Ask the Author: Anne-Marie O'Connor
Answered Questions (13)
Anne-Marie O'Connor
I just read The Undergroung Railroad and Herland. I'm now reading Queen Sugar, General's Son, and A Road Unforeseen. I'm looking forward to reading The Warmth of Other Sons, Between the World and Me, and White Teeth. I'm wondering of there's any possible way to persuade Elena Ferrante to write another Neapolitan novel, perhaps from the point of view of the grown-up daughter of the main protagonist.
Anne-Marie O'Connor
It's funny you would ask that. I come from a very episodic family, with a unique history, and I've thought of writing about that. In addition, when I covered wars in Latin America, I had a very exciting life, both personally and professionally, and I thought of writing about that too. Both are mysteries, in a sense, because my current life is so placid, from Los Angeles to Jerusalem, and soon, to London. So I forget I once lived at a much higher decibel and velocity. So that's a very good question.
Anne-Marie O'Connor
That's a tough question. There are so many fascinating couples in literature, from Romeo and Juliet to Rhett Butler and Scarlet O'Hara. I would have to say Dr. Zhivago and Lara, in part because they are a fictionalized version of the real-life love of Boris Pasternak's life.
Anne-Marie O'Connor
Yes. I need to schedule it so that it works with the international time zone of where I am.
Anne-Marie O'Connor
I stumbled upon the story by accident.
I was reading the Westside Weekly in 2001. There was a Bob Scheer column about a neighborhood woman in her 80s. Maria Altmann. The Nazis had stolen a painting of her aunt. The painting wasn’t locked away somewhere in a mysterious unknown place. It was in the national museum, with other paintings her family owned.
The column had a tiny image of the painting. It was one of the most recognizable paintings in the world. One of Gustav Klimt’s wealthy, decadent, Viennese society women. Or so I had been led to believe in art history class years ago. I thought, ‘that painting? I called 411. An older woman answered, Maria Altmann, and invited me over. She told me a very long story, about her Aunt Adele, a “woman of today living in the world of yesterday.”
According to Maria, the women in the golden painting, and some of the other women painted by Klimt, were not decadent society women. They were visionaries, dreamers, existentialists. Women who supported Freud, modern art, and modernism itself.
Adele was a very opinionated woman. A philanthropist. She smoked, and argued with other intellectuals. Adele may nor may not have had a thing with Klimt.There were other romantic entanglements involving Alma Mahler, Hedy Lamarr--in those days Hedwig Kiesler, a protege of theater impresario Max Reinhardt. The young attorney Los Angeles in the case, Randol Schoenberg, was the grandson of an avant garde Viennese composer, Arnold Schoenberg.
The story was beautiful and complex. It began in a very special time, turn-of-the-century Vienna, when the city was an incubator of new ideas of psychology, medicine, and art. This was the backdrop of Gustav Klimt’s battle for creativity and self-expression, as an artist and an individual. It was an exciting time to be alive. The women Klimt painted into history were striving to be more when their society wanted them to be less. The story was suffused with love; the love of ideas, and passionate romantic love. This world was like a glittering jewel to them.
Its loss haunted them. During World War II, Adele’s nieces fought for their lives, with courage and grit. They suffered the fates that Adele herself would have experienced, had she lived. They were remarkable women who didn’t let even the most difficult obstacles stand in their way. Their struggles taught me important lessons, about perseverance, endurance and dignity.
To tell a story as multi-faceted as this one seemed a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It seemed like a modern fairy tale.
I was reading the Westside Weekly in 2001. There was a Bob Scheer column about a neighborhood woman in her 80s. Maria Altmann. The Nazis had stolen a painting of her aunt. The painting wasn’t locked away somewhere in a mysterious unknown place. It was in the national museum, with other paintings her family owned.
