Infidelity, obviously, is not exclusive to the male sector of the population, although that tends to be the pop culture stereotype. In "Still Life with Husband," the debut novel by Milwaukee author Lauren Fox, it is the woman who is unfaithful to her husband.
"It is a novel about Emily Ross. She is 30 and married to her college sweetheart," explains Fox. "It's the time in marriage where they're wanting different things -- he wants kids, she feels not ready. They're at a point of crisis. She has a sparky meeting with a person at a coffee shop and they have an affair."
Fox got her inspiration mainly from the way that the media addresses cheating and infidelity.
"I guess I had been thinking about how media pays attention to men cheating," Fox says. "I happen to know it's not just the men doing the straying. I wanted to know if it would be a possible to be sympathetic, not necessarily condone choices, but root for the main character."
Fox set "Still Life With Husband" in Milwaukee and there are shades of familiar places, although they've been renamed.
"I could have set it anywhere I lived, which is not many places," she says. "I'm terrible with geography. I think if I set it somewhere I lived before it'd be really different. I grew up here and it's just so familiar. It's the natural place to set the book."
But Fox says that while Emily lives where the author does and has similar features, Lauren and Emily are not the same person.
"There are some (similar) superficial details. I sort of based her home setting on mine. She kind of looks like me," Fox says. "But it's so I can access her inner world."
The same goes for the rest of the characters in her book, like the prominent best friend Meg.
"I based her on a bunch of different people. I'm lucky enough to have a lot of Megs in my life, plenty of smart, insightful women in my life," Fox says. "She's made up. It's funny to write a book where some of the characters resemble real people."
Throughout her 4-year writing process she didn't want anyone stepping in to ruin her flow. Instead, she was a part of a writing group where she would be able to get feedback from people on things she did need help with.
Fox is married, which begs the questions of how her husband felt that she was writing a novel about an unfaithful wife.
"He knew. The obvious jumping off point: Was it weird for him?" she says. "It's so obviously fiction. I did put in some physical similarities to me, but I did it to get into (Emily's) psyche. Fiction writers do make up stuff. How truthful is this? It's fiction. It's a different kind of truth."
Originally from Des Plaines, Ill., Heather moved to Milwaukee to earn a B.A. in journalism from Marquette University. With a tongue-twisting last name like Leszczewicz, it's best to go into a career where people don't need to say your name often.
However, she's still sticking to some of her Illinoisan ways (she won't reform when it comes to things like pop, water fountain or ATM), though she's grown to enjoy her time in the Brew City.
Although her journalism career is still budding, Heather has had the chance for some once-in-a-lifetime interviews with celebrities like actor Vince Vaughn and actress Charlize Theron, director Cameron Crowe and singers Ben Kweller and Isaac Hanson of '90s brother boy band Hanson.
Heather's a self-proclaimed workaholic but loves her entertainment. She's a real television and movie fanatic, book nerd, music junkie, coffee addict and pop culture aficionado.
