Interview: D. R. Hildebrand

Author D.R. Hildebrand

by James Tuttle

D. R. Hildebrand, a model, is the author of Walking Marina.

JAMES:  Just how autobiographical is Walking Marina?  There are some pretty graphic sexual situations involving the protagonist whose name also begins with a “D” and more than one involves a cash transaction.  Hmmm.

D. R.:  So essentially you want to know if I’m a big ho’.  Nope.  Sorry, James, it’s fiction.  But it feels real—thank you—because it’s inspired by years at castings, listening to models tell some very graphic stories.   I started creating a plot out of their diverse and intriguing experiences, peppered here and there with some of my own.  But it certainly isn’t autobiographical, which is better because my life really isn’t all that fascinating.

JAMES:  You paint a vivid picture in your book of the Great Divide in the business between male and female models, where the girls are working steadily and the guys are waiting for scraps.  Do you think that it’s possible that, male or female, the most in-demand faces are getting all the jobs whether it’s Lara Stone and Karlie Kloss or Jon Kortajarena and Clement Chabernaud?

D. R.:  Definitely!  And that’s part of the reason why I wrote the last chapter as I did, but when women are booking 80% to 90% of all modeling jobs in New York, it’s difficult to argue that any parity exists.  An article in V Man a few years back put it all quite plainly: “Modeling has always been a woman’s world—economics and simple psychology have conspired to make it so.”  Walking Marina simply exposes this world.  It takes modeling, the most obvious exception to patriarchy’s rule of supremacy, and uses it as a mirror.