You may have never heard of Miranda Cowley Heller, but you may have gone through her days, in a roundabout way. She was CEO of HBO at a time when the cable channel-turned-producer launched a string of unrivaled series: “The Sopranos,” “The Wire,” “Deadwood” and “Seven Feet Under.” All titles Miranda Cowley Heller participated. Previously, she was editor of Cosmopolitanbook publisher, ghost writer. Then he took a break – he has been away from television for a while – and last year, when he was almost sixty years old, he published his first novel, which is now being released in Portugal.
In the paper palace, Miranda Cowley Heller has built great characters and dialogue, in a tone that does not ask permission to be direct. And, as such, she leaves the reader unprotected. Elle is the protagonist and narrator with whom we live two stories, or two lives, which are the same: a day told according to the facts, and the fifty years that led up to that moment.
And “that moment” is having to choose between her husband, Peter, and her best friend, Jonas, whom she should have married and didn’t. It’s not your typical regret story; in fact, it’s not a regret story at all. It is above all a journey that has as its starting point a moment of creation of a –possible– new life. Without judgment on the part of the writer, Miranda Cowley Heller presents a character immune to judgment and moralism. The same one that, in the near future, will also be the protagonist of an HBO Max series. We were chatting with the writer via Zoom. He spoke to us from his home on Cape Cod, where part of the history of the paper palace.
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Source: Observadora
