Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 23, 1994 TAG: 9411160025
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MELINDA BARGREEN SEATTLE TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Tall, slender, distinguished-looking and as full of good humor as her novel ``The Rector's Wife'' - the hit of PBS' ``Masterpiece Theatre,'' in a particularly well-made adaptation - Trollope is quick with her quips these days. Even in the closing segment of a coast-to-coast publicity tour, there is an air of ineffable good humor that indicates how much Trollope is enjoying her literary-lioness status, as well as the success of the TV version of her novel (the final episode will be broadcast on WBRA-Channel 15 tonight).
After six contemporary novels, six historical novels, three romantic historical novels (``written to get my children through school'') and a nonfiction book called ``Britannia's Daughters,'' Trollope is certainly ripe for discovery. After starting out as a civil servant and a teacher, she began writing when her youngest daughter was 3; that daughter now is 23, and Trollope can say for the first time that ``at last there is no financial anxiety in my life.''
The kudos for her books, which also include the recent ``The Men and the Girls,'' and for the TV adaptation of ``The Rector's Wife'' (newly published in the United States by Random House), are music to the ears of an extraordinarily hard-working and serious novelist.
``To my rapture, the `Masterpiece Theatre' people like my work, and I am very pleased with their version of `The Rector's Wife,''' said Trollope, who pronounces her last name in the British fashion, almost as if all the vowels were missing (``Trullup'' is pretty close).
No wonder her characters ring true to life in this story of a disappointed rector whose expected promotion to archdeacon falls through, and of his vibrant wife, Anna, who decides to break out of the expected pattern of behavior by taking a job stocking shelves at a supermarket (the beginning of her renaissance). It wasn't enough that Trollope grew up with her grandparents' rectory in the Cotswold hills; she wanted a more contemporary insight, so she interviewed nine rectors' wives, none of whom knew any of the others.
Not content with a cursory knowledge of supermarkets, she went off to her local supermarket to stock shelves (``I'm sure they thought I was a little cuckoo, but they were all tremendously nice, and I really learned what this little world was like'').
The result is a novel that breathes life, realism and good humor.
``I made up nothing that happens to Anna,'' Trollope said firmly, ``not even the lover. All the events are based on real lives.''
Maybe that's why the floods of letters, all of which Trollope answers, have been so extremely personal. Readers respond as if Anna were real, wanting to put Anna in touch with their therapists or their various societies. Trollope has found the response ``very touching and very gratifying.''
A copy of the book was sent to each of the rectors' wives she interviewed. All but one expressed admiration and pleasure at the result; one was ``doubtful.'' As Trollope put it: ``I think the novel was too near the knuckle, actually.''
Trollope doesn't regret the long time she spent honing her craft.
``At one point, I was more or less stuck for how to go on. My husband, who is a playwright, told me it was time to come out of the historical cupboard and turn to contemporary life, without the cloak of history and the crutch of research.''
The result was 1987's ``The Choir,'' set in a modern cathedral city - and the subject of a future ``Masterpiece Theatre'' series.
Trollope fans can look forward to ``The Best of Friends,'' about two couples who are very close (``It's a powder keg; that's what I love, the high drama in people's lives''). She also is thinking about ``having a go at a farming community - there's so much stress and such a high suicide rate.''
Though Trollope thinks ``we are all too preoccupied with money,'' she admits it's a relief to have ``the freedom and the choice that money can bring.
``But I'm not interested in Dior suits,'' she said. ``I plan to keep in touch with the real world. I shall continue to do my own laundry.''
by CNB