The world was madness, and I was in a fairly constant state of fury and angst. Why did you want to tell this story using that scaffolding of the Wharton novel?īENJAMIN: So I got the idea - I was actually sledding with my daughter. The character, that Ethan Frome, is also married to a Zenobia. SIMON: So "Ethan Frome" is a familiar name - obviously the title of Edith Wharton's 1911 novel. "The Smash-Up" by Ali Benjamin, author of "The Next Great Paulie Fink" and other books for young readers, joins us now. SIMON: The fallout from the 2016 election is both backdrop and maybe a smokescreen for forces that stir up the lives of Ethan Frome, a startup manager and husband of Zo - Zenobia Frome, an independent filmmaker - and their 11-year-old daughter, Alex. A giant inflatable chicken appeared behind the White House lawn, some sort of protest that no one entirely understood. College students organized walkouts, staged sit-ins, blocked freeways. What happened?ĪLI BENJAMIN: (Reading) What happened? Parents snapped off NPR mid-story, not wanting to answer questions from the backseat. Ali Benjamin's first novel for adult readers begins with a question.
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