You Go, Mom!

Upper Saddle River mom chose novelist as career No. 4
Wednesday, May 23, 2007

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER

Book cover image courtesy of bn.com.

Every morning for two years, Debra Borden considered the possibility that she was, in fact, delusional.

" 'Are you out of your mind?' " the clinical social worker asked herself. "'You're fortysomething years old, and you just woke up and decided you wanted to write a novel?' "

Luckily, the Upper Saddle River resident remained convinced of her own sanity.

After 36 bruising rejections -- including one that came back with "No" scrawled on her manuscript -- Borden landed a two-book deal with Random House. She published her second book, "A Little Bit Married," in April.

Bitsy Lerner, the book's protagonist, is a housewife who must reevaluate her life -- as Borden herself has done -- when her neat suburban life falls apart.

"I thought about how many women were locked into not a terrible life, but not a terribly satisfying life, either," said Borden. "If no great trauma or event happened that would precipitate a change for them, they could just go on and on and on.

"These were people I knew," she added. "Nobody was being beaten. But it's a low-level unhappiness. ... To just get up every morning and ask, 'Is this all there is? But I'm not going to upset it, because the fear of what upsetting it could mean is way too difficult to imagine.'

"I have had moments like that," said Borden.

Being a full-time novelist is Borden's fourth career, behind advertising, stay-at-home mothering and social work in the Bergenfield school system. But all of her pursuits have led her to writing.

"When I was volunteering at the schools, for instance, other mothers were homeroom mothers; I was chairing literary circles," she said. "That's a little bit of a red flag."

Photo courtesy of debraborden.com.

She decided to reenter the workforce after eight years at home. "It wasn't the best modeling for my daughter to be a stay-at-home mom," she explained. "I was feeling a little guilty about that. Also, I was unfulfilled."

Borden went back to school for a master's in social work, eventually finding a place for herself writing "the narrative piece" of reports on special needs children. "What I found was that, writing up these socials, I was training for my new career," she said. "They were like little family sagas and dramas."

As she learned to make students and the "fabric of their families" three-dimensional in her writing, she also practiced creating characters with layered personal histories. And the family unit that she held together as a full-time mom became her subject matter.

"In the first book ['Lucky Me,'] because the construct of the family looks like mine," she said, "I got so many questions. ... I always have to remind people that this is fiction!"

E-mail: shih@northjersey.com

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Book signing and Q-and-A with Debra Borden, author of "A Little Bit Married."

WHERE: Barnes & Noble in Paramus (765 Route 17 south); for more information, call the store at 201-445-4589.

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

HOW MUCH: Free.