IndieView with Jessica Levine, author of Three Cousins |

Shaping the story were experiences I had in college being part of three-women friendship groups; relationships with cousins close to my age; visits to Yale and New Haven that I made because my best friend from high school went there; and living in New Haven with my husband for three years when he was an assistant professor at Yale. 

Jessica Levine – 2 May 2025

The Back Flap

Set during the excitement and tumult of the second wave of feminism and the sexual revolution, this coming-of-age novel about female friendship in the 1970s will appeal to fans of Kristin Hannah’s Firefly Lane.

It’s 1976, the second wave of feminism is in full swing, and three cousins share an apartment at Yale. Two are seniors; the third is starting graduate school. Each is seeking her own path in both love and work—but all three women, not quite knowing how to use the new freedoms available to them, alternate between supporting and undermining each other in their efforts.

Julia, the most conventional of the three, wants the security of her monogamous relationship with Ben but is attracted to other men. Anna plans on traveling the world to escape her boyfriend and alcoholic mother. Robin, who is bisexual, has various partners as she dreams of open relationships. All fall under the spell of a charismatic musician, Michael, who is too wounded to be available. By the end of a year of experiments and necessary mistakes, the cousins will make crucial decisions that will determine the course of the rest of their lives.

This prequel to Levine’s first two critically acclaimed novels, The Geometry of Love and Nothing Forgotten, dramatizes the struggles that women have faced and continue to face while entering adulthood in a world not quite ready to accept them as equals.

About the book

What is the book about?

Three Cousins is a coming-of-age story about three women living together in college in the 1970s. They lovingly support but also sometimes undermine each other as they navigate relationships and career decisions. The narrative unfolds over the course of a year in which each woman needs to make crucial decisions in both love and work. It is also a story about family, for the mothers are strong characters in their own right.

This novel is a prequel to the two others I’ve written. Whereas The Geometry of Love focuses on cousin Julia and Nothing Forgotten on Anna, Three Cousins, as the title suggests, is an ensemble story that includes not only Julia and Anna but also a third cousin, Robin.

When did you start writing the book?

I started writing the book in 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic; however, the seeds of it were planted decades ago in an early draft of a never published novel.

How long did it take you to write it?

Three years, including revising and rewriting.

Where did you get the idea from?

This was conceived as a prequel to my previous two novels. Originally my plan was to move forward in time from Nothing Forgotten to a novel about Robin in adulthood, but I got stuck because I didn’t know Robin well enough. That led me to going back in time to the youth of all three characters, which gave me the opportunity to develop Robin’s backstory and behavioral patterns. Now that I’ve written Three Cousins, I can move on to writing her story.

Shaping the story were experiences I had in college being part of three-women friendship groups; relationships with cousins close to my age; visits to Yale and New Haven that I made because my best friend from high school went there; and living in New Haven with my husband for three years when he was an assistant professor at Yale.

Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?

I always struggle with the endings of my novels, but I’ve been fortunate enough to have editors and readers who have provided inspiring comments and brilliant suggestions. In the case of Three Cousins, I had to add an additional chapter, then rewrite it several times, before bringing the story to a satisfying conclusion.

What came easily?

Once I had the idea of going back in time to a period before my first two novels, the writing of Three Cousins came fairly easily because I had carried these characters at a subconscious level for a very long time.

Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?

Each of the three cousins in my novel is a collage of at least two or three women I’ve known in my life – both cousins and friends. Additionally, each cousin reflects a different aspect of my own personality and a different chapter of my life. Ultimately, each cousin incarnates a different set of qualities that gets activated at the threshold to adulthood: Julia incarnates prudence, Anna is the adventurous traveler, and Robin seeks to know herself through multiple intimate relationships.

Only two of the characters were inspired directly by my relatives: Iris is based closely on my own grandmother, a resilient and joyous spirit who immigrated in steerage from Belarus at the age of nine and turned herself into a well-read and well-traveled grande dame later in life. And Doris, who is mentioned only briefly in Three Cousins but appears as a central character in Nothing Forgotten, is inspired by an aunt of mine who moved to Rome in the 1950s and hosted me one summer . . . which led to my living in Italy for a year and a half.

