of their coveted scholarships.

More soon. Happy New Year, Bonne Année, y Feliz Año Nuevo!

Marianne

Come to the Philosophical Research Society on Monday, July 8, at 7 p.m. and delve deeper into Lucy’s journey. This will be the first public discussion about the intimate genesis of and inspiration for the novel.

From the days when I was an undergrad employee here, I dreamed of this moment.

You can watch the reading.

Thanks to Prairie Lights Bookstore and Carole Cassier , award-winning filmmaker extraordinaire. Don’t miss her Best European Documentary 2019 – The Quiet Rebel.

Lucy, go see. has been awarded a finalist position in the 2019 Indie Book Awards for Inspirational Fiction. Those two words next to each other are thought-provoking, n’est-ce pas?

Read it now.

Today, award-winning French journalist, filmmaker, photographer, and sound artist Carole Cassier and I recorded the last words of Lucy, go see. Sound engineering lies ahead and then it will be ready for those who would like to listen to me tell the story. I like to imagine traveling with readers, hanging out on the beach with you, sitting in your homes near the fire, or in the kitchen as you cook, or walking with you, perhaps. I think audiobooks are even more intimate than physical books when the author narrates. A second printing has resulted from the reading as I found typos here and there and corrected them. It was difficult and delightful to sit next to Carole each day these last couple of months, reading into the microphone and telling her the story. We paused at times to take breaths, laugh, cry, scream, sing, make jokes in French. I wonder how many times I said, “That was the most difficult part for me to read.” One of many delights was hearing Carole say, “Your story inspires me. I never thought of sculpting a life before.”

We met at DELUXE IOWA soon after I arrived in Iowa City. She was a table away editing a film on her laptop while I was preparing the first draft of Lucy, come home. for printing. Intrigued by her and listening to her speak French to Cecilia, Deluxe Counterperson Extraordinaire, I struck up conversation one day and learned Carole had come to Iowa City with her wife, writer Anna Polonyi, who days ago deposed her MFA thesis in the library archives. There is much to celebrate these days. Tonight we will celebrate the opening of Carole’s documentary, “THE QUIET REBEL”, which recently garnered The Best European Documentary of 2019.

Many thanks to PATV Sound Studios of Iowa City and deep thanks and congratulations to Carole Cassier!

From approximately 2,000 books, 72 were nominated as finalists, and 6 were named winners.

When I moved to Chicago in 2017, after decades away, I hung out in the 3rd Coast Café, as I used to, and as Lucy Pilgrim does in the novel. I moved into an apartment in the building, did a reading of the novel in the café, and wrote a great deal of the second novel, Lucy, come home., there. One Sunday afternoon, a beautiful lively art student, Carina Clark Reimers, flashed in and sat down next to me on her break from working as a hostess at a nearby restaurant. “So, I remind you of you twenty years ago?” she asked after we chatted a while. I thought, sure, let’s say twenty. She reminded me most of all of Lucy. We enjoyed each other’s company during our time in Chicago (she graduated from The Art Institute and is back in her hometown of Los Angeles). One winter evening when she stopped in the Coast, and saw me playing with drawings and cover ideas, she asked if she could help. A few weeks and idea exchanges later, we created this wonderful cover.

Inspired by Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Clothing of Books and French book covers, it was a delight to bring letters, drawing, writing, and design together. Here’s to 3rd Coast Café, Lucy, Carina, me, and Ingram Spark Printers–most immediately–there are so many people I am grateful for who were involved in the creation of this novel. Thank you to Eric Hoffer and the work others carry on for him to celebrate independent authors and publishers. And thank you to you, Readers, so very much.

Carina and I at Sparrow on Elm Street, Chicago, late summer 2017

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Writing while listening to Erla Karlsdottir and her community choir rehearsing in Reykjavik.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

A new season is upon us. During spring, my favorite season, traveling and writing made me feel so happy and once again so deeply at home in the world. Iceland, France, and Spain. Writing everywhere.

