Key To The City

Philly-bred author Adena Halpern unlocks our best-kept secrets.

by A.D. Amorosi

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Published: Jun 23, 2010

 

 

[ fiction ]

Adena Halpern has a way with Philadelphia. The Los Angeles-based author grew up in Bala Cynwyd, graduated from Harriton High School and was a habitué of Rittenhouse Square before finding fame with her “Haute Life” essays in Marie Claire magazine. (It’s those essays that spawned Halpern’s first book, Target Underwear and a Vera Wang Gown: Notes from a Single Girl’s Closet.) But it’s more than an address that radiates her local attitude. If the swift-kicking Philadelphia Story were moved to present day and given an urbane bent (or if Heaven Can Wait had female tendencies), they’d be up the same alley as Halpern’s youthful new novel 29 (Simon & Schuster, June 15), set in the heart of Philadelphia. We caught up with the author in anticipation of her Rittenhouse Square book signing.

City Paper: You write in 29 about how Philly people all seem to know each other, and once they meet, a never-ending dialog begins. How did that familiarity drive the story?

Adena Halpern: If you’re lucky enough in your life, you have two sets of families: your blood relations and your lifelong friendships. Each family plays a different role. [In 29], Ellie and her best friend, Frida, have known each other their entire lives, 75 years worth of knowing. They know each others’ deepest secrets without ever having to say it. Mothers and daughters, most times, do not share this type of relationship. We like to think we know each other to the core, but the truth is, there are just some things that you can’t discuss. This is where that “friend” family comes in.   

CP: Reading your Marie Claire columns, I was preparing myself to not be able to relate. I’ve been happily wrong. Did you set out to make sure men cared, as well — or am I just incredibly femme?

AH: You’re just manly enough to embrace your feminine side. When I started writing a book about a 75-year-old woman who becomes 29 for a day, I didn’t say to myself, “The guys are really going to go for this one.” I suppose if I really had to look into it, though, I guess my ideas or themes are pretty universal.

CP: What’s hiding within 29 that you’d have to read twice to understand?

AH: One thing I really hope that people get right off the bat is that Ellie is a 75-year-old woman of today. I think that when people think of what a 75-year-old woman looks like, they think of white hair and granny glasses and a hunched back with a cane. It was very important to me that I portrayed Ellie like the 75-year-old women that I knew. I tried very hard to get that right. One fun thing that I love that I don’t know if every reader will catch is that the dress Ellie’s granddaughter, Lucy, designs starts with an old dress of Ellie’s. This particular dress of Ellie’s is one that she wore at 29 years old. When she sees the dress in Plage Tahiti’s store window when she’s 29, she goes in and tries it on. Both the dress and Ellie have been remade into the younger version of the originals.

CP: You make references to local spots like Knit Wit, the Kimmel and the Continental in your book, but you haven’t lived here for a while. How did you catch up with the new neighborhoods for 29? What do you feel like you’re missing?

AH: My family still lives in Philadelphia, so I’m actually here all the time. … If I feel like I’m missing anything, it’s that my city has gone on without me. I grew up on the Main Line in Bala Cynwyd, and I always dreamed of living downtown. When Anthropologie was Urban Outfitters on Rittenhouse Square, as a teenager in the ’80s, I used to stand at the top of those steps and pretend that I was all grown up and this big gorgeous mansion was my home … that the entire world was outside my door. Even though I’m in Philly every few months, I hate the idea that I’m not experiencing Philadelphia as a grown-up.

CP: Your parents are in the Rittenhouse area that you adore. Jealous?

AH: My parents moved from the suburbs into town about five years ago, and they absolutely love living downtown. They can’t figure out why they didn’t do it sooner. My brother and his family also live three blocks from them. So why didn’t we all move into the city when I was a kid? I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy growing up on the Main Line — I did — but I’ve always been a city kind of person. And years later, it turns out that my parents are, too. Harrumph.

