Plum Assignment: BTW Talks With Author Angela Davis-Gardner

By tradition, plum wine is made at home by an individual, for the eventual enjoyment, perhaps, of a few family members and friends.

Similarly, Davis-Gardner's novel Plum Wine (from Dial Press in paperback) -- which touches upon this tradition in the course of its compelling story -- seemed destined, like a bottle of homemade wine, to be enjoyed by a select few connoisseurs. In fact, early on, there was some question as to whether the book would even be picked up by a publisher -- until it found a home at the University of Wisconsin. Said Davis-Gardner, "They printed just a thousand copies; we didn't expect it to go anywhere."

Angela Davis-Gardner

But then, in Davis-Gardner's words, "an amazing thing happened."

Word-of-mouth began about this special book and spread. "It suddenly took off," the author said. "And it was because of independent booksellers."

Nancy Olsson, of Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, North Carolina, was the novel's first champion. "She really loved this book," Davis-Gardner said, "and she and her whole staff really promoted it. And Nancy Olsson contacted her colleagues in independent bookstores all over the country; and suddenly -- it was a Book Sense Pick."

The book received fine reviews from the first. Publishers Weekly, for example, in a starred review, called the book "enthralling" and "perfectly rendered."

But after becoming a Book Sense selection, it gained even more notice. "It started getting a lot of attention," its author said, "and another agent got interested, and she sold the paperback rights" to Dial Press.

Plum Wine is the third novel by Davis-Gardner, the daughter of two North Carolina writers: a historian-novelist father and a mother, who before World War II had been a foreign correspondent.

"We lived out in the country, in a log cabin that had been Cornwallis' headquarters during the next-to-last battle of the American Revolution," the author said by telephone from her more contemporary home in North Carolina. "And my father and mother had all these writer and artist friends ... The poet Randall Jarrell came over a lot to play tennis. I remember Telford Taylor, who had been a judge at the Nuremberg Trials ... And Harry Golden -- he was influential during the Civil Rights movement; he wrote for the Carolina Israelite. And lots of other writers ... like Robert Penn Warren; and Peter Taylor, who later became one of my teachers.... All of that was wonderful and nourishing ... but it was also daunting. I didn't think I could ever really measure up; and though I wanted to write, I didn't know that I could ... It was only years later, when I just sort of went off and kind of privately started my own work, without telling my family, that I was able to start writing."

The future author attended Duke, where she studied with the celebrated writing teacher William Blackburn (whose other students through the years included William Styron and Anne Tyler); and she earned an MFA at UNC Greensboro (where she was instructed by Peter Taylor). Afterwards, she went to Japan and taught college for a year, then returned to North Carolina and worked as a newspaper reporter and a teacher.

At last, she began work on her first novel, a tale set in Nova Scotia: Felice (Random House, 1982). A second novel followed a decade later: Forms of Shelter (Ticknor & Fields, 1991).

For her third book, Angela Davis-Gardner drew on her experience of Japan in the late 1960s. Plum Wine (not greatly autobiographical) charts the relationship of a young American woman college-instructor with a Japanese potter, and her involvement with a number of other Japanese, several of whom are survivors of the Hiroshima bombing.

A subtle chronicle of secrets uncovered and emotions released, Plum Wine seems to combine the intimate storytelling of American-Southern fiction-writers with the spare style of a generation of post-War Japanese novelists. It reads with the propulsive speed of a mystery novel, and, as noted, stirs intense enthusiasm in readers.

"Maybe 10 or 15 years it took me, to do the writing," Davis-Gardner said. "I was also teaching full-time, and I was a single mother, raising a young child, so -- I was really busy with other things, as well."

Given that New York houses had published both her first two novels, the writer expected the same for her new book. But it was not to be.

"Three different agents tried, and they couldn't sell it," she recalled. "This went on for a few years. I got really nice [rejection] letters -- 'beautiful writing' -- but people said, 'We don't think our readers would be interested in this book,' and, 'No one's interested in Japan' -- things like that."

The author became discouraged. Yet there were just enough unexpected bright moments to keep her spirits afloat -- as when a Missouri librarian found a partial manuscript of the novel, left behind on an airplane by an editor, and got in touch to say she had to know what happened next. "I thought, 'Oh, this is wonderful,'" said Davis-Gardner. "'And if this book ever gets published -- I think some people are going to read it.'"

Fortunately, Davis-Gardner had the opportunity to find out when the University of Wisconsin Press agreed to publish the book, in 2006. "I was very happy to be with them," the writer said. "They did a beautiful job on the hardcover, and were extremely attentive and careful about the publication. I couldn't have been happier."

After Dial Press bought the paperback rights to Plum Wine, the house also acquired rights to the author's first two novels, which (despite having been chosen respectively by the Book of the Month Club and the Literary Guild) had never had paperback editions. Dial Press will publish trade paperback editions of both Felice and Forms of Shelter this autumn.

And there was more good news: Dial signed Angela Davis-Gardner to write a fourth novel.

It's almost as if Angela Davis-Gardner, after publishing fiction for 25 years, has overnight become a brand-new writer. "I have this much-broader audience now," the author said. "It's been a really wonderful ride ... It's a great time for me." --Tom Nolan