Elizabeth Gilbert became a literary shooting star with her 30-something memoir, “Eat, Pray, Love.” It has spent two years on The New York Times best-seller list and sold more than 6 million copies. In it, Gilbert wrote about leaving a marriage and an apparently successful life, which had her feeling depressed and confused, to explore different aspects of her own nature in a year spent in Italy, India and Indonesia.
Gilbert’s GQ magazine article about her bartending years became the Disney movie “Coyote Ugly.” According to Variety, Paramount Pictures has acquired screen rights to “Eat, Pray, Love” and “will develop it as a star vehicle for Julia Roberts.”
Gilbert, 39, will be in the Denver area Sunday, speaking and entertaining questions at 3 p.m. at the Mile Hi Church, 9079 W. Alameda Ave., in Lakewood. Electa Draper, The Denver Post
Q: Which was scarier, exposing your personal life and problems in a memoir or releasing a work of fiction, such as “Stern Men,” your first novel?
A: I don’t get afraid of putting stuff out there. I’m not a very private person. The scary part for me is trying to write the book. The thing that was terrifying was trying to invent a world for my novel. . . . I just finished another memoir on the subject of marriage. It’s a meditation on marriage. It has really helped me overcome fear, that muscle memory of fear, of being trapped in this institution that’s bigger than you are.
Q: Did you have any idea beforehand that “Eat, Pray, Love,” might be such a big hit?
A: Nope. I was anticipating the opposite. The little bit of literary reputation I had as a writer before that was as an edgy, sarcastic magazine journalist. Readers knew me as a female writer who wrote about men. I thought, ‘I’m really going to disappoint those people.’ A lot of men didn’t read “Eat, Pray, Love” because of the cover and its apparent girlishness.
Q: Were you self- conscious at all, writing a memoir in your mid-30s?
A: I wasn’t self-conscious about my youth. I just didn’t want to come across as this airy-fairy, flaky, flaky person. I was much more concerned about writing about God. I was bracing myself for some sort of negative reaction from serious Christians. I didn’t get one. Or at least it was not directed at me.
Q: What has happened to the people you wrote about in “Eat, Pray, Love” in the past couple of years?
A: I married the Brazilian (Felipe). We live in New Jersey. We have a warehouse full of things from Asia and run an import business called Two Buttons. Ketut (the Indonesian medicine man) is good. Sadly, his wife, that wonderful woman, passed away. Wayan’s (the natural healer’s) business is thriving. “Richard from Texas” is great.
That year was so mighty in my life, I’ll always want to stay close with those people.
Gilbert speaks
For more of an update, attend her lecture at Mile Hi Church. For ticket information, call 303-232-4079, or visit . Tickets are $45.
