美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Cruel Beautiful World' Was Inspired By Two Haunting Relationships

'Cruel Beautiful World' Was Inspired By Two Haunting¹ Relationships

play pause stop mute² unmute max volume 00:0007:07repeat repeat off Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser³ to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. SCOTT SIMON, HOST: 

Caroline Leavitt's "Cruel Beautiful World" is a coming-of-age novel for characters of different ages. Set in a time when the world struggled to come of age in the time of Woodstock, the Manson murders and the Age of Aquarius. Lucy Gold is 16 and runs away from the home she shared with her big sister, Charlotte, and their aunt, Iris⁴, since their parents were killed in a car crash during their childhood.

Lucy doesn't run away to Haight-Ashbury or Greenwich Village but, with William, her English teacher, to the wilds of Pennsylvania where this sudden, new couple discovers that playing house isn't quite the same as making a life. The story of Lucy's rebellion⁵, Charlotte's struggle to find her and herself, and Aunt Iris's secret is the story that sweeps us along in "Cruel Beautiful World." Caroline Leavitt joins us from New York.

Thanks so much for being with us.

CAROLINE LEAVITT: I'm thrilled to be here.

SIMON: And I gather this book started with something that really happened to you.

LEAVITT: It did. I've been obsessed⁶ with this book since I was 17. I sat beside this girl in study hall, and she was telling me how she was engaged to a much older guy who was a little controlling. And I didn't really understand that.

A year after I got out of high school, I heard the news. She'd broken up with him, and he had stabbed her to death. And it just haunted⁷ me. I couldn't figure out if she had been with him for so long, why didn't she see signs that he might be violent? How did somebody stay with somebody like that who was controlling?

And it wasn't until four years ago, when I was looking at click-bait (laughter) on the internet about, you know, 10 celebrities⁸ who aren't very nice people, that I happened to...

SIMON: (Laughter) I think I've seen that one, yeah.

LEAVITT: (Laughter) ...That I happened to see a posting from my high school friend's sister who was still obsessed with the crime and what had happened. And there were all these unanswered questions. And as soon as I saw that I thought, oh, I have my story.

SIMON: Yeah. And you've written about the fact that you had a dark passage in your own young life just a couple of years thereafter⁹, too, didn't you?

LEAVITT: Yes. I - about 10 years after my high school friend died, my fiance died very suddenly, two weeks before our wedding. And I was just cataclysmic with grief¹⁰. So I got it in my head that the only way to get over the grief would be to get involved with another person right away.

SIMON: This is the, you've just lost your cat; you need a kitten.

LEAVITT: Yes. Yes, exactly (laughter). I needed a cat. Instead, I got a vicious¹¹ lion. So my friends told me it was a terrible idea. My grief counselor¹² said if I did it, she wouldn't treat me. And I said, I don't care. I can't grieve¹³ anymore. It was just too hard.

So the boyfriend I chose - it was OK at first because he lived in the future and we were always busy. And then he started to monitor my food. I was 100 pounds, and he kept telling me, always in his very sweet, soft, gentle voice - honey, you really could lose another 10 pounds. It would be so great for both of us.

He didn't want me to see my friends. He didn't want me to see his friends because he thought I was flirting¹⁴ with them. And the final straw was when I went to look at a novel I was writing and I noticed that a whole chapter was missing. And it was replaced by this very weird¹⁵ chapter, and it had Groucho Marx jokes in it. And it was strange and not well written. And when I turned to him, he looked at me and said, it's better, right?

And we had an argument about it. And I kept saying, it's mine. It's my work. You didn't even ask permission. And he said, well, you and I are the same person. So what's yours is mine. What's mine is yours. And that's when I understood my high school friend. And that's when I got free of the relationship and I began to think more and more about, how do you recognize control?

SIMON: Wow. But you wind up writing a novel about Lucy, Iris and Charlotte?

LEAVITT: Yes.

SIMON: That's how it works?

LEAVITT: For me, that's how it works. I get haunted by something, and I want to write about it. And it sort of pulls its way out.

SIMON: Yeah. So I got the impression that when Lucy runs away with William, her English teacher, it's actually because she loves Charlotte, her sister, and doesn't want to see Charlotte go off to college.

LEAVITT: Yeah, I think that's correct. I think Lucy's running away was more she wanted to feel special. Her sister was going off to Brandeis. She was going to be alone. Iris was was telling her she was going to have to be a secretary. Running away seemed romantic and dramatic and exactly the thing a naive¹⁶ 17-year-old would do.

SIMON: I love Aunt Iris, the aunt with a secret. And she hates growing old, doesn't she?

LEAVITT: Yes. And I have to tell you, Iris is really an homage¹⁷ to my mom. My mom is 99 years old now. And she's...

SIMON: God bless.

LEAVITT: Yep, she's - she had a terrible marriage. My father died when he was 50. She didn't want anything to do with men ever again - hated my boyfriends, hated my sister's husband. And then, when she was 90, she couldn't stay in her house anymore, so we had to put her into one of these independent living places, and she was not happy. She would call me every night and yell¹⁸ at me.

About a month later, she called me up and she was ridiculously happy. And she said, I've fallen in love for the first time in my life.

SIMON: (Laughter).

