Among the buzzy books going into this year's London Book Fair was Anne Meredith's Jaded, the debut novel by the WGA Award–winning screenwriter behind such films as Bastard Out of Carolina and Losing Chase, with Judy Clain at Summit preempting world rights and foreign language rights selling in French, German, Hungarian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Billed as "Donna Tartt meets E.L. James on a college campus" in the 1980s, the book follows two long-married professors, who lure a student into their lives each year—until they choose precisely the wrong young woman. PW talked with Meredith ahead of the London Book Fair about We talked with Meredith about making her literary debut after 40, what screenwriting taught her about fiction, and more.
You’ve been a screenwriter for more than three decades. What inspired you to write your first novel?
It was the summer of 2020, the pandemic was raging, and I had been out of work for a few years. I’d just moved permanently from L.A. to the Hudson Valley, and in the isolation, I looked for a way to entertain myself. The #MeToo Movement was still buzzing—men in power continued to abuse that power, but they weren’t doing it in a vacuum. Who were the people complicit in that abuse of power? What if it was a married couple, professors? What if they were undone not by the powers that be, but by the students they had used instead?
Did screenwriting prepare, or perhaps inform, you when it came to writing your first book? What lessons did you take with you from the screen to the page?
Screenwriting definitely informed the writing of my first book. A good screenplay grabs the reader and holds them for 110 pages. How do you do that? Understand when to enter and exit a scene; how to bridge those scenes, when to accelerate the action, when to hold back and let the story breathe. What does the reader need to know, what can you hide—and for how long? Pacing, focus, brevity. Screenplays and novels are very different: a screenplay is an architectural rendition of a structure other people will build, while a novel is building the house by yourself. But either way the goal is the same—have a strong voice with a distinct point of view, tell a compelling story with memorable characters, and have them speak dialogue that rings true.
Jaded has already gotten lots of international buzz, with foreign rights sold in a handful of languages. What aspects of the novel do you think might appeal universally, to readers across cultures?
Human behavior is universal; it doesn’t need language. We’ve all experienced the unfairness of power dynamics at work, and out in the world. We feel frustration and rage at bad behavior going unpunished, and satisfaction when justice is finally served. We all, at some point, discover our sexual identity. We share the experience of sex, in and of itself, and sensuality—in nature, in food, in art, in bed.
Jaded is part of a long lineage of what are often called “campus novels.” Where do you see it fitting in, or perhaps pushing the bounds of, that genre?
As you say, Jaded joins a long list of “campus novels.” I think what sets this book slightly apart is the subversion of power (the students have it, not the professors) and the explicit raunchiness of the sex.
You join the ranks of many accomplished women novelists who published their debuts past the age of 40, including Marilyn French, Bonnie Garmus, Toni Morrison, and Elizabeth Strout. Can you talk a bit about your experience of becoming a debut author later in life? What have been the best, hardest, and most surprising parts?
What an honor to join the ranks of those great writers debuting their work over 40. It’s funny…as an older woman, I aged out of Hollywood. That was hard. In the past, if an idea came into my head, I would write a spec script. But by 2020, agents and producers had fallen away, and I knew if I wrote Jaded as a screenplay, no one would read it, let alone make it. The most surprising thing is that Jaded exists at all; the best thing is that I’ve been given the opportunity to share it with the world.
