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"  For 25 years, Julie Jacobs&amp;#039; fate has sat nestled in a safe-deposit box in Siena, Italy. When she inherits the key, she discovers her connection to the illustrious Giulietta, the woman who is believed to have inspired Shakespeare&amp;#039;s Romeo and Juliet, as well as riddles and mysterious letters\u2014left behind by Julie&amp;#039;s mother\u2014that she must use to break the six-century-old curse, &amp;quot;a plague on both our houses,&amp;quot; that is still haunting the lovers&amp;#039; once-quarreling families. Anne Fortier&amp;#039;s U.S. debut novel, Juliet (Ballantine, available August 24), leads us on a thrilling treasure hunt through present-day Italy that makes the classic tragedy itself spellbinding all over again. I spoke with Fortier about her new novel, our favorite star-crossed lovers, Juliet&amp;#039;s balcony being open to the public for holy matrimony, and hot Italian actor Raoul Bova.  ELLE:  You submitted your first manuscript to a Danish publisher when you were 13. You&amp;#039;ve said your mother always encouraged you to write, saying, &amp;quot;Anybody can do the dishes, but not anybody can write.&amp;quot; Did you ever think you would take on literature&amp;#039;s most famous couple?Anne Fortier: No, that never occurred to me. I always made my own stories. There is this whole trend\u2014you see it especially in a lot of Hollywood films\u2014of doing spin-offs. I think it&amp;#039;s a wonderful idea. I never thought I&amp;#039;d be doing it, and I definitely didn&amp;#039;t set out to do it. I was in Siena and decided I wanted to write a story set there. Then I discovered that the original story of Romeo and Juliet was set in Siena. It occurred to me that this was too much of a gift\u2014I had to do it. That&amp;#039;s how I ended up writing a parallel story to Romeo and Juliet.  ELLE: What was it like making Romeo and Juliet yours?AF:  Well obviously it&amp;#039;s a little hubristic because Romeo and Juliet are so famous, but at the same time Shakespeare is performed in so many places\u2014almost every school has a Shakespeare play. So if all of these people can play Romeo and Juliet for awhile, why couldn&amp;#039;t I? I think Shakespeare is everybody&amp;#039;s treasure. I&amp;#039;m by no means trying to write the alternative story of Romeo and Juliet\u2014this is just my suggestion, and I certainly would never dare to rival Shakespeare.   ELLE:  Were you fearful or hesitant at all about making these characters your own?AF: I was very afraid. I&amp;#039;m from Europe, and I was very aware that there are a lot of literature snobs\u2014especially in Europe. As soon as something becomes a success, it has to be bad, and then they&amp;#039;ll do everything they can to stab it to death. I&amp;#039;ve had many wonderful positive reviews; however, there have also been a couple reviews that have said, &amp;quot;How dare this American think she can take Romeo and Juliet\u2014this sacred couple? How dare she say that Romeo and Juliet had a child?&amp;quot; What happens when you continue to read these reviews is that you realize they haven&amp;#039;t actually read the book\u2014but that doesn&amp;#039;t stop them from criticizing it. I knew there were going to be some people turning their noses up, but I wasn&amp;#039;t going to let that stop me from telling my story.  ELLE:  How did you and your mother discover that Siena and not Verona is where the original story of Romeo and Juliet was inspired?AF:  That&amp;#039;s so funny, because mom and I keep discussing this\u2014I know we were in mom&amp;#039;s hotel room. And mom sort of looked up from the book she was reading and said, &amp;quot;Did you know that the first version of Romeo and Juliet was set here in Siena?&amp;quot; And I said, &amp;quot;Oh really?&amp;quot; And we&amp;#039;ve discussed since, &amp;quot;What was that book she had? Where did she see this?&amp;quot; Of course as soon as she said that, I started researching, and I found that it&amp;#039;s just a click away on the Internet. You&amp;#039;ll see that the genealogy of the book of Romeo and Juliet, which will take you back to the very first version of it in 1476, was set in Siena, and it was only later that subsequent writers moved the story to Verona. A lot of people say, &amp;quot;How do you know it was set in Siena?&amp;quot; And I say, &amp;quot;How do you know it was Verona?&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s just literature; it&amp;#039;s just people writing books. Do you know that you can now get married in Verona on Juliet&amp;#039;s balcony?  