LEAVITT: (Laughter) And I went to visit her and Walter, her boyfriend, who was charming and smart and they were like teenagers. They were holding hands. They were together four years. And then what happened is my mom began to get dementia. But right before she totally got dementia, Walter, her boyfriend, fell and he died.

And my sister and I decided¹⁹ that we were not going to tell her that he had died. So right now, my mother still thinks Walter is alive. She still thinks she sees him. She thinks she talks to him, and she's happy. And that, of course, makes me really happy.

SIMON: Has this novel been a chance to work through what happened to you a few decades ago?

LEAVITT: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's sort of - the more I was writing it, the more I understood about what was happening...

SIMON: What happened to you - what happened to your friend and then what happened to you...

LEAVITT: Yeah, what happened to my friend and how sad it was that there was no one there to to help her. And, I mean, when I was in my controlling relationship, there were people to help me, but I just didn't want to listen to them (laughter). But it was a way for me to forgive myself and say, well, at least I got out.

SIMON: Caroline Leavitt, her book "Cruel Beautiful World."

Thanks so much for being with us.

LEAVITT: I'm so thrilled to have been here.

(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDY SONG, "SKINNY LOVE")

1 haunting   

adj.萦绕心头的；不易忘怀的；无法甩脱的；给人以强烈感受的v.常去；缠扰（某人）；萦绕心头

参考例句：

• The film's haunting musical theme stayed in my head for days. 那部电影挥之不去的主题旋律多日来萦绕于我的脑际。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The carol has a primitive strength and haunting simplicity. 这首颂歌有一种原始的力量和令人难忘的纯朴。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 mute   

n.哑子，默音字母，弱音器；adj.哑的，无声的，沉默的；vt.减音，减弱；vi.（鸟）排泄

参考例句：

• He is mute on the subject of social system.他对社会制度的问题保持沉默。
• Her daughter was mute after a serious illness.她的女儿在一场重病之后失去了说话能力。

3 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

4 iris   

n.虹膜，彩虹

参考例句：

• The opening of the iris is called the pupil.虹膜的开口处叫做瞳孔。
• This incredible human eye,complete with retina and iris,can be found in the Maldives.又是在马尔代夫，有这样一只难以置信的眼睛，连视网膜和虹膜都刻画齐全了。

5 rebellion   

n.造反，叛乱，反抗

参考例句：

• The next year they rose up in rebellion.第二年他们就揭竿起义了。
• The new government quickly suppressed the rebellion.新政府迅速把叛乱镇压下去。

6 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。

7 haunted   

adj.闹鬼的；受到折磨的；令人烦恼的v.“haunt”的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• There was a haunted look in his eyes. 他眼中透露出忧虑的神色。
• The country is haunted by the spectre of civil war. 内战仿佛一触即发，举国上下一片恐慌。

8 celebrities   

n.（尤指娱乐界的）名人( celebrity的名词复数 )；名流；名声；名誉

参考例句：

• He only invited A-list celebrities to his parties. 他只邀请头等名流参加他的聚会。
• a TV chat show full of B-list celebrities 由众多二流人物参加的电视访谈节目

9 thereafter   

adv.此后，以后

参考例句：

• Thereafter they did not speak.此后他们就不再讲话了。
• On the opening day all tickets are a dollar, thereafter,they'll be two dollars.开张那天票价一元，以后两元。

10 grief   

n.悲伤，悲痛，悲伤的事，悲痛的缘由

参考例句：

• Don't allow yourself to sink into grief,it can do no good.不要使自己陷入悲哀之中，这样一点好处也没有。
• After her mother died,she abandoned herself to grief.母亲死后，她沉浸于悲痛之中。

11 vicious   

adj.恶毒的，恶意的，凶残的，剧烈的，严重的

参考例句：

• He gave the dog a vicious blow with his stick.他朝着那只狗狠狠地打了一棍子。
• The author portrayed his father as a vicious drunkard.作者把他父亲描绘成一个可恶的酒鬼。

12 counselor   

n.顾问，法律顾问

参考例句：

• The counselor gave us some disinterested advice.顾问给了我们一些无私的忠告。
• Chinese commercial counselor's office in foreign countries.中国驻国外商务参赞处。

13 grieve   

vi.（for，over）感到悲痛；vt.(使)伤心

参考例句：

• Be sure and not grieve.一定不要伤心。
• What the eye does not see,the heart does not grieve over.眼不见，心不烦。

14 flirting   

v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Don't take her too seriously; she's only flirting with you. 别把她太当真，她只不过是在和你调情罢了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• 'she's always flirting with that new fellow Tseng!" “她还同新来厂里那个姓曾的吊膀子！ 来自子夜部分

15 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

16 naive   

adj.幼稚的，轻信的；天真的

参考例句：

• It's naive of you to believe he'll do what he says.相信他会言行一致，你未免太单纯了。
• Don't be naive.The matter is not so simple.你别傻乎乎的。事情没有那么简单。

17 homage   

n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬

参考例句：

• We pay homage to the genius of Shakespeare.我们对莎士比亚的天才表示敬仰。
• The soldiers swore to pay their homage to the Queen.士兵们宣誓效忠于女王陛下。

18 yell   

vi./n.号叫，叫喊

参考例句：

• This gave them a chance to yell.这给了他们大声喊叫的机会。
• When his schoolmate made the last goal,the boy gave out with an untrammeled yell.那个男孩在他的同学踢进最后一球时不禁纵声欢呼。

19 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。