访谈录 Interview 2007-08-10&08-12, 情妇的自述

Victoria Zackheim is the author of one of those stories featured in The Other Woman as well as the editor of the entire anthology. And Argie Allen is a marriage and family therapist. Good morning to both of you.

Good morning.
Good morning.

Now I'm just very curious, tell me about how you found these women. But first let's talk about what drew you to this subject, for you essentially¹ had sort of, you weren't the other woman and you were the woman who had infidelity happened to you. But you were sort of a between.

I was, and it actually started when I was in a car one day and I heard somebody on the radio say the other woman. And being a writer, I immediately thought what an amazing anthology that would make. But then I never dreamt that I'd find authors who were willing to tell their stories. And of course, I found authors who wanted to tell their stories very much.

In your case, your husband had divorced his wife, and you were, er, but he couldn't let go of her. He kept talking about her.

Actually it wasn't my husband. I was in a relationship with a man for several years who had been divorced for many years, and hadn't seen his wife for many years. And the sort of the phantom² of the unfinished business in their relationship hung over our relationship until finally it just became impossible.

But it's just a thing about relationships. There is always this issue of business and what needs to happen in here. These women, who profiled in this piece and also you get to talk in your book, reveal quite a lot. So the question is how did you, how did you find them and why did you think they were willing to speak?

Well, I started off asking some of the top authors in the country, and to find out if they even had these experiences. I had no idea, so I proposed to them that that was an anthology, that was a possibility, and if they had been on either side of this, would they be interested. Expecting them to say, gee³, I'm really sorry. But instead, I've, I got this overwhelming response of yes. The emails that I got back were things like sweet revenge was one.

Well, that make sense for, if you are the woman maybe who had the infidelity happened to you? (Yes) But what about the other women, why were they willing to speak?

It was very interesting because they had a story that they wanted to tell. For example, Susan Shiver wanted to tell the story about the fact that although she had broken up two marriages, and she had her husband taken from her, that as the years went on and she looked back, she realized with great regret what she had done and how she had affected⁴ families and her own family as well. So and yet some of the authors were not remorseful⁵. They feel themselves that ever like a video that you saw here that although she was the mistress, the young mistress, she felt that she was the one who was almost the wife, and that the wife was the other woman.

So weighing going through all of these emotions, Argie, I think that you know, (Yep) people are really less concentrated on the people listening now, who may identify, understand some of these, how we can help them through this? (Yeah) What will be your best advice if it is someone who is finding herself in this relationship?

Yeah, the inducing thing, and I read some work that Victoria had in her excerpts⁶ and when you are talking about the other woman, you are talking about such pain and such betrayal and sometimes shame and embarrassment⁷. And the goal here is forgiveness. Forgiveness is moving towards a level of healing. But interestingly, you are talking about how these women wanted to share their stories. It's very cathartic⁸ to share your experiences with someone else. In fact, many other viewers that are reading and hopefully they are hearing those stories and they are being moved and healed.

1 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

2 phantom   

n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的

参考例句：

• I found myself staring at her as if she were a phantom.我发现自己瞪大眼睛看着她，好像她是一个幽灵。
• He is only a phantom of a king.他只是有名无实的国王。

3 gee   

n.马；int.向右！前进！，惊讶时所发声音；v.向右转

参考例句：

• Their success last week will gee the team up.上星期的胜利将激励这支队伍继续前进。
• Gee,We're going to make a lot of money.哇！我们会赚好多钱啦！

4 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

5 remorseful   

adj.悔恨的

参考例句：

• He represented to the court that the accused was very remorseful.他代被告向法庭陈情说被告十分懊悔。
• The minister well knew--subtle,but remorseful hypocrite that he was!牧师深知这一切——他是一个多么难以捉摸又懊悔不迭的伪君子啊！

6 excerpts   

n.摘录，摘要( excerpt的名词复数 )；节选（音乐，电影）片段

参考例句：

• Some excerpts from a Renaissance mass are spatchcocked into Gluck's pallid Don Juan music. 一些文艺复光时期的弥撒的选节被不适当地加入到了格鲁克平淡无味的唐璜音乐中。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He is editing together excerpts of some of his films. 他正在将自己制作的一些电影的片断进行剪辑合成。 来自辞典例句

7 embarrassment   

n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫

参考例句：

• She could have died away with embarrassment.她窘迫得要死。
• Coughing at a concert can be a real embarrassment.在音乐会上咳嗽真会使人难堪。

8 cathartic   

adj.宣泄情绪的；n.泻剂

参考例句：

• His laughter was cathartic,an animal yelp that brought tears to his eyes.他哈哈大笑以宣泄情绪，声音如野兽般尖厉，眼泪都笑出来了。
• The drug had a cathartic effect.这药有导泻的作用。