Caprice Crane Chats About Her New Novel Family Affair

I sat down to read Caprice Crane’s new book Family Affair (Bantam Dell) in the newly designated pedestrian park formerly known as the intersection of Broadway and 46th Street. Between chapters, I glanced up only to see a huge billboard for Melrose Place with its noir-esque cast seductively posed beneath the ‘Ménage a Tues’ headline. “Wow she’s got a hot new book out, features in development and writes for a hit TV show,” I say to myself. “Times might to tough for some in Times Sq. but for Caprice it is the year of the Crane”!

No stranger to Hollywood, Crane’s mother, Tina Louise, played marooned starlet Ginger Grant on Gilligan’s Island and her father, Les Crane, was the former talk show host and Grammy winner who gave Johnny Carson a run for his monologue and The Mamas and The Papas their name. She attended high school in L.A., and went on to the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU and then to Hollywood, eventually writing for the updated 90210 and Melrose Place, via a plethora of posts at MTV in New York.

Her third novel, Family Affair is the amusingly insightful tale of one woman’s divorce from her high school sweetheart and her refusal to break up with her in-laws. The narrative is full of laugh out loud identifiable experiences poignantly positioned between a true romance gone bad. It’s a fresh take on the modern family.

She's already at work on a fourth novel and has a script in production with Dermot Mulroney making his debut as director. I recently bumped into Crane in L.A. at the Sunset and Fairfax Coffee Bean. While pouring out excess roast of the day to make room for milk, I managed to fire off some questions:

Who are the writers you most admire and whose work has influenced your own?
When I had time to read, Nick Hornby was a favorite. His early work definitely influenced me. Same with Cameron Crowe. I find myself attracted to storytellers with a cinematic bent, because I’m always interested in writing that defines characters through their actions.

You’re the daughter of Ginger from Gilligan’s Island and you're writing on a TV show starring Katie Cassidy, the daughter of Keith Partridge, aka David Cassidy, from the Partridge Family….pop culture kismet?
Perhaps so. Also, Samantha Stephens’ (Bewitched) daughter works at our Craft Services. She makes a magical sandwich.

Family Affair is told in alternating voices per chapter in a he-said-she-said they-say style, if you will. What affect does writing multiple characters for television have on your literary work?
It’s taught me the exact amount of time that should take place between calling someone a “skank” and pulling their hair. There’s nothing like first-person narrative for getting characters to reveal just how maladjusted they really are.

Writing for TV by day and books by night, when to you have time to absorb real life experience on which to draw upon?
I think you have to harvest what you can when you can. Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad wrote all those books about their time at sea. But who really has time to ship-out aboard a whaling vessel these days?

Any advice for would be writers?
Plumbers get paid huge cash for working weekends and holidays. So consider all your options.

Caprice Crane will be reading and signing Family Affair at Barnes and Noble at Lincoln Triangle on Saturday Oct. 10th at 7:30 p.m. For details: http://www.capricecrane.com/