An Interview with Anne Babson, Author of “Polite Occasions” and "The Bunker Book"

If you could cook dinner for any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you make?

I would love to cook dinner for Christine de Pizan, an amazing French feminist writer of the late fourteenth century I am particularly fond of her Book of the City of Ladies, which imagines what the world would be like if women ran it. As Christine was a pampered lady of the French court, I would need to make something à la francaise, because she probably wouldn’t like anything else. I think I would make a cream of lettuce soup, followed by a duck in orange sauce, finishing with a tarte tatin. (And yes — I DO know how to make all that. I had a job years ago translating at a cooking school in Paris that catered to American students. They paid me and gave me cooking lessons. I have an intermediate certificate in French cooking from the now-defunct Ecole de Cuisine La Varenne.)

What scares you the most about the writing process? How do you combat your fears?

Years ago, I used to revise while sobbing. I usually write first drafts with gusto and confidence, sure I have written something amazing. Then, after a time, I return to the first draft and realize it is just a stinking mess. This used to bother me, but now, I acknowledge how bad I am before I become better. I combat my dread of realizing I am not yet better than Shakespeare ever was by admitting to myself that not even Shakespeare was Shakespeare in his first draft. As the novelist Camus said, “Ecrire, c’est récrire” — to write is to rewrite. This is just the job of the author in all genres.

Who is your biggest literary crush, author or character?

Like many female avid readers, I fall in love with male characters authored by women. Without endorsing the glaring political problems of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, I used to have a massive and dysfunctional crush on Rhett Butler. Luckily, I realized that I did not so much want to be with Rhett Butler as I needed to acknowledge that in some measure I AM Rhett Butler. I am an eccentric Southerner (transplanted from Brooklyn) with suspicious Yankee ties. I dress well. I swagger. I am unapologetically unconventional. I might be brave to the point of recklessness. And frankly, my dear….

I do retain a love for Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac — probably not the actual historical figure — but the man who could win a sword fight while composing a poem with an envoi? That’s what makes me want to shout at Roxanne that she should forget the pretty boy soldier and respect the man who ghost-wrote him. But I forgive her. There is no way she could have understood in a society that demanded virginity from brides that a very big nose might be a sign that something else was out-sized as well.