Sandra Newman on "The Heavens"

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.7 • 837 Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2020

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A young woman falls asleep in the 21st century and slowly finds herself slipping into 16th-century England, where she falls in love with an obscure young poet named Will. Sandra Newman’s new novel The Heavens crosses genres. You could call it historical fiction, with its meticulously accurate 16th-century details. You could call it science fiction for its use of time travel and parallel worlds. It’s also a really good, sexy romance novel about Emilia Bassano, the woman who some believe was the inspiration for half of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Sandra Newman joined us recently to talk about what inspired this novel and what it tells us about love, mental illness, and the past, present, and future. Newman is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. Sandra Newman is the author of four novels, including The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done, Cake, and The Country of Ice Cream Star. Her latest, The Heavens, was published by Grove Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic, in 2019. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published May 26, 2020. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “If I Should Despair, I Should Grow Mad” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. Special thanks to Derek Rusinek and James Walsh at Threshold Recording Studios NYC in Manhattan and Andrew Feliciano at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California for their technical help.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	A young woman falls asleep and finds herself in 16th century England, falling in love with an obscure
0:06.7	young poet named Will. The affair goes on for quite a while, and in this story it turns out
0:13.7	it's not a dream.
0:20.7	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.
0:27.2	I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folgers, director.
0:30.2	Sandra Newman's novel, The Heavens, crosses a lot of genres.
0:34.6	You could call it historical fiction, with its meticulously accurate 16th century details. You could call it historical fiction with its meticulously accurate 16th century
0:39.3	details. You could call it science fiction for its use of time travel in parallel worlds.
0:45.3	It's also a really good sexy romance novel about Emilia Bissano, the woman who many think
0:53.3	was the inspiration for half of Shakespeare's sonnets.
0:57.0	Whatever you call this book, it's engrossing. It's beautifully written, and it's a thoroughly enjoyable read.
1:04.0	We had Sandra Newman in our studio in Manhattan recently to talk about what inspired this novel and what it might have to tell us
1:12.1	about love, about mental illness, and about the past, present, and maybe even the future.
1:19.6	Just a note before we start, we recorded this podcast during the very early days of the
1:24.9	coronavirus outbreak in the United States,
1:30.8	a few hours before New York City locked down, in fact.
1:33.7	That will become clear from the conversation.
1:37.2	Also, if you hear anything in our audio quality that is less than what you've come to expect from us,
1:40.2	we hope you'll understand under the circumstances.
1:43.2	We call this podcast, If I Should Despair, I Should Grow Mad.
1:48.5	Sandra Newman is interviewed by Barbara Bogave.
1:51.4	Well, one of the many things that you do well in this novel is the time travel element,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Folger Shakespeare Library, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Folger Shakespeare Library and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.