Final month, after I learn Rachel Hochhauser’s Woman Tremaine — a reimagining of Cinderella from the angle of her stepmother – I used to be blown away. Within the novel, Woman Tremaine pulled herself out of poverty as an adolescent, 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, looking rabbits for dinner, and protecting their leaky home from fairly actually falling down.
Woman Tremaine flips every little thing on its head — the traditional Cinderella fairy story, after all, but additionally how we view girls and moms, all through historical past, literature, and nonetheless right this moment. (Working example: on Huge Salad, I shared how the e book led me to a serious relationship realization.) Reese Witherspoon simply selected the novel for her e book membership, and I can already envision the film on the massive display. Right here, I spoke to Rachel about her dramatic backstory, favourite sentence, and parenting realization…
First issues first: What impressed you to write down about Cinderella’s stepmother?
The backstory is extra dramatic than you may suppose. In 2023, my husband couldn’t get off the bed, he had vertigo, he was throwing up on a regular basis, he misplaced 35 kilos. We didn’t know what was happening. Ultimately we discovered that he wanted emergency mind surgical procedure. The restoration was brutal, and we have been spending a lot time within the hospital. In the future, within the ready room, I used to be scrolling by way of my telephone and was stopped in my tracks by a cartoon picture of Cinderella’s evil stepmother.
Why did that picture soar 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. After 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 handle her household.
What a surprising realization.
That seed received beneath my pores and skin. I couldn’t cease eager about it, I felt compelled and known 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 dimensions 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, however 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 carrying 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 e book explodes that world.
Woman Tremaine has two daughters, after all, and in addition turns into liable for her stepdaughter. In your novel, she finally ends up realizing that she must mum or dad every of them in a different way. That was a gorgeous and profound second.
You go into parenting with plenty of unconscious expectations — what it’s going to appear to be, how your youngsters are going to be. However youngsters 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 enormous scale, and you’ll’t mum or dad any two youngsters the identical approach.
The novel feels cinematic — you may 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, however it isn’t truly set in a selected 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 have to be hyper-specific about what life appeared like in England in 1797. As an alternative, I researched a broader swath of time — I learn the diaries of 18th-century girls, etiquette books for ladies, 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 e book.
How did you selected the duvet?
Ninety-nine p.c of authors don’t get to decide on their covers, however I did get to supply suggestions and St. Martin’s Press was fantastic about listening. We initially had completely different florals, however I requested, may we ever use one thing from the world of the e book? I despatched over photos by Clara Peeters, one of many few feminine Dutch Golden Age painters. I didn’t know you possibly can do that, however St. Martin’s truly used the flowers from her portray for the duvet! 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 eager about them as you wrote?
Sure, the ending nearly 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 power.
P.S. Extra favourite books, and Kate Baer’s motherhood poems make me giggle and cry.
