Elizabeth Crane describes her first attempt at a novel as the loosely autobiographical story of a woman for whom “everything that could possibly go wrong at one time goes wrong and she goes on a road trip with this horrible guy–just the totally wrong boyfriend–but kind of gets something out of it anyway.” The novel was never published, for which Crane is glad, but a few years ago it did land her an agent. And when she turned her attention to a collection of short stories, When the Messenger Is Hot, the new manuscript “got snapped up pretty quickly.”
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Crane, 41, was raised on the upper west side of Manhattan by her mother, a professional opera singer, and her stepfather. After graduating from George Washington University in D.C., she worked in a video store, waited tables, studied acting, tutored kids on movie sets, tried singing, moved to California for 11 days, and worked as the assistant to the producer of a failed sitcom back in New York. After she decamped to Chicago in 1996, she started teaching preschool, but she quit to write full-time in 1999. Messenger was picked up by Little, Brown in November 2001, and this spring an editor from the house who was on a panel at BookExpo America pegged it–along with the Saturday Night Live tell-all Live From New York–as one of his hot picks for the coming year.
The title story is, on one level, about the elusive perfect first date. But it’s also about the heroine’s search for a reason to believe in God. That she’s able to find proof of His existence through this vehicle is a typical third-act twist that Crane swears has little to do with her own experience. “The essence of the true story is in the story,” she says, “but that particular aspect of the story definitely does not reflect my own beliefs.”
Crane will read from When the Messenger Is Hot at 7:30 on Saturday, January 11, at Quimby’s, 1854 W. North, 773-342-0910. It’s free.
