About this episode
Priya Parmar’s The Original covers eighteen years of Katharine Hepburn’s life, from the age of 13, the year her brother Tom died, to the age of 32. Not the icon in the polo neck, but the young woman before all that. The failures, the self-invention, the loss she never really recovered from. It’s been praised by The New York Times, The Independent, BBC Radio, People and Oprah.
In this episode of Elena Meets the Author, Priya explains why she chose a period defined by self-discovery and failure rather than the years everyone already knows. We talk about Hepburn’s unusually progressive family in Hartford and Fenwick, Connecticut, how the Hollywood studios manufactured star personas before the Production Code came in, and the decade of research behind the novel. Priya also talks about the omniscient Greek chorus structure she built the book around.
Priya Parmar is also the author of Vanessa and Her Sister, a New York Times Notable Book about Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell, and Exit the Actress. She co-wrote the musical Sylvia, staged at the Old Vic and nominated for an Olivier Award.