Author Susan Harlan talks about bringing the ?home tour? to literary works Susan Harlan?s Decorating a Room of One?s Own: Conversations on Interior Design with Miss Havisham, Jane Eyre, Victor Frankenstein, Elizabeth Bennet, Ishmael and Other Literary Notables is a singular delight for book nerds, design nerds, and anyone who, like me, happens to be both. The book lovingly spoofs interior design trends and celebrity profiles, illuminating the decorating choices and challenges faced by a host of well-known and obscure literary characters. A professor of English at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, Susan is herself an avid collector of everything from cheeseburger art to Day of the Dead memorabilia, and her house is overflowing with objects that tell their own stories. I spoke to her about what design and literature have in common, and how real and imagined homes reflect their owners? character. Tell me about how you came up with the idea of bringing together literary classics and interior design.
The book started with Jane Eyre. I was watching a film adaptation one night and thinking about the particular house that was used as Thornfield Hall in that movie, and also my love of home design sites, like Apartment Therapy, which had actually done a house tour of my house when I moved into it five years ago. I thought it would be funny to think about Jane Eyre giving a kind of similar tour of Thornfield Hall, and mapping that whole narrative of ?what your house ...