A Virtual Book Review Network Interview with Rob Costelloe
Lauren Smith: What is Coinage of Commitment about?
 Rob Costelloe: Coinage of Commitment is about two people, Wayne and Nancy, who grow up on opposite sides of the country, who are from very different backgrounds, but who share one thing in common that will attract them to each other. Each has matured wanting to experience romantic fulfillment that is superior to the relationships they see all around them. They not only want it, they actively pursue it and, in Nancy’s case, she turns her yearning into a study of ways a couple can achieve love at a higher level and sustain it for the duration. In 1968, they meet while he is attending blue collar Drexel, and she is at neighboring, Ivy League Penn. Although irresistibly drawn together for the transcendent love they sense they can attain in each other, they must overcome obstacles posed by the class, financial, and religious differences that separate them, as well as opposition from both families, and later, a twist of fate that will be the cruelest test of all. Lauren Smith: When you talk about "love at a higher level" what do you mean by that? Rob Costelloe: It means keeping the “magic” of a romantic commitment at an elevated level, over a long period of time, as the couple’s highest priority, in the context of leading an otherwise normal life. In the story, Nancy concludes that such a condition, if achieved, can only be sustained by intellectual effort and planning, in addition to the emotional commitment we normally associate with romantic love. Lauren Smith: What was your inspiration for writing this book? Rob Costelloe: I wrote earlier in life, including an unpublishable first novel, a love story, then I abandoned writing altogether. But I continued to study romantic love, and I enjoyed studying love stories in books and films. In 2005, I read an otherwise well written novel whose denouement was so suddenly despairing that I felt outrage on behalf of all the women readers who were disappointed by this disjointed outcome. Within twenty-four hours, I was writing Coinage of Commitment. Lauren Smith: How long did it take you to write it? Rob Costelloe: It took seventeen months from deciding to write to landing the first contract offer. The first draft took four months of nearly full-time effort. Since I was also holding a full-time day job, that meant that I got very little sleep. I queried awhile, then sat down and read the manuscript after not having looked at it for two months. I was shocked to discover that it was not the greatest love story ever written, and that it was suddenly important to me that it be that good. I know this sounds delusional, and it did to me even as I was thinking it, but it affected my actions in a major way. I pulled the manuscript off the market and went into what turned out to be seven months of editorial analyses, rewrites, and polishing revisions. I changed my writing style to be more in tune with the story’s artistic needs. After that, it was back to the tedious grind of querying. But this time I did hit gold, garnering three contract offers from royalty publishers.
Lauren Smith: What do you hope the reader "gets" from your book? Rob Costelloe: I want my audience to find a variety of good things offered at different levels for their reading pleasure. I hope they enjoy the story proper, and that they thrill to the twist in the final chapter that peaks in a surprise ending. The book has artistic ambitions, and there were times when it felt as though I were sweating blood to make the prose as beautiful as I could so it would sing in the reader’s mind. The book delivers a message about what part romantic love can play in fulfilling people’s lives, and that is intended to be thought provoking. The story examines the theme of “the road not taken” in some of the decisions that Wayne and Nancy make early on that play out in dramatic ways. |
