Dishing the dirt with author Margo Candela

Margo Candela

Hard work, professionalism, and a bit of luck. Owing to those three things with particular emphasis on hard work, Margo Candela is breaking out of the pack of contemporary female authors and carving out her niche by writing modern women's fiction--smart, clever books--the old fashioned way.

Born and raised in Northeast Los Angeles, Candela moved to San Francisco to attend college where she majored in journalism, a background that shines through in her attention to detail. She grounds believable characters in authentic surroundings and circumstances so finely hewn that the reader is immediately drawn into the story.

Her first three novels, More Than This (Touchstone, Aug '08), Life Over Easy (Kensington, Oct '07) and Underneath It All (Kensington, Jan '07), are set in San Francisco. More Than This was a Target stores Breakout Book and an American Association of Publishers national book club selection at Borders Books with Las Comadres.
   
Her latest, Good-bye To All That (Touchstone, July '10) which also earned a Four Noggin "Scrivengale" review, is her first set in her native Los Angeles and was the only novel picked by Los Angeles Magazine for its 2010 Best of L.A. list. Other buzz for Goodbye To All That includes these industry citations:

"Captures the ups and downs of Hollywood in her appealing send-up of the cutthroat side of the industry." -- Booklist

"A cunning wit create[s] a frantic atmosphere and a near breathless momentum as the story barrels toward an ending that's anything but a focus grouped happy fade-out." -- Publishers Weekly

Besides being a workhorse, Margo's also a generous writer, ready and willing to share information to benefit others about her experience en route to as well as after publication,  and she has intentions to publish more than just novels--short stories and screenplays.

Welcome to Scrivengale, Margo. How would you characterize your writing voice? Is it your hallmark?
I write funny. Rather, I aim for funny but with a tinge of something more serious. My main goal is to entertain readers while also dealing with issues like divorce, job loss and family obligations, but in an irreverent way. It’s taken me a long time to be able to accept the compliment that I am a funny writer, so I fully embrace it now. A writer to should write to her/his strengths and humor is mine.

Candela's most recent book

What was your greatest challenge in writing this book (or publishing it, revising it--wherever the challenge arose)? Good-bye To All That went through a stressful five week revision that left me curled up in a ball for a few months after I turned it in to my editor. At the same time, having drop-dead deadline made me focus on what needed to be written. There wasn’t any time for tangents or musing, I figured out what I had to be done and I did it. Later, when I got the manuscript back for a first pass from my editor, I was able to enjoy the story itself and add little bits and bobs there to draw out the humor.

Would you categorize this work as chick lit? What are your feelings about it being labeled as such? I’m okay with my novels being called chick lit or women’s fiction. I tend to lean more towards women’s fiction because I don’t write traditional happy endings. That being said, I think Good-bye To All That is my most chick lit book to date and I’m happy to have made a contribution to the genre. It’s a genre that’s out of favor right now, but I know my writing voice fits nicely into that category.

You and a few hallowed others (Jennifer Weiner, Lauren Weisberger) have risen from the ashes of a genre which received a death sentence somewhere around 2008. How did you accomplish that? That’s good company. Thank you for including me in with those two fabulous authors! But on a serious note, I’ve gotten more than a few funeral notices for chick lit. If I’d bought a black dress each time, my closet would be very depressing. As someone who reads and writes chick lit, I’m hopeful that readers and publishers will still support the genre and the women who write it. Whatever New York wants to rebrand it as is fine with me, I just want to write.

What would you consider your first big break?
I owe my career to an Internet search and insomnia. True story! My editor was up one night and clicked on my rinky-dink webpage after a random search. She sent me an email asking me to submit and, within a few weeks, called me up with an official offer to publish my first two novels, Underneath It All and Life Over Easy. When she moved to another house, she took me with her and she edited More Than This and Good-bye To All That.

How long did it take to find representation?
Currently, I don’t have an agent, but I have a very short list of who I’m interested in working with. Finding an agent, any agent, is the toughest part of the whole operation. It’s a very tricky endeavor as you’re putting your career in someone else’s hands. I’ve worked with three agents and one literary manager and so far haven’t found “The One.” This is surprising to me as I’m a very monogamous person, but what I’ve learned is that a bad agent is worse than not having one at all.

Querying agents right now is tough, more so than usual, because of the state of publishing. It might take twice as long to find an agent, but knowing what I do now, I’m positive it’s worth the wait to sign with the right one.

