BOULDER TEACHER WRITES MEMOIR ABOUT FAMOUS SIS
“Is this good enough?”
The question raced in Boulder elementary teacher Cara Mentzel’s mind as she stretched to reach decades back into memories she shared with her big sister — Broadway, TV and movie star Idina Menzel.
“Do people care?” she wondered.
Yes, her husband, Mark, told her — put in the time and you’ll be fine.
“That’s when I decided to stop worrying about it and to do it,” Mentzel said over coffee at Ozo in Boulder. “Even when I got the book deal and had to sign on the line that I would do it, I didn’t know if I could. I was betting on it, but writing a whole book is intimidating.”
She did it. “Voice Lessons: A Sisters Story” hit shelves last week after a whirlwind publicity trip around New York with her big sister.
Mentzel uses her family’s original surname spelling; Idina dropped the silent “T.”
To be clear: She’s not riding the coattails of Idina’s fame, Mentzel said. The idea was actually her big sister’s, whom she calls Dee. Menzel, a Tony-winning actor who played the original green-skinned witch, Elphaba, from “Wicked,” Maureen in “Rent” and voiced powerful snow queen Elsa in “Frozen,” among many other roles, was approached to write a memoir.
Mentzel, a literacy teacher at Foothill Elementary for the past 13 years and University of Colorado graduate, has always fed her writer’s bug. In her free time, she’d pen whimsical short stories about life’s journeys, which her family fondly cherished. So Menzel’s proposition for Cara to write her sister’s memoir was an opportune one for the singer, yet a thought-provoking one for the Boulder teacher.
“I know how to write, but I don’t know how to write a book,” Mentzel said, laughing. “In a memoir you have to be able to tell stories with the memories you have. You have to start with the things you remember then
you cross your fingers that the things you remember are meaningful.”
The 256-page memoir from St. Martin’s Press is voiced by the younger Mentzel as she grew up under the umbrella of a sister with a commanding voice and acting talent, with a forward penned by Menzel. Like fictional Anna and Elsa, the sisters were best friends, sometimes foes, playmates, support systems and shoulders to cry on through life’s ups and downs.
The heartwarming tale is a breezy read, and the local love Mentzel gives Boulder is entertaining — such as when Menzel sang “Respect” at Sushi Zanmai’s karaoke while visiting Cara in college after she fled her hometown of Syosset, N.Y.
“I’d moved a thousand miles away from home to a place where her voice was quiet enough for me to begin to hear my own, and it seemed like Dina knew that was what I needed to do,” Mentzel pens in “Voice Lessons.”
Mentzel has lived in Boulder for the majority of her adult life, although “I don’t always feel like I embody Boulder,” she said, as “I am not a runner, or a climber, or a cyclist, or anything.” But she loves the food, the view from her house, the seasons, the sun and raising her two boys, Jake, 15, and Avery, 19, along with her stepson, Oscar, 22.
Like many sisters, it was her relationship with Dee that “influenced who I became,” she said.
They see each other a couple times a year, and talk on the phone a lot, Mentzel said, but the majority of time, she is standing in the shadows of the limelight as Dee graces red carpets, appears on TV shows such as “Glee” and had her truncated marriage to Taye Diggs splashed on magazine covers.
Sure, Idina’s presence was larger than life, but she was foremost Cara’s sister — from summer camp and eating dirt to ’80s perms and first kisses. Mentzel offers a heartwarming jog through pop culture and memory lane for all who grew up with a sibling.
“There’s so much universal experiences and yet in my story, there’s the added flair of this fame juice, this extraordinary talent piece,” she said. “You get this other element that isn’t universally relatable and people are fascinated by it. But the bulk of the story is still about these universal feelings told through the eyes of someone that is very normal. That was what I thought would be really nice about it — as someone who reads People Magazine.”
Through all the challenges of busy schedules, Cara said Idina would always answer her phone — from New York to Los Angeles — to help a sobbing Cara, whose first marriage was failing, to bail Cara out of the Broomfield jail after a domestic dispute or to purchase Cara a home in Louisville for her and her boys while down on their luck. Idina was Cara’s rock.
And now it’s time for Cara turn to sign autographs, take selfies with fans and answer interview questions.
“It feels kind of stupid,” she said, her pleasant laughter filling Ozo’s space. “It kind of feels kinda stupid. It feels really bizarre. And invigorating. And terrifying.”
The humble Cara, who often undersells herself and comically talks more about her flaws than her strengths, said she’ll still remain in the shadows, and she’s fine with that. At 43, Cara found her voice — one that can soar on its own without a shining star, one that can echo through Boulder Valley with shining prose.
Still, taking limo rides through Hollywood with the sisters en route to starstudded engagements while wearing (borrowed) million-dollar diamonds doesn’t hurt the memoir one bit. (Remember when John Travolta flubbed Idina’s name at the 2014 Oscars? “Adel Dazeem,” he called her, ahead of the star singing the awardwinning “Let It Go.” Cara humorously recalls the moment while she sat mortified in the audience, down the row from Bono.)
Cara’s family dynamics are emotional, poignant, relatable and touching. The situations Cara and Idina encounter are witty and humorous with meaningful dialogue. The journey the reader takes through the life of these sisters is a delightful treat.