I finished the first draft of the second novel in May. I enjoyed reading at The Third Coast Café, and being interviewed by Isabelle David at the Alliance Française in Chicago. Then, with summer, another reading at Carnegie Stout Public Library in Dubuque. Soon after came the idea and opportunity to move again. This time to Iowa City for an academic year. Now fall is gifting me with an international community of writers.

Just want to say hello. Thank you for reading.

The candle I lit for Mom at St. Joes in Key West before the first reading at River Lights was still burning when I returned from Europe.

A lot more has been going on. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by both how much there is to tell, read, do, know, and how much time any of us has. As the end of my life is closer, I am really trying to slow down. My appetite, however, is another story. What a balancing act. Dancing helps. So does yoga. Tenderness and laughter, utmost.

with IWP writers: Ausra Kaziliunaite of Lithuania , Kateryna Babkina of Ukraine, Rumena Buzarovska of Macedonia, Jacqueline Goldberg of Venezuela, Alisa Ganieva of Russia. Read them all; they are brilliant and fascinating.

p.s. – follow me on Instagram (mariannemaili) or Facebook (Marianne Maili)  for more photos and films.

If you wish to buy or offer a book that’s thought-provoking and absolutely ‘unputdownable’, Lucy, go see. is what you’re looking for. When we think of international models we can’t help bringing to mind the usual clichés. However, in Lucy, go see., we are confronted with a funny, philosophical, curious, beautiful woman who explodes most of those preconceived ideas. As we read, Lucy develops into a woman who resists dehumanizing, and being dehumanized  with every bone in her body, in a business world where she is viewed as a commodity, and where back at home in Iowa she is perceived if not exactly as the black sheep, definitely as a multicolored, un-herdable one. People persist in trying to categorize Lucy’s body and mind, and lucky for her that somewhere deep down she manages, against the odds, to retain the knowledge that both are sound. However, when she listens to people around her, they question both, and ‘helpful’ suggestions of lithium and starvation are thrown in her direction. The very essence of Lucy seems to be more at home in nature, than under layers of make-up and crimped hair, but although her Iowa countryside feeds her, she also needs to see a bigger, wider world, and modeling is her ticket out. The reader imbibes her word-painted auto-portrait and is as confused as she when hairdressers, make-up artists and stylists don’t seem to understand the canvas and insist on transmogrifying her beauty into a cheaper, brassier version. Through Lucy’s visits to international modeling agencies, and meetings with top executives and bookers, we get a grasp of how models have to start out on their career with a strong self-image, and fight tooth and nail to maintain it, and understand how they could be easily pushed on a downward spiral of eating disorders and low self-esteem if they don’t have a good spring to their internal resistance. Lucy’s metaphysical questions are not only confined to the city and her jet set career, she also has to deal with advances from her paternal grandfather in an extremely patriarchal mid-western family back in Iowa. She tackles the problem with honesty and integrity and fast fledging courage, ruffling others’ feathers on the way. With her new unfaithful wife and divorcée status, she also has to justify her own right to speak out against being harmed. The treatment of the complex, taboo situation is thorough as Lucy fights to protect herself mentally and physically, and tries to rescue her own pure love for her grandfather from the complex backdrop of a widower’s loneliness and feistiness that took a very wrong turn. Romantic love is not missing from the book and the reader is as fixated and as frustrated as Lucy by the handsome and enigmatic Julien who like Lucy is very different from any stereotypical model. While making love with Julien Lucy has beautiful visions and shortly after they become lovers, Lucy like Saint Teresa, experiences ‘ecstasy’, (as depicted by the artist Bernini in The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa and not in tablet form!). By the end of the book we feel slightly sorry for the male model agency executives, her family and her ex-husband’s belief that they could categorize Lucy and clip her wings. This strong, shamanic, inspiring woman was way out of their orbit. Lucy, go see. is one of the most enjoyable and inspirational books, for anyone, but particularly for women, who may want to also find the courage to go see for themselves… I can’t wait to see what’s in store for Lucy and hopefully Marianne Maili the author will publish a sequel quickly. We sense that the book may be more than somewhat autobiographical and would also like to discover more about Marianne herself…

–Patricia Killeen