CP: I know you’re a big movie fan. I found elements of Heaven Can Wait and Roman Holiday in Ellie’s story. Am I off by too much? 

AH: You’re spot on with Roman Holiday. I was initially attracted to the idea of telling a story that would take place in one day. Roman Holiday was a film that definitely inspired me in that regard. Much like Hepburn’s character, Ellie took a day that had nothing to do with her life. She transformed herself, both physically — chopping off her hair like Hepburn did — and emotionally. Like Hepburn’s character, Ellie found love, and most importantly, she was faced with a dilemma: staying in this new life or going back to her old one. Another movie I thought about and then went on to read the book was Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. The chapters in that book take place by the hour; I originally started out creating my chapters that way, but I was dealing with a subplot that was going on at the same time and I knew it would begin to get confusing for the reader, so I eliminated that.   

CP: What attracts you to ideas of wishes granted and lives examined?

AH: I like to make my characters as three-dimensional as I possibly can. It’s too easy to just peg someone as the obnoxious one or the spoiled one. For me, it’s interesting to figure out why the bad guy (or girl) got to be the way they are. To do that, you really have to figure out the character’s entire life and make that a key element in the story.

As for the wish fulfillment stuff, I kind of consider myself a Walter Mitty type of person. I’m well into my adulthood and I still fantasize about putting myself or others in dreamlike scenarios. That’s what I like to do in my books  I could tell a straight story about a woman who wishes she could change her life and start over, but it’s much more fun to see what she would do if she were suddenly granted her wish.  While doing that, I really had to figure out who this woman was. What were the last 75 years like for a woman like Ellie in terms of equality? How did society affect this woman through the years? The same goes for the main character, Alex, in Ten Best Days. When we meet her, she seems kind of spoiled and flighty like a Paris Hilton. It’s only when she’s faced with examining her life that the reader realizes she’s not just a black-and-white character. She’s smart and has strong opinions and worries and dreams and hopes just like the rest of us. In the end, after learning all about her life, it’s the reader who must decide if she’s worthy or unworthy of staying in seventh heaven or I haven’t done my job.   

CP: Speaking of Ten Best Days, it’s being made into a movie. I hear Josh Klausner’s doing the script and Amy Adams is playing your lead? How do you feel about losing your baby?

AH: I spend at least a year creating characters and telling their story and mapping out their lives in my books, but in the end, just like your children, at some point, you have to set them free. The whole point of writing a book is to allow people to escape from their lives, and the same goes for movies, and that’s what’s most important to me. That’s why I do what I do for a living. I know that technically, translating exactly what’s in the book and turning it into a screenplay isn’t possible. When Shawn Levy and Josh told me about the screenplay, I got chills. Some of the things that Josh changed were things that I didn’t even think about when I was writing the book and if I was a crying kind of girl, I definitely would have shed a tear or two over it. Seeing this character that I brought to life do something different, actually, in the oddest way, made me feel so happy for her. 

The craziest part of having TBD made into a film was that I actually pictured Amy Adams in my head as the main character when I was writing the book! I had nothing to do with her reading the book and subsequently signing on to play the lead and co-produce it. For a book about fantasy and believing in yourself, that was almost too much for me to handle. So in that sense, I won’t be losing my baby, I’ll actually be seeing that character I saw in my head physically come to life!  How cool is that?

CP:: Are you trying to show off the splendor of Philadelphia, making it a character like Candace Bushnell did with Manhattan in Sex in the City?

AH:: Just like Woody Allen does with New York, or John Irving does with New Hampshire, I want the world to see Philly through the same rose-colored glasses that I do. I’ve always thought of Philly as a best-kept secret. If people want American history, they’re going to go to D.C. If they want a city, they’re going to go to Manhattan. What they don’t know, unless they’ve visited Philly, is how incredibly beautiful and unexpectedly vibrant it is.

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

Adena Halpern reads from 29 on Thu., June 24, 7 p.m., free, Barnes & Noble, 1805 Walnut St., 215-665-0716, barnesandnoble.com.

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