Cotati novelist celebrates fourth novel, birthday and wine

Barbara Quick and Wayne Roden have cause for celebration. Her fourth novel is about to launch and three of his wines recently were awarded medals at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, regarded as the world’s largest competition for North American wines.

So it’s only fitting that Quick’s novel, “What Disappears,” rolls out next month on her birthday – her 68th – with a book signing and discussion followed by birthday cake and a 2021 pinot gris produced by Roden Wines, the boutique hobby vineyard located at their home in the Russian River Valley Appellation in western Cotati.

Roden, 73, a violist with the San Francisco Symphony and a vigneron for more than 15 years, traded his usual wine label featuring the outline of a viola for a commemorative design for the book launch: a label showcasing the “What Disappears” book cover with its depiction of the Eiffel Tower.

Much of “What Disappears” is set in Paris, where the main characters both get jobs with Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, one as a seamstress, the other as an extra ballerina, all amidst a story of mystery, intrigue, longing, love, betrayal and tragedy of the early 1900s.

In promotional materials, American Book Award Recipient Stephanie Cowell, author of “Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet” and “Marrying Mozart,” noted that “What Disappears” is “hard to put down and impossible to forget.” Maryland Poet Laureate Grace Cavalieri praised Quick’s novel for its “musical complexity and vivid sensuality” and its “gripping emotional appeal.”

Celebrating their works

The book launch is a complementary occasion for Quick and Roden, who prefer their artistic pursuits over the business of marketing and promotion. It’s a chance to celebrate their works – Roden’s double-gold pinot noir, silver merlot and bronze cabernet sauvignon medals and Quick’s engaging novel about identical twin sisters born to a Jewish family in 1880 Tsarist Russia who are separated as infants and grow up apart, one in Kishinev, one in Paris.

Quick and Roden are proud of one another. He is quick to praise his wife’s talents as a novelist and poet; she was the one who encouraged him to enter the Chronicle competition, his first ever.

She’s also a fan of his musical talents, rarely missing an opportunity to watch him perform at Davies Symphony Hall. Roden is now in his 48th season with the symphony, its senior member. “No one has been there longer than I have at this point,” he said.

The couple met on a blind date in 2008. They shared email correspondences after a mutual acquaintance – a classmate of Roden’s in the viticulture department at Santa Rosa Junior College – suggested the meetup. Quick lived in Berkeley at the time and remembers Roden visiting after his symphony performances.

“He came in tails and his viola,” Quick said. “It was so romantic. He was like Prince Charming.”

Roden laughed. “It was work clothing for me.”

They – and their interests – were a match. “I had always been interested in writing,” Roden said. “Barbara has a very good ear. Barbara is very discerning in her musical taste and opinions.”

They married in 2011, with Quick moving to the picturesque Cotati property where Roden, a native of Alabama, has resided for nearly 34 years.

Pursuits of wine and writing

Roden planted 500 grape vines in 2006, mostly pinot noir, but also pinot gris. Roden Wines has celebrated 14 harvests, with Roden obtaining his license to sell wine in 2017. He’s content with a hobby vineyard; less than a third of their more than 3-acre property is planted in vines. His winemaker is Lisa Bishop Forbes, who works collaboratively with Roden.

“For me, it’s about the love of making wine, the interest in wine,” he said. “It pleases me to make good wine and be recognized for it.”

While music and wine keep Roden busy, Quick is equally dedicated to her craft. She’s won several awards for her writing, both as a poet and novelist. Her 2007 novel, “Vivaldi’s Virgins,” was published in a dozen languages, made into an audiobook, and is now in development for a mini-series. Award-winning film and television director and screenwriter Agnieszka Holland is slated to direct.

Quick’s accolades include the 2020 Blue Light Press Poetry Prize for “The Light on Sifnos,” a poetry chapbook. Five of her poems were recorded by Garrison Keillor for his daily podcast and newsletter, “The Writer's Almanac.”

Her debut novel, “Northern Edge,” won the Discover: Great New Writers Prize when it was published in 1990. Her works include “A Golden Web,” a young adult novel set in 14th century Bologna, about the Western World’s first female anatomist, Alessandra Giliani.

Both she and Roden have traveled considerably. He’s toured with the symphony in Europe, Japan and Asia. Renowned concert halls including Musikverein in Vienna; Carnegie Hall in New York City; Concertgebouw in Amsterdam; and the Royal Albert Hall in London are among his favorite performance locales.

Shaped by their experiences

Roden began violin lessons at age 8.

“I hated it with blind passion for a while,” he said. “I stuck with it and got better.”

At 19, he switched instruments to the viola, larger in size and with a different register. He studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts and Northern Illinois University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in music.

When he was drafted during the Vietnam War, he became a member of the Strolling Strings of the U.S. Army Band, performing at the White House at state dinners and receptions. He also performed at officers’ clubs in the Washington, D.C. area and in a patriotic pageant at the Kennedy Center.

In 1974, he was hired by the San Francisco Symphony, the first time he auditioned for a professional orchestra. “I was fortunate to get it,” he said.

Quick, who grew up in Los Angeles, has lived or traveled extensively in Italy, Spain, Greece, the British Isles, Hungary, France, Brazil and Alaska. She has been writing and dancing (mostly Afro-Brazilian) most of her life.

“I honestly can say writing and dancing have saved my life over and over and over again,” she said.

She grew up in a “wildly dysfunctional” Jewish family, but didn’t attend synagogue until she was an adult. She considered becoming an actress and was in productions from ages 9 to 17, but with high school classmates like (now-famous actresses) Lorna Luft and Katey Sagal, she didn’t get starring roles. Instead she earned a degree in English from UC Santa Cruz, with a minor in French.

Weaving worlds together in latest novel

Quick wrote her first poem at age 9 and decades ago began writing what became “What Disappears,” when an acquaintance offered her the use of an “unwinterized” stone cottage in rural Ireland.

She nearly froze and lost “an alarming amount of weight” during her nine months there as a starving writer, but began to develop her novel, originally titled “A Russian Winter.” Much was culled from her grandmother’s life experiences, “stories that fascinated me,” Quick said.

“Over forty years I’ve carried this book around inside me,” she said. “It took a very long time for this story to mature.”

Her meticulous research is considerable. For “What Disappears,” she weaves together the world of Ballets Russes and European history, depicting everything from graceful ballet moves and high fashions of the Belle Époque to the bloodied horrors of Russian pogroms.

“I have a huge responsibility to the reader,” Quick said, “to make sure all the historical stuff is accurate.”

She is surprised no one else embraced the topic.

“It was all there. I can’t believe no one wrote this novel before. It’s so potent, that world of dancers,” she said.

She’s excited about her upcoming book launch – and finally getting “What Disappears” into readers’ hands. “It’s not about making money from my books,” she said, “it’s having people read what I write.”