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Dialogue




  EILEEN GOUDGE
Goudge

On writing to survive ...

372k WAV audio file
1.3Mb QuickTime movie

On meeting her husband during a phone interview ...

256k WAV audio file
800k QuickTime movie




Cover

Goudge's book Thorns of Truth


A writer's life

Goudge's life mirrors amazing fiction

April 27, 1998
Web posted at: 3:50 p.m. EST (2050 GMT)

(CNN) -- Author Eileen Goudge has lived a rags-to-riches fantasy that most people can only dream about. She was once on welfare and wrote articles for a well-known tabloid to help feed her children. Her big break came with the publication of "Garden of Lies", a novel about two girls switched at birth.

The book brought Goudge instant acclaim and was a "New York Times" best-seller for four months. Now she has returned to bookshelves with the long-awaited sequel, "Thorns of Truth", which picks up the story of Rose and Rachel, the two main characters from "Garden of Lies".

Goudge recently spoke with Laurie Dhue on CNN's Sunday Morning, and confessed that most of her ideas for fiction come from her amazing life.

CNN ANCHOR LAURIE DHUE: "Thorns of Truth" picks up where "Garden of Lies" left off. We've got Rose and Rachel again.

EILEEN GOUDGE, AUTHOR OF "THORNS OF TRUTH": We have these three ladies who were kind of left hanging at the end of "Garden of Lies" ...But you know ("Thorns of Truth") connects with my life. The love story in the novel of "Thorns of Truth" is based on my own real life love story, which features CNN, by the way. My husband used to be the entertainment reporter for CNN and we met on the telephone. He was interviewing me. He had a talk show in Arizona and that's how we met. It was stranger than fiction.

DHUE: It must have been quite an interview.

GOUDGE: It was wonderful.

DHUE: You told our researcher that your life is really a novel. How are your books autobiographical? Do you do that in all of your books?

GOUDGE: It's my cheap form of therapy. Other people pay a therapist. I get paid to do my own therapy and I have to say that if I were writing the story of my life, no one would believe it. So that's why I write fiction. I jump through flaming hoops -- I've jumped through so many flaming hoops in my life that I really have to write about it. I'd probably go crazy.

DHUE: Most people know you as a best-selling author, but for a long time you were on welfare. You were a single mother. How did being on welfare affect you and how did it help you as a writer?

GOUDGE: I was so poor that my kids never had to ask what was for dinner. It was always the same -- beans and rice. And I find that the wolf at the door is a great motivator. I really needed to write to live. I needed $20 for an article that I would sell to "National Enquirer," which is how I started, by the way. I needed that to buy groceries. And I had a desk in the kitchen and my kids used to joke that it was right by the oven so that when I got too depressed from all those rejection slips, I could stick my head in the oven. But the sense of humor helps, too.

DHUE: Obviously it does. I also read where you would spend your very last dollar on paper so that you could write.

GOUDGE: Paper and stamps. That was my big luxury.

DHUE: It obviously has paid off. But how did you keep going? Did you know from the beginning that this was going to work out, or did you just hope?

GOUDGE: Oh, heavens no. You know, I used to teach writing, and I had to give up because I felt I was selling false hope. It's such a long road to that overnight success that people talk about when you have a first novel. It didn't happen overnight for me. It's like a biblical overnight and I just -- I tell you it was hard.

There were times when I really didn't have enough to eat. My kids always had food on the table, but I would often go to bed hungry and you know, I'd get up in the morning then start writing again. And I just kept going. I don't know how I did it. I think it was just that grit. You know the oyster has to have that little grain of sand to make the pearl, and I guess I was born with a little bit of grain of sand in me.

DHUE: You said that the experience gave you a lot of humanity. What else did it give you?

GOUDGE: I think it sharpened my sense of humor. I think if you don't have a sense of humor in life, you really just can't get out of bed sometimes. I really wanted to get back to the love story, because that ties in so much with the rags-to-riches. You know, I was facing -- I was 45, I just separated from my previous husband and my friends were all saying 'you're never going to meet a guy sitting home alone,' and I was feeling really depressed. Really down. I couldn't even crack a joke and I had this publicity tour and this interview with this talk show host who I'd never met, never laid eyes on out in Arizona, and I just need to tell you this story because it's so tied into "Thorns of Truth," and it's such a wonderful story.

DHUE: Well, go ahead and tell it.

GOUDGE: He was so -- he sounded so cute over the phone, this guy. We had a half an hour interview, and he said afterwards, "This was so much fun it felt like a date. Can I call you from home?"

And he did, and we kept talking. We talked for three hours and then he called me every night, and that was how I found love again at 45, which is really the theme of "Thorns of Truth." This woman, she's a widow in her 40s and she thinks she'll never fall in love again. She's not sure she wants to and she meets a sexy radio talk show host.

One message I want to give to everyone, and women in particular: Don't be afraid to meet those challenges head on. You know, like in "Sleepless in Seattle," she (Meg Ryan's character) wrote that letter to Tom Hanks' character. She took a chance, even though she was engaged to the wrong guy. I took the chance. I got on a plane, flew to Phoenix and met the love of my life and it really was like in my novels. I walked into the room and there he was, and we fell into each others arms.

That was, of course, after a long phone courtship ... when I say I write about my life, it's truer than you can possibly know.

DHUE: Eileen, let me ask you, how does your husband feel about being the subject of your latest book?

GOUDGE: Well, he got a little bit embarrassed when he read some of the steamier scenes, although he doesn't embarrass easily. And so I ran that by his mom. He was a little worried about how his parents would feel, and his mother says, "Well, my goodness, how does he think he came into the world?"

I think mostly it's been a very positive portrayal and a little enhanced even on reality. There are areas in which he can just shine, although he shines in real life and he doesn't need any help from me.


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