Why I—a 50something Man—Wrote a Novel About Much Older Women
Author (and dermatologist) David Biro, on the "tenacious older women" who inspired his latest book.
I’m often asked why a man in his mid-fifties like me would write a novel about three much older women. And how in the world I could presume to know what goes on in the female psyche. Besides the fact that this is the whole point and joy of fiction, for both writers and readers—imagining oneself in people very different from you—I have always had strong relationships with women.
I grew up with three sisters and over the years had as many close female friends as male ones. There also have been many vibrant, tenacious older women in my life who I’ve greatly admired—my mother, my aunt Pearl and my father’s cousin Catherine, an Auschwitz survivor who took pride in telling the story of how she pulled her mother off the gas chamber line.
Then there was a patient of mine I will never forget. As a dermatologist who specializes in skin cancer, I see many older patients. This particular one was a Norwegian woman in her seventies. During visits to the office, she would confide in me the many losses she’d suffered over the years: the failings of her body, the disappearance of friends and family, and most recently, the death of the husband she’d known since high school.
Yet despite these mounting losses and bouts of sadness, she remained incredibly strong and feisty. She swam almost every day (in the ocean when she could), was outspoken in her political views, loved to gamble in Atlantic City, and would always leave me with a joke. Her positive attitude inspired me and made me want to tell other people about her. She would eventually become Gertie Sundersen, the protagonist and driving force in my novel, And the Bridge is Love.
Every week for twenty years, Gertie and her two best friends have met in a leafy enclosure under the Verrazano Bridge, which they’ve nicknamed “the Temple.” There, Gertie—who I transformed into a spicy Norwegian divorcee and former competitive swimmer—Maria— a family-obsessed Italian American widow— and Corinna—a book-loving, hash-smoking eccentric who drives a red Vespa—talk about their lives as they watch the ships sail by. Gertie, the oldest of the trio, about to turn 80, decides she wants to travel the world. Meanwhile, Maria secretly plots to reunite Gertie and Corinna with their estranged families. While Gertie forges ahead with her travel plans, a series of events unfold that threaten to destroy their friendship.
For reasons that I didn’t fully understand at first, I decided to couple Gertie’s extraordinary spirit with an extraordinary sight I grew up with in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and still see every morning on the drive to my office. The dazzling Verrazano Bridge spans the Narrows like a giant steel bird, beneath whose wings the flowing waters of the Atlantic sweep into New York Harbor.
It opened in 1964, the year I was born, and in 2014 celebrated its 50th birthday with me. Such a bridge, I felt sure, would inspire my fearless protagonist to journey to places she’d never been to before, then return her safely back to where she’d started from. In the end she would discover—as I hoped I would, along with all those who journeyed with her, whether women or men—what was most important and meaningful in life.
And I just ordered two copies, one for me and one for my sister.
I am really looking forward to this one. So great to hear the story behind it and even better to hear that a male novelist decided to explore the journey of women, older women at that.