ELLE: Oh, really? I had no idea.AF:  Yes, this year I think they opened it. You can get married and have your photos taken. I really hope my book isn&amp;#039;t ruining that business, because I love Verona. It&amp;#039;s a beautiful place.   ELLE: I always wanted my own Romeo and Juliet balcony, but that never happened. This book was a collaboration with your mother\u2014you wrote in the United States while your mother researched and explored the city of Siena. What was it like working so closely with your mother when you were continents apart? Can you tell me more about the type of research you conducted?AF:  It&amp;#039;s really interesting, because mom and I always had a close relationship. When we were on the phone together, it was all about this project\u2014mom is so excited and I&amp;#039;m so excited. And we have this exchange of questions and answers. It&amp;#039;s this incredibly instructive thing for us, and I think I can safety say that we&amp;#039;ve never had such a good time together\u2014strangely\u2014as we have had over the phone talking about Juliet, research, and what she&amp;#039;s been up and where she&amp;#039;s been.  ELLE: You grew up in Denmark and vacationed in Verona. I read that your mother always considered Verona her &amp;quot;true home until she discovered Siena.&amp;quot; If you had to spend the rest of your life in either Verona or Siena, which city would you live in?AF: That&amp;#039;s a good question\u2014I&amp;#039;m going to have to say Siena. Verona is a very beautiful city, but Siena just never ceases to fascinate me. Of course now, I have so many friends in Siena and so on. Siena definitely wins hands down, but that doesn&amp;#039;t mean I don&amp;#039;t love Verona.  ELLE:  Do you still have your little plastic statuette of Romeo and Juliet that you call your childhood&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;greatest treasure&amp;quot;? If so, where do you keep it?AF: I do\u2014it&amp;#039;s actually in my old room in mom&amp;#039;s house in Denmark. The statuette always had this special place on this green dresser where it would stand under a little picture from Verona, and I just don&amp;#039;t have the heart to move it from there.ELLE:  You wrote in great detail about the Palio (a traditional horse race held in Siena twice a year). Did you get to experience the modern-day Palio during your research for Juliet?AF:  That&amp;#039;s such a good question, because I have never been to the modern-day Palio. In my original plans for the book, I had wanted to see the modern-day Palio, but I never had the opportunity to go while I was writing the book because I was working. We were in Siena this spring to promote the book, and the president of the Monte dei Paschi di Siena bank hosted this fantastic evening where they celebrated the book. It was such a marvelous cocktail party, and he has invited my husband and I and our little baby to be his guests at the Palio next year. I just can&amp;#039;t wait!  ELLE: I read that you actually staged break-ins at the Hotel Chiusarelli (the hotel Julie stays at during her time in Siena). It&amp;#039;s not every day that hotel guest stage break-ins\u2014how did the hotel staff handle your research?AF: They&amp;#039;re so sweet at Hotel Chiusarelli, but to be honest I think the director of the hotel was a little nervous. When he realized I had written this disclaimer in my author&amp;#039;s note\u2014and had someone translate the passage in Italian for him\u2014he became calmer and happier. Now that the book is complete and they get to see how people love the book, and a lot of tourists are already coming to the hotel\u2014they really just embrace the book completely. I think I can safety say that if anybody goes to the hotel and mentions that they are there because they read the book, they will get very good service.   ELLE:  The artist Maestro Lippi is a real person in Italy. What did you love about him that made you want to include him in your story?AF: As Julie says in the book, Lippi is different from any other Italian; he is sort of a hippie-looking guy. He is incredibly intense. I just had this feeling that the only thing that matters to him is his art and whether or not I understand what he is saying because he really wants me to understand. When I met him, I started toying with the idea that the only real people in Juliet would be the artist\u2014everybody else would be fictional.   