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About the Book
Is there anything better than love and chocolate?
After tragedy strikes, brokenhearted Gretchen takes a holiday in a hilltop Italian village to seek peace and solitude. Through chance, she meets Bettina, an elderly woman estranged from her legacy as a chocolatier. Gretchen soon finds herself wrapped in the aromas of chocolate and caramel, butter and wine, as villagers past and present question all aspects of love, sending her on a journey of self-discovery. But will Gretchen truly be able to leave the past behind and open her heart again to life and love, or will she be content to drown her sorrows in chocolate?
Author Q&A
Q: Most love stories focus on romantic love and there is certainly a lot of that in this book, but you also deal with other kinds of love, don’t you?
A: Yes, I wanted to discuss the whole idea of love of purpose, a shifting sense of purpose, actually. Love of mastery of a craft or art; love of community; maternal love, heartbreak and loss of love, even the willingness to settle for the echo of love, the remembrance of love. Plus, the way the imaginary ideal of love can embitter genuine love; fear of love and the vulnerability that love requires; the tough choice, especially for women, between love and freedom. So much of what we do is caught up with some type of love that it became a really fascinating topic to me.
Q: And why chocolate?
A: I recently became an empty-nester and it was so surprising to have time on my hands that I was able to ask myself “what else do you want to do?” I decided that I wanted to become a master chocolatier. It’s a surprisingly difficult substance to work with but for the first time in my life I had a hobby that was compelling to me the way a hobby is supposed to be I guess: when get started in the hours disappear. When you’re a writer, it’s hard to know which came first: learning about something so that you can write about it or writing about it because you have learned it. In either case, after hours and hours of work with chocolate, an imaginary line of chocolatiers walked on the stage of my mind.
Q: This is the first book you’ve written that is both modern and historical. How did that happen?
A: I always have several projects going and I had gotten stuck on a historical piece, so I thought “just write something that’s fun and easy, something modern.” I have had this daydream of romance that was set in a small European town and was happily writing away when I started to devise this back story about World War II and discovered that I had so much fun writing this historical part that I realized two things. First, that I could continue to go back in history, and that I should for the sense of balance in the story; and second, that I really do love to write historical work. Given the chance to write an entirely modern piece, I dive into World War II, World War I, and the 1500s. That was revealing to me.
Q: Your previous novel, The Mandrake Broom, was pretty dark. Why write about love?
A: While I was stuck on this historical piece I thought it would be easy to write a romance and even toyed with the idea of publishing it under a pseudonym but the longer I wrote the more I realized that love is not just romantic love, and that I had something to say about the many facets of love, the many types of love that have nothing to do with romance. And, of course, I’m definitely not opposed to romantic love, being happily married for 15 years!
Q: Tell me about the title. Why Straight Uphill?
A: I think love is like that, frequently. It’s a struggle, it requires dedication and stamina. And there is not only the chance to reach the top and enjoy the magnificent vista of life, there is a chance you can go backwards, can suddenly lose your footing so to speak, get on a slippery slope that sends you back downhill. You step forward in small increments, building on each little display of love.
Q: And why do you call it “a tale of love and chocolate” instead of a story?
A: I love to read magical realism and, honestly, wish I could master the art of it, so my writing is increasingly fantastical. In The Mandrake Broom, the protagonist has almost supernatural powers with plants and lives a tremendously long life because of a potion from her mother. In A Slender Tether, the middle story has an almost mythical ending. Calling it a tale gives me the freedom to write things that are not quite fables but not entirely factual, so to speak. In Straight Uphill, an example would be the end of Anya’s life and the accolades she is given.
Q: Your last two novels have been set in the Middle Ages. In Straight Uphill there is a short, humorous section on the 1500s but most of the historical material involves the two World Wars. How was it to change eras?
A: Deceptively difficult. While there is more that you can take for granted because they are things that have carried through to the modern era, there are still the pitfalls of accuracy that you have to keep an eye on. When did the outboard motor come into use? What was the role of the Italian resistance in the war? But I love to research so while it was frustrating to come up with an idea and discover that it was anachronistic, it’s still fun to dig up the facts that make a scene feel real.
Q: You say that another theme in the book is a shifting sense of purpose. Tell me about this concept.
A: Shortly after becoming an empty-nester I took an early retirement and it was a real shock to consider doing things that were not necessarily productive, that didn’t earn money or were done for someone else. Reading for research feels productive but reading Shakespeare just because it’s a joy seemed very indulgent and, in a way pointless. When you’re a parent you spend a good 20 years putting your child’s needs ahead of your own with an internal dialogue that says, “that thing you want to do for yourself isn’t important.” Who are you when you are not a hands-on mother and a full-time employee? How do you deal with this shifting sense of purpose? And since I am a writer, every internal struggle goes down on paper.
About the Author
Jess Wells is the author of five novels and five books of short stories and is the recipient of a San Francisco Arts Council Grant for Literature, a Saints and Sinners Literary Festival Hall of Fame Award, a Certificate of Recognition from the California State Assembly, and a four-time finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Her work is included in more than three dozen anthologies and literary journals, has been reprinted in the UK and translated into Italian. Her previous historical fiction includes A Slender Tether (Fireship 2013), three compelling tales of self-discovery woven into a rich tapestry of 14th century France during Europe’s Little Ice Age; The Mandrake Broom (Firebrand Books 2007), which dramatizes the fight to save medical knowledge during the witch-burning times in Europe 1465-1540; The Disappearing Andersons of Loon Lake (audio book, 2017), stories set near a small fishing lake in Northern Michigan.
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