The New York Times
October 3, 2004 Sunday
SECTION: Section 14NJ; Column 1; New Jersey Weekly Desk; IN PERSON; Pg. 4
The Three Sisters
By CAREN LISSNER
DON'T compare the three Horn sisters of Short Hills -- the novelists
Ariel,
24; Dara, 27; and Jordana, 31 -- to the Bronte sisters of the 1840's. Sure, two
of the Horns have had first novels published before reaching age 33. And they
also have a brother who is not a writer, as did the Brontes.
But their writing styles are completely different, and they didn't
spend
their childhoods conjuring twisted romances on the moors of Britain.
Instead, they grew up acting out skits.
''Kids there are really, really competitive,'' said Ariel, who now
lives in
Manhattan and will see publication of her humorous debut novel, ''Help Wanted,
Desperately'' (Avon Trade), next month. ''Kids are intense, excited, and also
kind of jaded.''
But Ariel said that despite the intensity of her Essex County
suburb, she
and her sisters fell into publishing not because their parents pushed them or
because they competed with the neighbors, but because their creativity was
encouraged.
Ariel's first novel, about a fictional Jersey girl looking for
post-college
employment, came about by accident. While finishing her English degree at the
University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 2002 and maintaining a 3.8 grade
point average, she found, as the news release describing her book's main
character says, ''Like every other good Jewish, Ivy-League-educated Jersey girl,
she was certain she'd land an interesting, challenging, prestigious and
lucrative New York job'' -- and didn't.
Ariel complained about her botched interviews in phone calls to
oldest
sister Jordana, a lawyer and a former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter who was
living in Manhattan. Jordana was too busy to listen to the stories, but told
Ariel to send her e-mail messages instead. Ariel's ensuing messages were funny
enough that Jordana suggested they become a book.
Ariel had someone to turn to next -- middle sister Dara, who had
gained the most prestigious literary accolades in the family.
Dara had graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 1999 with a
degree in comparative literature, pursued a master's in Hebrew literature at
Cambridge University in England, and then returned to the United States to work
on her doctorate at Harvard. While at Cambridge, Dara had passed up on the pub
scene to spend nights laboring in her 18th-century dormitory on a work of
literary fiction about two people -- a New Jersey teenager whose best friend
dies, and the best friend's grandfather who strikes up an unusual relationship
with her.
Her novel, ''In the Image,'' published in 2002, received positive
reviews
and went on to win a 2003 National Jewish Book Award and the 2003 Reform Judaism
Prize for Jewish fiction. It has also been published in Germany and the
Netherlands.
When Dara got her younger sister's request for help, she handed the
compilation of job-hunt mishaps to her agent. But the agent passed on
representing it, as he worked with literary fiction.
Disappointed but not deterred, Ariel turned to a list of agents'
e-mail
addresses on a Web site called everyonewhosanyone.com. Ariel sent e-mail
messages to the agents and found one to take her on.
Buoyed by a trend in humorous novels about young women in their
20's and 30's (ah, Bridget Jones), the book sold to HarperCollins's Avon Trade
division, but the editor suggested fictionalizing it. For one thing, the romance
was deemed ''too boring'' -- a bit insulting, as it came from Ariel relationship
with her now-husband.
So Ariel became Alexa Hoffman, and the book became a 341-page
novel. In the
meantime, she finally found a job she loved -- teaching English at a public
all-girls' high school in East Harlem while earning a teaching degree at New
York University.
At the same time, Dara, who has moved to New York, began working on
her second novel, also set in New Jersey, which is scheduled to come out next
fall.
Ariel and Dara, as well as Jordana, who is currently working on her
first
novel, say there is a reason that their novels are set in New Jersey.
''What else is there?'' said Jordana from her new home in Voorhees,
where she and her husband are raising their 10-month-old son. ''New Jersey is
synonymous with an idyllic childhood. We went to terrific schools, we had a
great house, we learned to ride our bikes in the streets. It was only when I got
to college that I realized people were not as enamored of New Jersey as I was.''
All of them have set their fictional characters in a place just
like Short
Hills, but they don't name it.
''You find yourself constantly battling Philip Roth,'' Dara said.
''The
literary image of Short Hills is already set in people's minds.'' Mr. Roth
gently lampooned the competitive attitude there in his 1959 novella ''Goodbye,
Columbus,'' and referred to the lack of Jewish families in the village at the
time.
''My book is not a book about how the suburbs are such a vapid
place,'' Dara said, ''because that was never my experience living there.''
The sisters said it's also easier to fictionalize if you don't name
the
town. That way, people can't grouse over slight deviations.
''Anybody who went to Millburn knows my character's high school is
Millburn High School,'' Ariel said. ''It talks about a poetry class that's
definitely like the poetry class I had in high school. I had a teacher who would
tell us to 'unpack poems one by one' to discover the hidden meaning of the
banana.''
The sisters said there was no pressure from their parents to become
writers, although their parents encouraged their creativity. Neither of their
parents are writers. Their father, Matthew Horn, is a dentist in Union, and
their mother, Susan, is an eighth grade English teacher in Warren who has a
doctorate in Jewish studies from N.Y.U. But in typical suburban New Jersey
fashion, Susan Horn doesn't only teach English; she also teaches a six-week
elective called ''Genius'' that studies geniuses like Picasso and Da Vinci.
''The subtitle of the course is 'Do you think you're a genius?''' Ariel said.
''All eighth graders think they're a genius.''
But their parents' actions spurred the children to write. For one
thing, the
elder Horns were often taking all four children (including Zachary, 26, a
freelance animator in New York) to places like Russia, Africa and Peru, and told
them to keep journals on the long plane rides.
Second, at dinner each night, all four siblings competed to talk.
''Everybody wanted to talk about their day,'' Ariel said.
''Everybody wanted
to make their day more interesting. When I was 8, my parents brought home an egg
timer and said, 'You have three minutes to talk about your day uninterrupted.'
It was a challenge in three minutes. We thought, 'What are we going to do that's
going to wow them this time?' I remember at one point standing on the windowsill
and 'performing' my day. We had to see who could do the best impression of a
teacher that's why we turned into very creative people. You've got to fight for
the limelight.''
Dara and Ariel also said their mother was constantly reading to
them, even during meals. ''My sisters and I heard the words and became enchanted
with the process of telling a story,'' Ariel said. ''My brother was enchanted
with the pictures.''
Ariel said the siblings didn't expect to become writers, even
though they
wrote for their high school and college newspapers.
Now, Zachary and Jordana have started working together on a
children's book, as well as a CD and songbook of the ''Passover Parodies'' they
have acted out for their family over the years. ''It helped that there were so
many of us,'' Jordana said. ''When you wanted to put on a play, you had the
equivalent of a cast of thousands.''
Dara said that rather than being jealous, the siblings are proud of
one
another's accomplishments.
''To see Ariel's book in the bookstore next to mine on the shelf
was just
the best feeling ever,'' Dara said. ''In the future, I think we may be taking up
the entire shelf. That's the goal.''
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
GRAPHIC: Photo: Jordana Horn, left, is working on her first novel.
Her
sisters, Ariel, center, and Dara, have already had their first books published.
(Photo by Nancy Wegard for The New York Times)
October 3, 2004