ELLE: Why did you decide to write your story in English, your second language?AF: I had lived in the United States for years before I started working on this book, so it was really natural for me. I also knew that I really wanted an agent in New York\u2014that I would do it right this time (In 2005, Fortier wrote her first novel, Hyrder p\u00E5 bjerget, in her native language, Danish.). To be honest, I just couldn&amp;#039;t have written this in Danish because to me, Danish is my childhood language, connected to memories of homework and dentist appointments. English is\u2014on top of being Shakespeare&amp;#039;s language and the language of adventure in Hollywood\u2014a language of big plans and dreams, and the language I speak with my husband and I speak with my daughter. It is the language of the future for me. I couldn&amp;#039;t have punned Shakespeare the way I do, either.   ELLE: Half of your debut novel is set in 1340 in Siena, and it tells the legendary story of Romeo and Juliet before Shakespeare got his hands on this tale, and the other half is set in present-day Siena and tells the story of 25-year-old Julie and her journey to put the notorious curse, &amp;quot;a plague on both your houses,&amp;quot; to rest. Did you enjoy writing the historical story or the present-day story more?AF: It was hard work to write the historical part because I needed to integrate all of the research and so on. So in some ways, it was easier to write the present day. I could just sort of joke around. I enjoyed the bantering between Julie and Alessandro (Head of Security at Monte dei Paschi di Siena bank) \u2014I loved writing those dialogues. I enjoyed writing Janice (Julie&amp;#039;s twin sister) so much. But, once I was in the medieval setting, I almost couldn&amp;#039;t get out of it again to go back to the present-day narrative. It was a great experience to live in that medieval world.ELLE:  Did you have any rituals to help transport you back to medieval times or to present-day Italy when writing these specific chapters of the book?AF: I don&amp;#039;t generally need to set an atmosphere to write, but I will say that in writing the medieval chapters, I did perform some little rituals. I would usually make myself tea or have a glass of red wine. I would listen to medieval music or Italian opera. I would write by candlelight, but once I reentered the matrix of the medieval story, I would suddenly be annoyed with the music and I&amp;#039;d turn it off\u2014once you&amp;#039;re there, you&amp;#039;re there. We live in the modern world\u2014people are honking outside and the telephone is ringing, so it can be hard to suddenly be back in the 1340s.  ELLE:  Were your present-day Italian characters\u2014Eva Maria, Pia, cousin Peppo, Umberto, Direttore Rossini, and Alessandro\u2014people you met spending time in Italy when you were growing up, or did you discover them on your more recent trips to Italy?AF: They are all a mix of people I have met throughout my life. Ever since I was a little girl, I would just harvest voices and peoples&amp;#039; behavior, and use them later in a book. I find myself channeling all the voices in my head that I&amp;#039;ve heard all my life. A character like Eva Maria\u2014she tends to force her way out in everything that I write, but I will say that she is definitely a blend of different people.   ELLE: What about Alessandro? I was in love with him.AF: I have to confess that his behavior is based on my husband. Also, a lot of Alessandro is inspired by this Italian actor, Raoul Bova (known best in the U.S. for his roles in Under the Tuscan Sun and AVP: Alien vs. Predator). But of course, you infuse a character like that with some of your own romantic ideas of what an Italian man is like. I wonder if there is someone who is exactly like Alessandro in reality. For all those single girls out there, I hope there are many. Though a lot of Italian female readers have said to me, &amp;quot;I want to see this Alessandro. I haven&amp;#039;t seen him anywhere.&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;ve never actually dated an Italian \u2013 I&amp;#039;m not sure whether I&amp;#039;m missing anything.   ELLE:  An editor once told you: &amp;quot;There are no happy endings in good literature.&amp;quot; After hearing this comment, how did it affect you as a writer?AF:  It made me really sad, and sort of embarrassed, too. I was 13 or 14 at the time. This was the first person I had sent a manuscript to, and he invited me to Copenhagen to meet with him. I thought, &amp;quot;Well I don&amp;#039;t think I could ever write a book that did not have a happy ending.&amp;quot; And that by default meant, &amp;quot;I will never write good literature.