What's the best advice you can give to writers who aspire to be published?
The most important factor in surviving, if not thriving in publishing no matter the genre, is to have someone in your corner. I’ve gotten supremely lucky with my editor. She’s shepherded all four of my novels and believes in my writing. The rest of it is hard work and acting like a professional writer. I treat this as a job and business, even though the writing part is purely creative. Nowadays, authors have to wear many hats and some might fit better than others, but being a self starter can only help. A little luck doesn’t hurt either. 

Will we be hanging with Raquel in another book? Soon?
I’m currently working on a short story series, and I’m sure Raquel will pop up. I’m excited to see what happens to her and what kind of mess she gets herself in and how she’ll get out of it. The one thing I do know is she won’t ever again have to wear another pair of control top pantyhose. Cross my heart.

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By the way, if you, dear readers, have any follow-up questions for Margo related to this interview, she is more than happy to answer them in the comments. So ask away. (See, I told you she was terrific.)

Say Hello to ‘Goodbye To All That’: A Book Review

 Book: Goodbye to All That
Author: Margo Candela
Publisher: Touchstone
Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2010

On the sidebar of her blog, “My Brain, My Blog,” Margo Candela combines the covers of her four books into one book jacket with the caption, “You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll have a good time. Trust me.”

Margo Candela

I haven’t read Candela’s other books. But I can say while reading her 2010 release, Goodbye To All That, that I laughed out loud more than once, winced in disappointment for her sympathetic and pathetic characters several times, and without equivocation, had a wonderful time. Now I know I can trust her to deliver on that all-too-elusive good read, just like she promised.

Candela is clever, often outrageous, and fills this book with characters who revel in being themselves, whether it's genuinely self-effacing, philandering, tender-hearted, laughable, or merely fiercely gutsy. Twenty-something Raquel Azorian is one such viewpoint character. Candela plops the reader in her head from the first line of the novel. It’s so much fun being there—hanging with Raquel—you have to wonder why Raquel’s still single and why so many people work so hard to remove her from her job throughout the book. She’s an executive assistant at Belmore Corporation, a gigantic Hollywood moviemaker, and is much smarter and more resourceful than the position allows her to be. For instance, she instinctively knows when to open her mouth and when to keep it closed. (We all should be so wise.)

So, it’s entirely believable that she finds herself at a professional crossroads before too long, having outgrown the job she’s in. Should she use everything she’s learned at Belmore combined with her strong intuition and common sense to make a power play and get that promotion she richly deserves? Of course, she should. The reader’s been rooting for her since page one when she confesses to the reader that LA doesn’t have real weather and that the only storms you’re likely to find are on a soundstage.

Though Candela grew up in Los Angeles, this is only her first novel set there. Based on Candela's rendering of her hometown, LA has so little real character—teeming with shallow people with shallow goals whose commitments are thinner than the skins of Hollywood starlets—that it has a sort of anti-character—an abundance of it. If you’ve always believed Hollywood to be a cut-throat, miserable, empty place to live and work, this novel will not dissuade you of that opinion. At the same time, it’s exciting to be a fly on the wall of a swanky club or a posh hotel in West LA, and Candela masterfully shuttles the reader from a Hollywood party to a Bel Air mansion to police station at two in the morning a without sacrificing a single beat of plot or character.

Goodbye To All That is a very funny novel with a cast of complex dysfunctional characters. One of the things I really like about Candela’s humor is that it only sounds bitchy when coming from a character who’s been painted as a Class A bitch. And the novel sports a few of them, both female and male varieties. Raquel gripes about her off-center, self-centered mother whom she calls both Mom and Marlene, depending on her mood, but behaves with more compassion than her mother deserves. Why? Because its part of Raquel’s nature to do the right thing. Even when doing the right thing means forfeiting a level of personal happiness that everyone’s entitled to, to some degree.

If I had to categorize it, this book falls under the recently maligned sub-genre of chick lit, which was even dubbed a dead genre by more than a few literary agents. If chick lit is dead, either someone forgot to tell Margo Candela, or she’s the author who’ll resurrect it with smart, entertaining books like Goodbye To All That. With any luck, Candela will give readers the chance to hang with Raquel in another book, holding down a different but equally outrageous Hollywood job before too long.

Review:  four out of four noggins