The column had a tiny image of the painting. It was one of the most recognizable paintings in the world. One of Gustav Klimt’s wealthy, decadent, Viennese society women. Or so I had been led to believe in art history class years ago. I thought, ‘that painting? I called 411. An older woman answered, Maria Altmann, and invited me over. She told me a very long story, about her Aunt Adele, a “woman of today living in the world of yesterday.”
According to Maria, the women in the golden painting, and some of the other women painted by Klimt, were not decadent society women. They were visionaries, dreamers, existentialists. Women who supported Freud, modern art, and modernism itself.
Adele was a very opinionated woman. A philanthropist. She smoked, and argued with other intellectuals. Adele may nor may not have had a thing with Klimt.There were other romantic entanglements involving Alma Mahler, Hedy Lamarr--in those days Hedwig Kiesler, a protege of theater impresario Max Reinhardt. The young attorney Los Angeles in the case, Randol Schoenberg, was the grandson of an avant garde Viennese composer, Arnold Schoenberg.
The story was beautiful and complex. It began in a very special time, turn-of-the-century Vienna, when the city was an incubator of new ideas of psychology, medicine, and art. This was the backdrop of Gustav Klimt’s battle for creativity and self-expression, as an artist and an individual. It was an exciting time to be alive. The women Klimt painted into history were striving to be more when their society wanted them to be less. The story was suffused with love; the love of ideas, and passionate romantic love. This world was like a glittering jewel to them.
Its loss haunted them. During World War II, Adele’s nieces fought for their lives, with courage and grit. They suffered the fates that Adele herself would have experienced, had she lived. They were remarkable women who didn’t let even the most difficult obstacles stand in their way. Their struggles taught me important lessons, about perseverance, endurance and dignity.
To tell a story as multi-faceted as this one seemed a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It seemed like a modern fairy tale.
Anne-Marie O'Connor
I wrote a draft of a novel this summer, and I'm trying to get started on another nonfiction book. I still write journalism on a regular basis.
Anne-Marie O'Connor
I'm very excited about "Woman in Gold," the movie coming out in April! But I wasn't involved with it. They began working on the film years ago, before my book came out, with Randol Schoenberg. A lot of the story was well-known publicly by then. They wanted to fictionalize some details of the story, so they didn't need a historical nonfiction book. I'm working with a European production on another film, and I'm excited about that too.
Anne-Marie O'Connor
I listen to a lot of rock and roll when I write. A good writing album for me is "The Joshua Tree" by U2, it's energizing, calming, and really well-written. It's stimulating but meditative. Music carries me along, from sentence to sentence. I also exercise when I'm writing intensively; it calms me and pulls a lot of things out of my psyche, I get insights while I'm exercising, and it moves me out of a rut, clears my head, and relieves any anxiety. Writers say they get some of their best flashes while driving on the freeway, or when they're resting in bed, so make sure to have a notebook where you can jot down your thoughts and go back to them when you sit down to write. Good conversation with friends is inspiring to me--and I love writing with my dog curled up at my feet.
Anne-Marie O'Connor
A positive, and insightful book, "The Artist's Way", by Julia Cameron, has helped some writers I know get their footing--one friend of mine cited it as helping her writer a memoir she took four years to write while she was working as a freelance journalist. Aspiring writers can start by reading the kinds of books they would like to write, either because of the writing style, or the kind of story story that the writers are telling. Reading widely will help to show you the options you have in telling a story, and you can pay close attention to the way writers tell their stories. I recently read Elena Ferrante's Naples trilogy, and it really impressed me with the way it told the coming of age story of two young women. Most writers I know have tremendous persistence, and have weathered a lot of rejection. Persistence is, in some ways, more important than confidence, because it's not always possible to feel confident, but it is possible to persist even when you don't feel confident. I told myself I was the best person to tell the story in my book--and I believed it. Also: Write that first draft, bang it out, and then worry about polishing it. A bad first draft is an important first step for a good piece of writing, for many writers. I found it very helpful to exercise three times a week during intensive periods of writing. I was a journalist for many years, meaning I had to write, even if I felt terrible, or even ill, or was in the throes of a breakup or some other emotional challenge. You realize that you don't have to be in the perfect "inspired" state to write well--and you find that some of your best writing often comes when you feel terrible. You also have to learn to be your own champion, and outlast naysayers-- someone I know was told he wasn't a good writers by some editors, and now he is writing bestsellers. If you go to readings of writers at bookstores or cultural centers, you will meet writers, and maybe even be invited to go out for drinks afterwards, which can help you build a community. There are many social media pages for writers, like Vida Literary Arts on Facebook, so find the pages that fit you and friend them, and then join the chats.
