Final month, after I learn Rachel Hochhauser’s Woman Tremaine — a reimagining of Cinderella from the attitude of her stepmother – I used to be blown away. Within the novel, Woman Tremaine pulled herself out of poverty as a young person, however now, middle-aged and twice-widowed, she wants to seek out her two daughters safe marriages earlier than they find yourself on the streets. Additionally on her to-do listing? Caring for an ungrateful stepdaughter, searching rabbits for dinner, and conserving their leaky home from fairly actually falling down.
Woman Tremaine flips all the pieces on its head — the traditional Cinderella fairy story, in fact, but additionally how we view ladies and moms, all through historical past, literature, and nonetheless as we speak. (Living proof: on Massive Salad, I shared how the guide led me to a significant courting realization.) Reese Witherspoon simply selected the novel for her guide membership, and I can already envision the film on the large display screen. Right here, I spoke to Rachel about her dramatic backstory, favourite sentence, and parenting realization…
First issues first: What impressed you to jot down about Cinderella’s stepmother?
The backstory is extra dramatic than you would possibly suppose. In 2023, my husband couldn’t get away from bed, he had vertigo, he was throwing up on a regular basis, he misplaced 35 kilos. We didn’t know what was happening. Finally we came upon that he wanted emergency mind surgical procedure. The restoration was brutal, and we have been spending a lot time within the hospital. Someday, within the ready room, I used to be scrolling via my cellphone and was stopped in my tracks by a cartoon picture of Cinderella’s evil stepmother.
Why did that picture bounce out at you?
On the time, I used to be a caregiver. I used to be taking good care of my husband, solo-parenting our toddler, and dealing full time. Once I checked out Cinderella’s stepmother, I didn’t see her as a villain. I noticed her as a mom who was doing what she wanted to do to deal with her household.
What a shocking realization.
That seed obtained below my pores and skin. I couldn’t cease fascinated by it, I felt compelled and referred to as to the story.
Have been you first launched to the story by watching the Disney film as a child?
Sure, I used to be enthralled. Even now, after I consider the enduring animation, the set design, the size of it, I really feel very taken with it. The attention-grabbing factor is, I’m making an attempt to re-message the story round Cinderella, nevertheless it’s additionally a love letter to Cinderella.
One pleasant a part of studying the novel was recognizing traditional Cinderella scenes — for instance, she comes down sporting an previous blue gown, and the stepsisters contact it and it rips.
It was actually enjoyable to play with the acquainted beats and plot factors of the Cinderella everyone knows however defy expectations and make attention-grabbing U-turns. Then the second half of the guide explodes that world.
Woman Tremaine has two daughters, in fact, and likewise turns into answerable for her stepdaughter. In your novel, she finally ends up realizing that she must mother or father every of them in another way. That was a wonderful and profound second.
You go into parenting with a number of unconscious expectations — what it’s going to appear like, how your children are going to be. However children come out who they’re, and that’s been a vital lesson for me. Parenting is a violation of expectations time and again, on a small and huge scale, and you’ll’t mother or father any two children the identical method.
The novel feels cinematic — you’ll be able to clearly image the grassy fields, the crumbling home, the village market. What background analysis did you do?
The novel’s very a lot in dialog with the western European model of Cinderella, nevertheless it isn’t really set in a particular time interval or place. So, it was a little bit of a get-out-of-jail-free card for me; I wished it to learn like historic fiction however I didn’t should be hyper-specific about what life seemed like in England in 1797. As an alternative, I researched a broader swath of time — I learn the diaries of 18th-century ladies, etiquette books for girls, fiction written throughout that point… Since Woman Tremaine has a falcon, I learn previous falconry manuals and took hen workshops. Helen Macdonald’s H Is For Hawk is an beautiful guide.
How did you selected the quilt?
Ninety-nine % of authors don’t get to decide on their covers, however I did get to supply suggestions and St. Martin’s Press was great about listening. We initially had completely different florals, however I requested, may we ever use one thing from the world of the guide? I despatched over photographs by Clara Peeters, one of many few feminine Dutch Golden Age painters. I didn’t know you would do that, however St. Martin’s really used the flowers from her portray for the quilt! I LOVED that. They’re not simply fairly florals, they’re from a girl who was forward of her time and doing one thing completely different.
You now have two daughters — ages one and 4. Have been you fascinated by them as you wrote?
Sure, the ending virtually reads like a letter to younger women, to my daughters. My favourite sentence is the final sentence: ‘You are the scariest factor within the woods.’
Thanks a lot, Rachel! Woman Tremaine is a drive.
P.S. Extra favourite books, and Kate Baer’s motherhood poems make me snigger and cry.
