The Story Behind the Story
The inspiration for Opposites Attack grew out of my experience at a total-immersion language school in Provence d’Azur—a heavenly part of France where Provence and the Côte d’Azur meet. There were students of all nationalities there. As a certified story junkie, there was no shortage of entertainment in that department. One older American told me he had been coming back to the school every summer for many years. Perhaps it was my vivid writer’s imagination, but was his ”friendship” with the instructor he always dined with in the school cafeteria more than that?
My, what endless mischief could erupt as foreigners whooshed in and out of the lives of the locals for weeks and months at a time. It was like a cruise ship for language nerds.
What prompted me to go to this school was a flyer that turned up in the mail from a local college inviting anyone to be part of a total-immersion language trip to the South of France. I felt pathetic for not being able to speak another language, I had just lost a major contract that was most of my income, and I was completely fed up with a man. So spending a lot of money on a goal I would never attain in such a short time seemed perfectly logical. At least I would see France.
I entered the school in Hyères speaking like a one-year-old and left speaking like I was two. What did I expect in fourteen days? Those who spent two or three months there who spoke no French when they arrived reported astonishing breakthroughs. I always meant to return for a longer stay. Sadly, the school has since closed, but it was a delightful, safe, enriching way to experience a new country, especially as a single woman. Did I offend anyone? Like Alyce, if I did it was unintentional. My eternal gratitude extends to my sole hosts, the wonderful Nathalie and Bernard.
At the same time I was writing this book, I was also pondering why people sometimes end up with the opposite of what they say they want in a mate. How much should you compromise when your love has enough baggage to fill a moving van? Can someone really change? When you have a child with someone you never married, is it possible to truly move on if you can’t legally divorce? I knew several Baby Mama/Baby Daddy situations. The dynamics were more unresolved and complex than those dealing with ex-spouses and their offspring.
Nelson was loosely based on men I’d known who were in love with a woman of a different race, religion, and/or social standing, yet couldn’t make a life with her for that reason. One, however, did make a baby. A friend of mine dated him. He was perfect until she met the mother of his child, who was dressed in a highly revealing outfit and spent a lot of time in the bathroom with other adults. My friend quickly retreated. I thought about how such a circumstance would affect everyone it touched.
I was also trying to stop falling for unpredictable creative geniuses or stop expecting them to be “normal.”
If this book inspires you to travel, take a cooking class, learn a new language, or fall in love with someone very different from you, tout nouveau, tout beau! What is new, is good.