You have a story you want to tell, so believe in it, and try to find out what it takes to free you to tell your story.
You have a story you want to tell, so believe in it, and try to find out what it takes to free you to tell your story.
Anne-Marie O'Connor
It began as an LA story, in the summer of 2001.
I was working at The Los Angeles Times, which was suffering a morale collapse because it had just been bought by the Tribune Company, so perhaps I was searching for a bit of inspiration. One day I was reading the Westside Weekly in mid-2001. There was a Bob Scheer column about a neighborhood woman in her 80s. The Nazis had stolen a painting of her aunt. The painting wasn’t stuffed in a closet. Or locked away somewhere in some mysterious unknown place. It was in the national museum, with other paintings her family had owned. She wanted the paintings back.
In those days, people almost never got back stolen art. They got mad about it. European museums said they acquired it in good faith. After awhile, that was the end of it. The people who owned the paintings were very old. Eventually they went away. But this column had a tiny image of the painting. It was one of the most recognizable paintings in the world.
It was one of Gustav Klimt’s wealthy, decadent, Viennese society women. Or so I had been told. In art history class years before. I looked at it and I thought, ‘that painting?’” So I called 411. An older woman answered. Her name was Maria Altmann. She had a lovely Old World accent. Well of course my darling, come over at once. I got there. She came to the door--Hello my love. She was regal, and elegant. She was also working, fitting an older woman with a Navy blue blazer and a silk scarf. She seemed to dress people for a living. When she was done, she made me Viennese coffee. With lots of whipped cream. We sat down. She told me a story, about her Aunt Adele, a “woman of today living in the world of yesterday.” She had beautiful sepia photographs with remarkable lighting and a staged quality, like movie stills, or a scene from Downton Abby. It was a long story, but it was anything but dull. Listening to Maria talk was somehow transporting. Like time-traveling.
According to Maria, the woman in the golden painting, and some of the other women painted by Klimt, were not decadent society women. They were art collectors, patrons. They cared about supporting art, new art. Their friends were visionaries, dreamers, existentialists.
There were romantic entanglements. Adele, the woman in the painting, might have had a thing with Klimt.
There were love affairs involving Alma Mahler, Gustav Mahler, and Hedy Lamarr. Who was then Hedwig Kiessler, the young protege of the theater impresario Max Reinhardt. There was Arthur Schnitzler, the Freud of Vienna theater. One of his plays on Viennese sex lives would be replayed some day as a Hollywood movie, Eyes Wide Shut.
Could all of these people have been somehow mixed up in this story?
Unbelievable!
It seemed impossible that she would ever move the legal case beyond her kitchen. What about jurisdiction? What about sovereign immunity? What legal Houdini could possibly get around all these obstacles? “Randy.” Maria said proudly. “I’ve known Randy since he was in di-a-pers.” As if she were talking about a nephew’s science project.
A few minutes later I was in the office of “Randy.” Randol Schoenberg looked incredibly young. Like he had just graduated from college. Though he was in his 30s. He seemed more like a scholar than a lawyer. There were books piled up everywhere in his office. On his desk. On his floor. Books on art. Music. Philosophy. Law. History. He spread them out, and pointed to photographs. There were enough characters to people a Russian novel. He used the word Nazi a lot. This Nazi lawyer, that Nazi museum director, Klimt’s Nazi filmmaker son. Could all these Austrians have been Nazis?