We all know how important it is for writers to read. Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write and, if so, how have they influenced you?

E.M. Forster was a major influence on my understanding of plot construction. All his novels have an efficient engine consisting of a main plot and one or more subplots. The subplots invariably come to their own climaxes about two thirds of the way into the story before triggering the final movement of the main story.

Henry James was another important writer to me and a subject of my doctoral dissertation. James is a master at capturing the ambivalences, games, misunderstandings, and intimacies that influence the course of relationships.

In conceiving of a multi-volume series spanning decades, I was inspired by Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, which I read in my early twenties. I was also influenced by the multiple points of view in Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet and VIrginia Woolf’s The Waves. Of course these writers focus on longing, betrayal, heartbreak, and memory – themes I love to explore in fiction, too.

Do you have a target reader?

Smart women who are interested in reading about smart women. Feminist men who want to understand women better and are interested in relationships.

About Writing

Do you have a writing process? If so can you please describe it?

I generally have a long process of sitting on a novel before I write it. Think of a broody hen. Then I have a preliminary outline, I write twenty or a hundred pages, I stop and put it aside for some months. I get some more ideas, come back to it, rewrite the outline, rewrite the beginning chapters, move on to the middle.

Do you outline? If so, do you do so extensively or just chapter headings and a couple of sentences?

Yes, I do outline, indicating key scenes. I usually have a “projected outline” and a “working outline”. My projected outline is my initial rough plan for the book; it may be more or less detailed. The working outline is my summary, chapter by chapter, of what I actually end up doing, whether it’s sticking to what I projected or not.

If you’ve read hundreds of novels, dramatic structure comes fairly intuitively. However, there is always more to learn. I have started plotting my next novel (Robin’s story) and am using James Scott Bell’s short but brilliant guide, Write Your Novel from the Middle, which follows a method of structuring a story around what he calls “signpost scenes.”  I’m finding it very useful and inspiring.

Do you edit as you go or wait until you’ve finished?

A little of both. I reread myself a lot as I go along, rewriting and revising each segment. Then once it’s done, there are multiple rounds of editing influenced by outside readers.

Did you hire a professional editor?

I had two editors, one for more global issues, the other for copy-editing.

Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?

Generally I write in silence in order to hear my own thoughts, and I’ve been writing for so long that I just do it. But sometimes if there’s internal interference (self-doubt, emotional upset, creative block), I will put on music with a strong beat and no language.

About Publishing

Did you submit your work to Agents?

I had an agent for my previous two novels, but parted ways with her for this one.

What made you decide to go Indie, whether self-publishing or with an indie publisher? Was it a particular event or a gradual process?

When my agent wasn’t able to get me a contract with a big five or small press for my first novel, The Geometry of Love, she introduced me to Brooke Warner, who had just started a new hybrid press called She Writes Press. I liked and admired Brooke and signed on. I’ve been happy with SWP and have stayed there for Nothing Forgotten and Three Cousins. Midlife and older women find it very difficult to get published these days, and Brooke has been our champion.

Did you get your book cover professionally done or did you do it yourself?

She Writes Press has a terrific designer who took care of it for me, guided by my suggestions. One of the things that I love about hybrid publishing is that the author is invited to be a participant in many of the production decisions.

Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?

The firm I hired for publicity, Books Forward, also does marketing, and I am planning to use them for online marketing.

Any advice that you would like to give to other newbies considering becoming Indie authors?

Keep your ear to the ground about the indie publishing world. Subscribe to IBPA, read Poets & Writers, go to conferences, talk to people. New presses are being founded all the time, the publishing industry is going through a sea change, and it pays to know what’s going on.

About You

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in New York City before living in Paris, Rome, Toronto, Princeton, and New Haven.

Where do you live now?

I live in Berkeley, California. I love it here and hope to remain.

What would you like readers to know about you?

Besides writing novels, I also have a hypnotherapy practice. For relaxation, I enjoy drawing, hiking and nature photography.

What are you working on now?

I have started writing the story of the third cousin, Robin, which will take place in her fifties. The Cousins Series as a whole will span the lifetimes of three women from college years through the last decades of life.

End of Interview:

For more from Jessica Levine visit her website and follow her on Instagram.

Get you copy of Three Cousins from Amazon US.