For many years, it was a tradition in my house to watch The Ten Commandments—the whole five-hour, ad-strewn extravaganza—on TV every spring. We even own an old videotape, which is a good hour shorter, but we have never watched that—don’t ask me why, because I don’t know. But in any case, one reason I still watch an impossibly corny movie with dialogue I can recite on cue is because of Edith Head’s costumes, one high-powered male miniskirt and sheer linen shift after another. And that’s the link to this interview with Kate Maruyama, whose latest novel, Alterations, has just come out with Running Wild Press. Read on, and the connection with Edith Head will become clear.
And extra thanks to Kate, who took the time to answer my questions even during the devastating Los Angeles wildfires of January 2025.
How did you come to write this novel?
I was hanging out with my writer friend Toni Ann Johnson in her breakfast nook in South LA and she asked me why, with how much I love 1930s and ’40s movies I didn’t write something set in that time. I started reading biographies of my favorites, Cary Grant and Barbara Stanwyck. I had wanted to be a costume designer at one time, so I read a lot about Edith Head. I had already written a short story about a grandmother and her teen grandkid finding love through a mutual love of old movies they rented, and Adriana’s story came to me at that time. Who was this woman before she became a grandmother?
The first character we meet, Adriana, becomes a seamstress for Edith Head in 1937. Tell us a bit about Adriana—and, for those who may not know her name, Edith Head.
Edith Head has always fascinated me; she was the first woman head of a studio costume department ever. And she was unique in that she had a hand in designing all of the costumes, the whole look for a movie. Popular designers like Adrian actually only designed the gowns and had their minions do the rest. Word was she was filled in as a temporary position and then simply made herself indispensable. Because she was working in a man’s world, Head worked around the clock to make herself unfireable, and because she was working in a man’s world, she was making half the salary of guys designing only gowns for other studios. I put Adriana in this world because sewing is a craft I understand well (I was never good at it, but I did put together my prom dresses from patterns while I was in high school), and I loved the idea of someone arriving in Hollywood to act but sidestepping due to sewing skills she’d developed in other parts of her life. And being able to have a fulfilling career. I also wanted to spend some time in Edith Head’s studio, a chance to geek out in a way that felt like being there.
Early on, Adriana falls in love with Rose. Who is Rose, and what makes their relationship crucial to the story?
Rose came first as a friend to Adriana, the doyenne of central casting. I love folks who have been around in a profession a while and love to help newbies. But once I read the sad story of Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, who loved each other and lived together for several years, even after the studio assigned Grant a wife, I realized these two had to be together. I realized their meet cute was more than just a friendship, and the story then got its legs. I have a Great Aunt Ruth who lived with the love of her life, Mary, from the 1910s until Mary died of old age. I wanted to explore that space where society says you can’t live a certain way, but you go ahead and do it anyway. The precariousness of being a working woman in 1930s Hollywood becomes more precarious when that career is threatened by the fact that the love of your life is the same sex as you.
In addition to the 1930s thread running through the novel, there is a second one that takes place in the mid-1990s with Lizzie, Laura, and their Nonna. Why introduce this time gap?
The time gap was simple math. Nonna had come to me in that original short story of a woman in her eighties living her old life in her house by watching movies. I wanted to explore that place where older women are underestimated, relegated to their role as grandparent, talked down to. But every older woman I’ve known has lived lifetimes of which many of the younger people in their life are unaware. My husband’s grandmother had a quavery voice, was petite and white-haired and always underestimated. But my goodness, the stories that woman had. I became very close to her, and I realized she was a tough, brilliant, complex twenty-five-year-old trapped in an aging body. Through Lizzie’s and Laura’s point of view of their grandmother, their growing awareness of her as a full human became a lovely space to explore ageism as one story unfolds to meet the present. The present, again, had to be the 1990s for the 1930s/40s story to work.
What should we know about Laura?
Laura is at a place in her twenties where she has to make life decisions but feels incapacitated in making them. She’s living an echo of Adriana’s story in her own way. She has met the end of the road in Baltimore, having fled from her terrible Hollywood boyfriend and a career that crumbled because of him. There is a time you have to find your own feet when you experience failure as a young person, and you can’t quite wrap your mind around the fact failure is part of living. That life is always forward motion, it doesn’t just happen for you.
Lizzie, Laura’s cousin, exists in the same time frame but at an earlier point in her life. What brings her to Nonna’s house?
Lizzie has lost both of her parents quite suddenly, and her uncle Bart doesn’t have the capacity to care for her. Her parents had put Nonna in her will as a caretaker at a time when she was able and together. Nonna has since broken her hip and is a different person than she was even a few months before, so Lizzie has a lot to deal with. Laura is Lizzie’s first whiff of hope, but Laura, at this moment in her life, is not the best companion for a thirteen-year-old.
Both timelines begin in Hollywood, California, with the movie industry, although neither ends there. How would you describe the significance of Hollywood for your novel?
I adore Los Angeles as a city, and it has been my home for over thirty years. I’m a teacher and a writer of fiction, and I live in a marvelous supportive community outside of the film industry. LA contains a multigenerational, multicultural mutual aid sort of world that most outsiders don’t see. I entered the film industry (I worked in story development) for all the stuff I loved to dive into for this novel: creativity, storytelling, the artistry of the craftsfolk in costume, in design, and the large teams that come together to make movies. In my fifteen years in the industry, this aspect was still beautiful, but I also saw how the industry doesn’t take care of the folks who age out of it or are pushed out for other reasons. You’re relevant until you’re not. Then, good luck. This novel explores that.
Are you already working on something new?
Yes! I’m writing a novel that explores a lifetime relationship through the aspect of memory and how each family member has a different operational narrative. It takes place from the 1970s to the present.
Thank you so much for answering my questions!
Thank you for having me! The questions were so lovely and it was a pleasure to step outside the fiery city into this space.
Kate Maruyama is the author of The Collective, Bleak Houses, and Halloween Beyond: The Gentleman's Suit. Alterations is her most recent novel, out now from Running Wild Press. She writes, teaches, cooks, and eats in Los Angeles where she lives. Find out more about her and her writing at https://katemaruyama.com.
Image: promotional photograph of Grace Kelly wearing Edith Head’s design for Alfred Hitchock’s Rear Window (1954) public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
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