Books
The private life of Rebecca Miller
10.01.08 Tom Tivnan
Rebecca Miller reckons that it took her more than a decade to "come out of the closet" as a writer. As the daughter of literary giant Arthur Miller, arguably America's greatest playwright, her wariness was perhaps understandable. Dealing with what she calls the "weight and shadow" of her father's reputation as a young writer would have been difficult indeed.
Yet with Arthur Miller and photographer Inge Morath as parents, it was perhaps inevitable that she would become an artist of some sort. After graduating from Yale University in the mid-1980s, she exhibited as a painter, worked as an actress in Hollywood on films and TV and became a film director, while secretly scribbling away. She says: "I was writing short stories all the time, and I thought I might as well try to get them published and admit that I'm writing.
"I wanted to be independent. Painting, in particular, was something that belonged just to me. In a way, I'm glad I waited. I had experienced a lot and maybe I had time to get better at writing."
Most critics believe she got pretty good; her first book, the short story collection Personal Velocity [Black Swan, 2002] was warmly reviewed. Canongate says it has "high hopes" for Miller’s first novel, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, due in April, which it is pushing as a lead spring title.
While out and proud as a writer, Miller continues with her other artistic passion, directing. She directed her first film, the well-received indie feature Angela, in 1995 after cobbling together financing "through bullheadedness, luck and sheer ignorance". She has since adapted her first two books for the screen and will do the same for Pippa Lee. Filming is due to begin in the summer, with Hollywood heavyweights Robin Wright Penn, Julianne Moore and Winona Ryder in lead roles.
Another actor she has directed is her husband, Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis, whom she met in 1995 while Day-Lewis was filming a version of her father's "The Crucible". Miller, intelligent, open and affable, becomes slightly guarded when I ask about Day-Lewis, expertly changing the subject. She does say that she and Day-Lewis live, for the most part, quietly in rural County Wicklow, Ireland, with their two sons.
In the process of writing Pippa Lee, Miller says she started seeing the story "in double vision". She adds: "By the time I was done with the book I felt I had enough juice to make a film. Most of the time I will be writing books that are books and films that are films. But my curiosity for these characters meant that I wanted to explore them further."
Pippa Lee centres around the eponymous title character, who, in her fifties, has settled down in a retirement community with her much older husband, Herb. Bored by the community and frightened by Herb’s encroaching decrepitude, she looks back over her life at her misspent youth, strained relationships with her mother, and the sacrifices she has made for her children.
For Miller, one of the main themes of the book is about identity as a "mutable, ongoing project". She adds: "The idea came when I met a friend after a number of years who was sort of a wild child when I knew her. And there she was, this respectable mother and gracious hostess. I just kept thinking: 'How does that happen?'"
After directing the film version of Pippa Lee, Miller will start another book. She is mulling film projects as well, but admits that financing the challenging films she wants to direct is tricky. "But that's OK," she says, "because the wonderful thing about the way my life is working out now is that nobody can take my writing away. I’m going to tell stories one way or another."
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