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| Photo:Atlas Remix |
When I was a kid, Saturday morning television was a treat for my siblings and I. Cartoons and then Tarzan. I loved Tarzan and his ability to live and talk with all the animals of the jungle and he had absolutely the coolest tree house (recreating that house encompassed hours of time and effort on the part of my brothers and I—complete with ropes to swing on)! I wanted to be Jane. What life to live.
It's my pleasure to have bestselling historical fiction author, Robin Maxwell, visiting with us today. She has written a fabulous story about Tarzan's mate, Jane Porter— who better to write Jane's story than an novelist who writes historical fiction? This story is told from Jane's point of view. Jane is a highly educated woman of her time (Edwardian) and from a sheltered position of wealth and yet she chooses to leave all that behind and become Tarzan's mate.
It’s rare to be asked about the glitches and tears of this
writer’s life, but I’m glad you asked.
I’ve had so many laughs over the years with my loved ones. It’s necessary condition of friendship. My
husband, Max Thomas, is one of the silliest men alive. But the glitches and
tears, in my case, were whoppers. 2006
was “The Year From Hell” (I didn’t know there’d be four more in a row after
that to rival it).
I’d just gotten a deal with NAL/Penguin to write SIGNORA DA
VINCI, and had just begun extensive research into the Italian Renaissance (my
past five novels had taken place in Tudor and Elizabethan England and Ireland,
so I was in completely new territory, with dozens of research books piled high
around me. In January my mother, Skippy
(from whom I inherited my sense of humor) who was living with Max and me – was
taken by cancer. She’d been not only a
wonderful mom, but my first and greatest champion as a writer. Never once did I hear from her: “Get a REAL
job.”
There’s nothing quite like your mother dying, but I found
some solace in creating a new world in my head and on the page with Leonardo da
Vinci, his mother Caterina, the movers and shakers of Florence and their
heretical secrets: what I called the “Shadow Renaissance.” But the next blow was imminent. My best girlfriend and comedy screenwriting
partner of thirty years (with whom I shared some of the best laughs of my life)
who lived down the country road from me in our remote high desert town, moved
halfway around the world – back to her native Australia.
It was a hot July day.
I’d just begun getting over that double-whammy, and enjoyed my first
conversation with SIGNORA DA VINCI’s wonderful editor, Kara Cesare. It was a long, leisurely talk about the characters
and the period, and I felt so lucky to have a simpatico editor. Half an hour after we hung up, a wind-driven
wildfire roared down from the mountains above our property. When a helicopter dropped a load of water on
our house (while Max and I were still inside – our only evacuation order!) we
knew we had to get out immediately. Max and our Doberman got in one car as
black and orange smoke descended. The
two parrots were with me in a second. I
barely had time to go back and rescue a clothes hamper full of my research
books from a house I knew would be toast within minutes. With Max in the lead
we made a run for it through smoke so thick I could barely see my hood
ornament, down our narrow dirt half-mile long driveway. Suddenly Max stopped short. Behind him I stopped, too. Before us was a wall of flames so high we
could not see the top…and it spanned the entire width of the driveway.
Surrounded by fire, we couldn’t get out of our cars to
confer, and we couldn’t turn around. My
worst nightmare has always been burning to death in a flaming car wreck. Our usually talkative 35-year-old African
Grey parrot, Mr. Grey (the Jerry Seinfeld of birds who never stopped talking
and was another constant source of laughter) who was sitting in the seat next
to me, was completely silent. Then with
horrified amazement I watched Max’s car disappear through the wall of
fire. I was stock still. What should I do?! I couldn’t turn back. I
couldn’t stay where I was. All I knew
was that I trusted Max’s instincts. I
trusted him with my life. So I took a
deep breath and gunned it.
It turned out there was not one wall of flames. There were three! In one of them my car started stalling out (no oxygen in the
engine), but I floored it and sped out the other side, nearly crashing into the
back of Max’s car waiting for me there.
But we were not clear of danger yet.
Once on the main road there were neighbors in their cars barrelling out
of their driveways, and a poor doomed horse running by…on fire. I later learned that Max’s car had tried to
stall not once, but three times during our escape.
While we made it out alive, our nearest neighbor and his dog
were killed. Eighty square miles were
toast. Our home and a few trees around
it were saved by the water drops. But
our once-beautiful high desert paradise looked like a moonscape, and it was a
wildlife graveyard.
A few months later, our darling fourteen year-old Doberman,
Shiva, left this world. Soon after
that, Max underwent bi-lateral knee replacement surgery and rehab. The following year Mr. Grey, after seven
surgeries, died. The next year his
gorgeous, cuddle-bucket wife of 25 years, Cookie the Cockatoo, followed him. But the Grim Reaper was not done with us. In
2010 my stepdaughter, mother of four, grandmother of seven, passed away.
Max and I both suffered from post traumatic stress disorder
for three years from that moment in which we were a single piston-stroke away
from being burned alive. Strangely,
during those five years I wrote three novels, each of them helping me get
through the worst of my depression and anxiety. Sitting down to write felt like sinking into a warm bath. And it was an escape into fabulous worlds as
well. Never did I appreciation the
strength of my creative life and its ability to heal me.
Now, six years later, our wilderness property has come back
to its former glory. Max became my
research assistant, story partner and first editor on JANE: The Woman Who Loved Tarzan, and we have never been healthier
or happier.
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| BUY: AMAZON, B&N, INDIEBOUND |
Cambridge, England, 1905. Jane Porter is hardly a typical woman of her time. The only female student in Cambridge University’s medical program, she is far more comfortable in a lab coat dissecting corpses than she is in a corset and gown sipping afternoon tea. A budding paleoanthropologist, Jane dreams of traveling the globe in search of fossils that will prove the evolutionary theories of her scientific hero, Charles Darwin.
When dashing American explorer Ral Conrath invites Jane and her father to join an expedition deep into West Africa, she can hardly believe her luck. Africa is every bit as exotic and fascinating as she has always imagined, but Jane quickly learns that the lush jungle is full of secrets—and so is Ral Conrath. When danger strikes, Jane finds her hero, the key to humanity’s past, and an all-consuming love in one extraordinary man: Tarzan of the Apes.
When dashing American explorer Ral Conrath invites Jane and her father to join an expedition deep into West Africa, she can hardly believe her luck. Africa is every bit as exotic and fascinating as she has always imagined, but Jane quickly learns that the lush jungle is full of secrets—and so is Ral Conrath. When danger strikes, Jane finds her hero, the key to humanity’s past, and an all-consuming love in one extraordinary man: Tarzan of the Apes.
EXCERPT (ON AMAZON)
I’m about to launch my “Book Club Weekend Getaways” at our
beautiful high desert wildlife sanctuary.
Please visit me at www.robinmaxwell.com
and www.HighDesertEden.com.
You can find Robin on FACEBOOK, TWITTER, and WEBSITE.
