I hope you will join me at these upcoming author talks for The Other Beautiful People, my new novel, a workplace love story. Find out how I wrote a novel — my first for adults — after I thought I would never write another full-length novel again. Find out how to write a novel that is so close-to-the-bone, it hurts. Find out how to write a novel about secrets– and the secret joy about working at the Cinema Channel (in real life I was the senior vice president, marketing and public relations at Bravo and IFC). Discover a book club read with so much to discuss about working women, about work families versus home, about Manhattan and the work in the weeks following 9/11…and about a passion for classic movies and life… join me here… Caroline
I am so grateful to all the readers of my new novel, The Other Beautiful People, who have reached out to me since its publication in June– but none more than my former colleagues at Bravo, IFC, and IFC Films. My novel is a workplace love story, set at the fictional cable network, the Cinema Channel.
Some of you will know the real-life Kathleen Dore… and if you don’t, know she was the type of boss I always aspired to be– smart, innovative, results-oriented, but always kind and caring. She led Bravo/IFC for many years, and I am proud to have worked for/with her! With her permission, I am sharing her thoughts on The Other Beautiful People.
This! A profile of an author, who wrote a workplace love story, who wrote a novel set at the Cinema Channel, in the weeks following 9/11… who also works to publish other writers via her role at The Washington Writers’ Publishing House… this is me, Caroline Bock… read on! Caroline
Join me at readings/talks/signings for my new novel, THE OTHER BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE, a workplace love story, this August, September and October! More details here …. Caroline
With her permission, I am sharing a letter I received from a recent reader of THE OTHER BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE. It’s from one of the most thoughtful, inspiring people I know… Linsey Abrams, retired professor, the former head of the MFA department at the City College of New York, my former thesis advisor at CCNY, where I received an MFA in Fiction, a mentor to so many, including me, a gorgeous writer…
Dear Caroline,
It’s a beautiful novel. So full, the way life is. The present story and all the different pasts swirl like a galaxy, an organizing principle of an otherwise diffuse mass. The self.
It is tough and sweet, funny and profound, wrenching, alarming, thrilling, and always on the verge of something more complicated or simple. The films are a revelation.
Parents propel our destinies (they’re the one thing we can’t recover from, and the one thing that, conversely, makes us truly us—this is such a feelingful story). And then the struggle to accept a “home” (most people try to find it) becomes more and more central until everything converges to land her exactly there. My favorite character is Jack.
This is, of course, a woman’s Hamlet. Ghost, being haunted, brainy, language obsessed, mother father, her inability to live with things as they are. The horrible imperfection and then devolution. Who can live with what happens?
Women readers recognize themselves in Amy. What a multifaceted internal life—it rings true. It rings. And she is particularly herself…at the same time a bit like the narrated others. What she sees in them is hers. She’s like the firemen too. Unlike Hamlet, her eroticism runs all the way through it. This also rings.
You should be exhilarated, which I suspect you are.
I did a fascinating podcast – UPSTART CROW – with Professor Bill Miller from George Mason University on my new novel THE OTHER BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE… where he compared stories that I wrote in my 2018 short story collection, CARRY HER HOME, about Morris and Louise (my parents) and how they first met in Manhattan, with characters from my new novel also named Morris and Louise. It was an amazingly insightful piece of literary sleuthing.
Plus, insights into my unusual writing process and even more unusual publishing journey with THE OTHER BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE.
There’s so much more here in this probing interview!
The best part: Professor Miller calling THE OTHER BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE filled with vivacity and a delight! LISTEN!
CAROLINE ANNA BOCK... 
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