I told my editor, Steve Padilla, and did a Metro story about it. I also called the editor of the LA Times Magazine, Alice Short, and said, there’s this legal case. I don’t think it will ever go anywhere. But it’s a really good story for the magazine. Journalists are used to lost causes.
But this lost cause kept winning in U.S. courts, and with each victory, more of the story was revealed. I found myself calling Maria and her friends, perhaps a dozen of older people, and asking them questions about it. I was intrigued by the famous personalities of turn-of-the-century Vienna, who they or their parents had known personally. I was intrigued by the love affairs, and all of the intricate social customs, writing little love letters, or little plays, about friends and family members.
Maria and her contemporaries were a unique treasure, in the last years of their lives, with many valuable memories and stories, that I felt would be lost forever if someone didn't write them down. Their houses were stuffed with diaries, old letters, writings of Albert Einstein and so many people from that brilliant period. Maria’s sister-in-law was in her 90s, and she had adult memories of Ferdinand, and the things he said and did, and she was sharp as a tack. I had a small window of time. And I was fascinated by the whole story.
When the Austrians suddenly decided to give back the paintings in 2006, I made up my mind. I went to Vienna with Randy Schoenberg to inspect the painting, and began to write a book.
It began as an LA story, in the summer of 2001.
I was working at The Los Angeles Times, which was suffering a morale collapse because it had just been bought by the Tribune Company, so perhaps I was searching for a bit of inspiration. One day I was reading the Westside Weekly in mid-2001. There was a Bob Scheer column about a neighborhood woman in her 80s. The Nazis had stolen a painting of her aunt. The painting wasn’t stuffed in a closet. Or locked away somewhere in some mysterious unknown place. It was in the national museum, with other paintings her family had owned. She wanted the paintings back.
In those days, people almost never got back stolen art. They got mad about it. European museums said they acquired it in good faith. After awhile, that was the end of it. The people who owned the paintings were very old. Eventually they went away. But this column had a tiny image of the painting. It was one of the most recognizable paintings in the world.
It was one of Gustav Klimt’s wealthy, decadent, Viennese society women. Or so I had been told. In art history class years before. I looked at it and I thought, ‘that painting?’” So I called 411. An older woman answered. Her name was Maria Altmann. She had a lovely Old World accent. Well of course my darling, come over at once. I got there. She came to the door--Hello my love. She was regal, and elegant. She was also working, fitting an older woman with a Navy blue blazer and a silk scarf. She seemed to dress people for a living. When she was done, she made me Viennese coffee. With lots of whipped cream. We sat down. She told me a story, about her Aunt Adele, a “woman of today living in the world of yesterday.” She had beautiful sepia photographs with remarkable lighting and a staged quality, like movie stills, or a scene from Downton Abby. It was a long story, but it was anything but dull. Listening to Maria talk was somehow transporting. Like time-traveling.
According to Maria, the woman in the golden painting, and some of the other women painted by Klimt, were not decadent society women. They were art collectors, patrons. They cared about supporting art, new art. Their friends were visionaries, dreamers, existentialists.
There were romantic entanglements. Adele, the woman in the painting, might have had a thing with Klimt.
There were love affairs involving Alma Mahler, Gustav Mahler, and Hedy Lamarr. Who was then Hedwig Kiessler, the young protege of the theater impresario Max Reinhardt. There was Arthur Schnitzler, the Freud of Vienna theater. One of his plays on Viennese sex lives would be replayed some day as a Hollywood movie, Eyes Wide Shut.
Could all of these people have been somehow mixed up in this story?
Unbelievable!
It seemed impossible that she would ever move the legal case beyond her kitchen. What about jurisdiction? What about sovereign immunity? What legal Houdini could possibly get around all these obstacles? “Randy.” Maria said proudly. “I’ve known Randy since he was in di-a-pers.” As if she were talking about a nephew’s science project.