&amp;quot; As I grew older and started learning more, I realized that it&amp;#039;s just this weird indoctrination that&amp;#039;s going on in the literary world, especially in Europe\u2014there can&amp;#039;t be a happy ending, you can&amp;#039;t mix comedy and tragedy, there can&amp;#039;t be a treasure hunt, there can&amp;#039;t be love, at least not happy love, because if those elements are there then it is just commercial. It&amp;#039;s this old French snobbery that we&amp;#039;re still suffering from. Now that I&amp;#039;m 38, I laugh at it and I don&amp;#039;t mind anymore if people say I&amp;#039;m not writing literature, because I know what I like to do and I do it, and it&amp;#039;s working out well. It&amp;#039;s taken me a long time to overcome this feeling that I was somehow compromising my writing by not conforming to the old unhappy ending.   ELLE:  Now, having just written your first novel where the protagonist is trying to break a 600-year-old curse and searching for her happy ending, what would you say to that editor?AF: That&amp;#039;s a good question. I&amp;#039;d say, &amp;quot;You know what? The question of what is good and what is bad is all in your head. There is no one definition of what good literature is. What matters to me is that there are so many people who love this book.&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;m not even sure I&amp;#039;d even bother to talk to him; I don&amp;#039;t think I&amp;#039;m going to meet him again. He&amp;#039;s been very quiet since Juliet came out, I&amp;#039;ll tell you that.  ELLE:  You left Denmark in 2002 to work in film. Would you like to be involved in the production if this novel is turned into a film?AF: There are people in Hollywood who are trying to turn the novel into a film. I&amp;#039;d love to be involved in consulting on the screenplay, visiting the set, and having a say in the actors, but I do not want to have a job on the set. It was interesting to work on film while I did it, but I am so not a film type. It&amp;#039;s too hectic there. I&amp;#039;m kind of your stay-at-home-in-your-pajamas-and-write-and-drink-hot-chocolate kind of person.  ELLE:  Any favorite actors you&amp;#039;d like to see star in this movie and help bring your book to life?AF: It&amp;#039;s interesting, because I never thought about who could play Julie when I was writing the book. It was only later that I began thinking about it\u2014I think someone like Anne Hathaway would do a good job, but I&amp;#039;m not sure she&amp;#039;s the ideal one. I definitely wrote the role of Alessandro for Raoul Bova. The role of Eva Marie I wrote for Sophia Loren. My husband and I were toying with who could play Umberto\u2014maybe someone like Andy Garcia.   ELLE:  You&amp;#039;ve said: &amp;quot;Sometimes I worry that the younger generation forgets to appreciate the battles fought by their grandmothers and great-grandmothers\u2014as well as by many enlightened men\u2014to secure for women the right and freedoms that we take for granted today.&amp;quot; Your book shines a light on just how much the life of a modern woman has changed since the 1340s. Was this something that you thought a lot about when writing this novel?AF:  I did. It is actually something that is quite close to my heart because I often think of how lucky we are today, and it annoys me a lot when younger women don&amp;#039;t respect just how far we&amp;#039;ve come in just the last 100 years. That doesn&amp;#039;t mean I want to be some militant feminist, but I just think it&amp;#039;s important to be aware of it and be thankful. Also, there are so many men who have been helping out in this fight. I don&amp;#039;t like when it becomes this dichotomy of men versus women, because that&amp;#039;s not fair. There are just as many women in the world trying to keep women in their place and there are just as many men trying to help. I think the best way of creating a sense of gratitude is to write fiction and just remind us all of just how bad it was back then. This is a theme you&amp;#039;re going to see in my future books\u2014that&amp;#039;s my little mission.  ELLE:  Publishers Weekly described Juliet as the smart modern woman&amp;#039;s Da Vinci Code. Do you feel like your story is closed or would do you like to continue Julie&amp;#039;s adventures?AF:  I&amp;#039;m not sure I&amp;#039;ve said this to anybody else, but I left things very open, so if Juliet is a big success, there will definitely be a sequel. The sequel would be from Janice&amp;#039;s perspective. I&amp;#039;m not going to ruin Julie&amp;#039;s ending, so don&amp;#039;t worry. I would also say that we would have to go back and revisit Romeo and Juliet, because maybe there are some other artifacts that would suggest that in fact the story went quite differently. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/books/interviews/a11362/q-a-anne-fortier-472803/>