Reading Anna

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For a few days in December, three Barnard alums brought their unique gifts together in a Los Angeles studio for a kind of accidental collaboration between alumnae spanning generations. Anna Quindlen ’74, the acclaimed and decorated writer, didn’t realize it at the time, but her latest novel became an audiobook at the hands of two Barnard alums.

Actor Gilli Messer ’10 narrated the book, and audiobook producer Molly Lo Ray ’17 produced the recording. Quindlen’s novel After Annie, which came out in February, follows Annie’s husband, oldest child, and best friend as they grapple with her sudden death. Lo Ray read it months earlier in preparation for producing the recording.

“This one stopped me in my tracks,” says Lo Ray, who produced the audio version of Quindlen’s book on writing, Write for Your Life, and jumped at the chance to work with Quindlen yet again, especially on this novel. “The writing is gorgeous; the characters are so real. It was definitely far and away the most moving book I worked on last year,” says Lo Ray.It was Lo Ray’s idea to contact Messer to narrate the novel. The two had worked together in the past. Once they discovered they’d both attended Barnard, they reveled in the connection.

“There’s such a sense of warmth,” says Lo Ray. “It’s amazing.”

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As Lo Ray read Quindlen’s manuscript, she could already hear Messer’s voice telling the story. “She is such a brilliant narrator. There’s a coolness to her narration, a detachment, but at the same time, her voice has love in it. It was the perfect tone for the book.” Lo Ray reached out to Quindlen, offering her the audition tapes of a few narrators, hoping she’d choose Messer. “I didn’t lead her towards Gilli, but immediately she wrote me back and said, ‘It’s got to be her,’” recalls Lo Ray.

Making the recording was a labor of love for Messer and Lo Ray. Messer, who began narrating audiobooks several years ago, said when Penguin Random House Audio approached her about

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performing the narration, she was thrilled to be working with Lo Ray again. When she found out she’d be recording Quindlen’s new novel, she was beside herself: “I said, ‘Oh my gosh, [she’s] iconic.’ I was freaking out.”

The novel is drawing rave reviews from top media outlets. For Messer, the beauty of the work made it difficult to record at times. “I literally would have to stop all the time because I would just be crying. It’s so sad, so good, but amazing. So moving. The director would have to pause and give me a hug. I don’t know how [Quindlen] does that,” says Messer.

When Quindlen found out both Lo Ray and Messer were Barnard alums, she was surprised, but then again, she wasn’t.

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“On the one hand, I’m thunderstruck,” says Quindlen. “I had no idea when I listened to Gilli’s tape, and concluded that she was perfect for this, that she was a Barnard woman. Add Molly, and it seems uncanny. And yet, how many times has this happened to me? I’m interviewing a smart judge or a wonderful doctor, and after a while, it emerges: We all went to Barnard. The College produces women who do great things.”