A few minutes later I was in the office of “Randy.” Randol Schoenberg looked incredibly young. Like he had just graduated from college. Though he was in his 30s. He seemed more like a scholar than a lawyer. There were books piled up everywhere in his office. On his desk. On his floor. Books on art. Music. Philosophy. Law. History. He spread them out, and pointed to photographs. There were enough characters to people a Russian novel. He used the word Nazi a lot. This Nazi lawyer, that Nazi museum director, Klimt’s Nazi filmmaker son. Could all these Austrians have been Nazis?
I told my editor, Steve Padilla, and did a Metro story about it. I also called the editor of the LA Times Magazine, Alice Short, and said, there’s this legal case. I don’t think it will ever go anywhere. But it’s a really good story for the magazine. Journalists are used to lost causes.
But this lost cause kept winning in U.S. courts, and with each victory, more of the story was revealed. I found myself calling Maria and her friends, perhaps a dozen of older people, and asking them questions about it. I was intrigued by the famous personalities of turn-of-the-century Vienna, who they or their parents had known personally. I was intrigued by the love affairs, and all of the intricate social customs, writing little love letters, or little plays, about friends and family members.
Maria and her contemporaries were a unique treasure, in the last years of their lives, with many valuable memories and stories, that I felt would be lost forever if someone didn't write them down. Their houses were stuffed with diaries, old letters, writings of Albert Einstein and so many people from that brilliant period. Maria’s sister-in-law was in her 90s, and she had adult memories of Ferdinand, and the things he said and did, and she was sharp as a tack. I had a small window of time. And I was fascinated by the whole story.
When the Austrians suddenly decided to give back the paintings in 2006, I made up my mind. I went to Vienna with Randy Schoenberg to inspect the painting, and began to write a book.
Anne-Marie O'Connor
To me the best thing about being a writer is that you can sit down and do this on your own with the most basic of supplies: today, a computer, in years past, a typewriter, or a pen and paper. Its simplicity feels timeless to me: the basic human act of sitting down and telling a story. It also seems universal: everyone has a story, even if you choose to tell someone else's story. had other opportunities for other paths when I was young, but many of them relied on things out of my control, or were expensive, like documentary filmmaking. I was originally planning to write fiction, and decided I would begin as a journalist, because it was interesting, and also because I worked my way through college at UC Berkeley, and I needed a job. I was swept away by the fascinating and tragic sweep of history during the wars in Central America in the 1980s, and I remained a journalist, perhaps out of habit. But I found the story of Maria Altmann and Adele Bloch-Bauer as riveting as any fiction. I met Maria Altmann in 2001 and finished the book in 2011, so I had 10 years to interview her and her Vienna contemporaries, and hear their stories, with all of the details. That was a huge gift. It touches on another advantage of being a writer: It doesn't rely on youth, or a youthful appearance. In fact, most writers get better as they get older. So writing is a profession you can do for your entire life. Your stories will change, but they won't end. That's another aspect of writing that appeals to me. It's a profession that can last a lifetime, in a way that is meaningful and real.
Anne-Marie O'Connor
That's a very good question. I think you need to analyze it a bit. Is it from lack of confidence--that would be common. How can you plan a narrative that allows you to proceed with confidence? Maybe make an outline or a timeline. Another thing writers do is take a nap, so you have two mornings in your writing day, since mornings are often the easiest time for people. I had a lot of passion for this project, and that helped carry me forward. But when I did get bogged down in doubts over how the story should move forward, I wrote each scene individually, breaking it down into pieces, and then used a three-ring binder to put the sections where I thought they needed to go.
Anne-Marie O'Connor
Hi Patsy, I'm in Jerusalem now. We moved in 2013. This has been updated in some places, but not in others. The paperback and all the new printings will have it, but probably a lot of library books have the old location.
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