{"id":269632,"date":"2017-09-19T16:50:30","date_gmt":"2017-09-19T20:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=269632"},"modified":"2017-09-20T12:54:02","modified_gmt":"2017-09-20T16:54:02","slug":"mysteries-joanna-scotts-newest-novel-269632","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/mysteries-joanna-scotts-newest-novel-269632\/","title":{"rendered":"Mysteries shape Joanna Scott\u2019s newest novel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Careers for Women<\/em>, a new novel by Joanna Scott, the Roswell Smith Burrows Professor of English, had its beginnings in her attic. There, she kept a paper bag full of newspaper clippings that she\u2019d collected in the wake of September 11, 2001.<\/p>\n

Years went by, and cleaning the attic, she rediscovered the bag. As she sifted through the clippings, a reference to Lee Jaffe caught her attention. Jaffe was a determined reporter at a time when few women found a place in journalism. The spokeswoman and head of public relations for New York\u2019s Port Authority in the mid-20th century, she is said to have written a memo suggesting that if the World Trade Center were going to be a success, its builders should make it the tallest building in the world.<\/p>\n

Joanna Scott will read from Careers for Women<\/em> on September 24 at 3 p.m.,<\/a> at the Barnes & Noble Bookstore in College Town.<\/div>\n

\u201cThat memo started the momentum for what became the Twin Towers,\u201d says Scott.<\/p>\n

And that sifting of papers started the momentum for Careers for Women<\/em> (Little, Brown and Company, 2017), Scott\u2019s 10th novel. The New York Times Book Review<\/em><\/a> calls it a \u201cserpentine, craftily arranged\u201d book that is \u201centirely satisfying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaffe\u2019s career and the experiences of women in the midcentury workplace captured Scott\u2019s imagination as fodder for a novel. She took her title from a 1930s anthology about job options for women that she found in Rush Rhees Library as she began her research. But she was able to unearth relatively little about Jaffe.<\/p>\n

For the seasoned storyteller, that scarcity of information was no impediment. In her previous novel, De Potter\u2019s Grand Tour<\/em> (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2014), Scott used the names of real people\u2014her ancestors, as it happens\u2014and family artifacts as the launching point for an imaginative retelling of their lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that I feel inclined to take liberties with historical fact, but my first attention is to the book I\u2019m writing,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m trying to create a unified whole, where every piece has integrity and purpose within the book. And I think about that equally for fictional and historical characters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Joanna Scott. (Ä¢¹½´«Ã½ photo \/ Brandon Vick)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Over the years, Scott has earned high praise for her narrative techniques. Her novel The Manikin<\/em> was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, while Various Antidotes<\/em> and Arrogance<\/em> were both finalists for the PEN\/Faulkner Award. The recipient of MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships, Scott teaches creative writing, modern fiction, and contemporary literature.<\/p>\n

What little she could track down about Jaffe led her to larger questions about the history of the Port Authority and its importance to the New York state and the national economies. The novel, which begins in 1958 and covers decades, draws together many themes and subjects, among them the world of public relations, women\u2019s careers and friendships, life in midcentury America, and environmental damage wrought by corporations.<\/p>\n

Scott unspools her complex story as a mystery. In bits and pieces, narrator Maggie Gleason\u2014who begins her professional life in a clerical job under Jaffe\u2014relates the story of Pauline Moreau. Like Gleason, Moreau moved to New York City, but in very different circumstances. And her eventual disappearance and abandonment of her vulnerable daughter, Sonia, fuel the story.<\/p>\n

\u201cI boned up on my Agatha Christie a bit,\u201d Scott says.<\/p>\n

Constant movement characterizes the novel\u2014through time, perspectives, and location\u2014as the plot twists mount.<\/p>\n

Narrative shifts are a \u201cform that comes so naturally to me as a writer,\u201d Scott says. \u201cI love to hold multiple parts [of a story] in suspension, and then see if I can pull them all together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Careers for Women,<\/em> a new novel by English professor Joanna Scott, had its beginnings in her attic where she rediscovered a paper bag full of newspaper clippings that she\u2019d collected in the wake of September 11, 2001.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":752,"featured_media":269702,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13092],"tags":[20452,20542,16072],"class_list":["post-269632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-arts","tag-book-authors","tag-department-of-english","tag-school-of-arts-and-sciences"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMysteries shape Joanna Scott\u2019s newest novel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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