"Leaving"

Roxana Robinson is the author of eleven books—seven novels, three collections of short stories, and the biography of Georgia O’Keeffe. Four of these were chosen as New York Times Notable Books, two as New York Times Editors’ Choices.

Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, Best American Short Stories, The Southampton Review, Ep!phany and elsewhere. Her work has been widely anthologized and broadcast on NPR. Her books have been published in England, France, Germany, Holland and Spain.

Robinson has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation and the MacDowell Colony, and she was named a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library. She has served on the Boards of PEN and the Authors Guild, and was the president of the Authors Guild. Robinson has received the Barnes and Noble “Writers for Writers Award,” given by Poets and Writers, and the Award for Distinguished Service to the Literary Community from the Authors Guild. She teaches in the MFA Program at Hunter College.

Robinson applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Leaving, and reported the following:

Most of the book is about Warren and Sarah, who were deeply in love in their teens, and who then found each other again in their sixties. The book revisits their early passage, then recounts the present. But page 69 is about Warren and his wife of 37 years, as he comes home from a business trip. The reader already knows a great deal about them from the narrative before this; this page simply recounts Warren’s arrival and his wife’s welcome. Will the reader be able to understand who they are? Will she understand the few references to Sarah? I hope the reader can see the tone of their relationship, how they speak to each other, how they react. Is this a long and healthy marriage, one worn smooth and flexible by the years? Or is this a threadbare fabric, worn thin and translucent with endless tension? I hope the reader will be able to choose between the two, or at least to understand how these two characters connect.

Visit Roxana Robinson’s website.

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My Book, The Movie: Cost.

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My Book, The Movie: Dawson's Fall.

The Page 69 Test: Dawson's Fall.

Q&A with Roxana Robinson.

Writers Read: Roxana Robinson.

--Marshal Zeringue