“The Orange Blossom Special” author Betsy Carter has built an astonishing career out of crafting good stories.

Carter has found material in everything from sewers and sewer treatment plants (she was a reporter for McGraw Hill’s Air and Water Pollution Newsletter right out of college) to the travails of the modern woman (in the 1980s she founded New York Woman, a magazine that was in its day the apotheosis of the urbane, witty women’s magazine).

But that’s not all. Carter has also done stints as a writer and editor at Newsweek and The Atlantic Monthly—and as the editorial director of Esquire. And as the editorial director of Harper’s Bazaar. As the editor-in-chief of New Woman, too. She even successfully catered to the “early retiree” demographic when she founded My Generation, an AARP magazine for the 50-to-60-year-old set (“not working, still swinging”).

After My Generation was folded into the AARP’s main magazine, Carter set out to tell yet another story—her own.

Carter’s 2002 memoir, “Nothing To Fall Back On,” rivals Lemony Snicket’s “A Series of Unfortunate Events” for Job-esque disasters faced with perseverance worthy of, well, Job, including a traumatic childhood move to Florida, a closeted husband, a house-destroying fire, a folded magazine, and breast cancer. Although she emerged on the other side married to the love of her life, she demonstrated a playful ease with pain that only comes with experience and a damned strong sense of the absurd.

In conversation, Carter’s interest in anecdotes is immediately apparent. She leans in and listens intently and patiently. It isn’t a search for gossip, but for the reality of the raconteur’s life. In return, she’ll tell of her own life, digging into her feelings and her actions and making her listener quickly understand why this or that emotion or incident is worth hearing. It is a personality that shimmers as few do.

Carter’s impressive résumé proves one thing incontrovertibly: she knows how to tell a story. Carter’s recently published first novel, “The Orange Blossom Special,” continues the streak. It is the story of widow Tessie Lockhart and her 13-year-old daughter Dinah as they move from Carbondale, Illinois, to Gainesville, Florida, in the 1950s. The novel traces their interaction with the Florida town’s residents, particularly the prominent Landy family—with whom the Lockharts quickly become intertwined—and the historical events of the next 20 years.

The Crimson talked to Carter about the lesbian and Baptist undercurrent in her book, why she started writing fiction, and why the political situation outlined in her book looks so familiar.

THC: Why would college students be interested in “Special?”

BC: It is about a time in history that I think has affected everything that is going on right now. The period had such a large social and political impact and I think the ramifications of it are still being felt.

Also, it’s a kind of universal story: it’s about people coming together forming friendships, dealing with loss, and forming friendships out of loss. And about what happens when you allow magic in your life.

THC: How did you come to write your first novel?

BC: I always wanted to write fiction. But I’ve had a fairly eventful life, and I knew that if I didn’t write a memoir the people and the events from my life would keep showing up fictionalized. I kind of needed to get rid of them in the memoir before I could start this project. The day I handed in the memoir, I started writing a short story and that short story became this novel. As a journalist I find fiction a very liberating form of writing: not everything has to be true.

THC: How does the process of writing a novel differ from that of a memoir?

BC: I had to stick to the facts. In fiction, you can kill a character and then you miss her and you can bring her back to life. It doesn’t work that way in memoir writing.