Ray, Jeanne 1940(?)-

views updated

Ray, Jeanne 1940(?)-

PERSONAL:

Born c. 1940, in Nashville, TN; married third husband, Darrell Ray (a retired minister), c. 1988; children (first marriage) Ann Patchett, another daughter. Education: Attained nursing degree.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Nashville, TN. Agent—Lisa Bankoff, International Creative Management, 40 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019.

CAREER:

Registered nurse, currently employed at First Clinic, Nashville, TN; writer.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Julie and Romeo, Harmony Books (New York, NY), 2000.

Step-Ball-Change, Shaye Areheart Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Eat Cake, Shaye Areheart Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Julie and Romeo Get Lucky, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 2005.

ADAPTATIONS:

Julie and Romeo has been optioned for a feature film by actress Barbra Streisand; Julie and Romeo, Step-Ball-Change and Eat Cake have all been produced as audio books.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jeanne Ray says that her favorite word is "gumption," and her writing career demonstrates that she has gumption in abundance. A registered nurse who had spent decades working and raising children—one of them award-winning novelist Ann Patchett—Ray embarked upon a writing career at the age of sixty, never having sought to publish anything prior to that time. Inspired by the lack of romantic literature aimed at mature adults, and incensed by the subtle suggestions that a vibrant love life is unattainable for people over sixty, Ray decided to pen novels that would effectively portray the rich variety of romance available to senior citizens and their adult children. Her novels Julie and Romeo, Step-Ball-Change, and Eat Cake all feature older women who still embrace life and love, even as their careers, families, and responsibilities create roadblocks to happiness. Book Page correspondent Stephanie Swilley observed: "Without being saccharine, Ray's characters have just enough witty banter that when the table is set, you can't help wishing there was an extra place for you."

Ray does not flinch from the realities of life, but in her books the characters react to vicissitudes in affirming ways, with humor and optimism. Ruth, the protagonist of Eat Cake, takes comfort in baking, even dreaming of baking, as her home becomes inundated with ailing parents, sulking teenagers, and a husband in the throes of a mid-life crisis. Julie Roseman, the central figure in Julie and Romeo, overcomes the objections of her children and even a meddling ex-husband as she pursues a budding romance. In an interview with Absolute Write, the author said that she wants her readers to feel, after reading her works, "that vital human involvement is possible at any age." Judging from the critical and commercial response to her books, she has accomplished her goal.

Ray said she was inspired to write Julie and Romeo after seeing a magazine at the grocery store. The magazine proposed to describe sex at age twenty, age thirty, and age forty—but went no further. In Absolute Write, Ray noted: "Suddenly I was moved to write a story about two attractive people over sixty who fall passionately in love. I had no idea that I could do that, mind you, I was just highly motivated." With the help and encouragement of her novelist daughter, Ray worked on the manuscript and got it sold. Movie options quickly followed.

Julie and Romeo pays homage to the Shakespeare play, but with a twist. Once again the story begins with two feuding families, the Rosemans and the Cacciamanis, who own rival floral shops in a Massachusetts town. Divorced with grown children, Julie Roseman is struggling to keep her shop in business when she meets Romeo Cacciamani, who is in similar straits. Their interest in one another is immediate and genuine, but hard feelings abound all around them—their children object, Romeo's elderly mother objects, and even Julie's ex-husband tries to put an end to the budding romance. In the end, unlike Shakespeare's doomed lovers, Julie and Romeo find joy with each other and make peace with their separate households. "Ray's beguiling first novel succeeds on the level of romantic entertainment," declared a Publishers Weekly critic, who added that the author "handles her material with vitality and humor, and demonstrates a talent for witty dialogue." Danise Hoover in Booklist described Julie and Romeo, which achieved best-seller status, as "an engaging, charming springtime of a novel."

Carolina McSwain, the heroine of Step-Ball-Change, runs a dancing school. She has been happily married for more than forty years, but her equanimity is suddenly challenged from all sides. The foundation under her house is crumbling, her daughter seeks funds for an outrageously expensive wedding, and her sister seeks shelter from a divorce, biting terrier in tow. The plot thickens as Carolina and her husband try to muster the funds to fix their house and float the big wedding, while also mediating in a series of romances that arise in their extended family. A Kirkus Reviews critic liked the way Ray "so painstakingly constructs her story and fleshes out her honorable characters." In Library Journal, Rebecca Kelm called Step-Ball-Change "a second gem," adding: "This novel, like time with a good friend, is over far too soon."

A classic "sandwich" situation sets up in Eat Cake. Ruth loves to bake cakes, approaching the whole process as an almost religious experience. It is not surprising, then, when she takes to her kitchen as her life becomes complicated beyond her wildest expectations. First her mother moves in, then her long-lost father. As the older couple argue and re-live their bitterness toward one another, Ruth's husband leaves his job, and her teenaged daughter exudes her own brand of angst. It falls to Ruth to establish peace at home while creating a viable career for herself. Melody A. Moxley in Library Journal described Eat Cake as a "funny, witty, and delicious novel … comforting, entertaining, and enjoyable." An online reviewer for Minnesota Public Radio concluded that the work is "a delightful and amusing concoction that comes with its own delicious icing."

Although she has made a considerable sum of money with her fiction, Ray continues to work as a nurse one day a week at a clinic in Nashville, Tennessee. In an online interview with Southern Scribe, she said: "In my dreams, I'm still a nurse. It sometimes takes a long time for the little pieces of ourselves to catch up with us." She added, however, that she is thrilled with her second career, because "it gives me the opportunity to demonstrate to others the importance of embracing change, trying something new, digging deep into themselves and looking for a talent they'd enjoy sharing. It allows me to give people hope about themselves by telling them what happened to me."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 15, 2000, Danise Hoover, review of Julie and Romeo, p. 1525; April 15, 2003, Danise Hoover, review of Eat Cake, p. 1451.

Good Housekeeping, July, 2003, Jennifer Allen, "Like Daughter, Like Mother," p. 110.

Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 2001, Melody A. Moxley, review of Julie and Romeo, p. 152; March 1, 2002, review of Step-Ball-Change, p. 285.

Library Journal, May 1, 2000, Jo Manning, review of Julie and Romeo, p. 155; April 1, 2002, Rebecca Kelm, review of Step-Ball-Change, p. 142; April 15, 2003, Tamara Butler, review of Eat Cake, p. 126; April 1, 2004, Melody A. Moxley, review of Eat Cake, p. 136.

New York Times Book Review, July 16, 2000, Barbara Quick, review of Julie and Romeo, p. 21.

Publishers Weekly, August 2, 1999, John F. Baker, "Never Too Old," p. 13; May 22, 2000, review of Julie and Romeo, p. 72; August 28, 2000, "A Sleeper First Fiction," p. 21; May 19, 2003, review of Eat Cake, p. 54.