Long Island's Brenda Janowitz talks about her glitzy 'Liz Taylor Ring'

Sunday would have been the 90th birthday of Elizabeth Taylor, and if she were still here, she'd be getting a lovely present — a fictional homage to her red-hot romance with Richard Burton, and the major jewelry that came with it. It's "The Liz Taylor Ring" (Graydon House, $16.99), a family drama set on Long Island, the seventh novel by Muttontown's Brenda Janowitz.

As with Janowitz's preceding book, "The Grace Kelly Dress," the plot revolves around a family heirloom associated with an iconic movie star. The Liz Taylor ring is — or was — a "D-color, 11-carat, Asscher-cut diamond" given by Ritchie Schneider to his wife, Lizzie, when they got back together after a nine-month separation.

Their three children, Addy, Nathan, and Courtney, all agree that the ring is long gone, but they differ on what became of it — was it stolen out of a hotel safe? Gambled away by their dad? Dropped into his coffin by their mom, not long for this world herself?

"None of these stories are true. All of these stories are true. More than one thing can be true at once," the knowing narrator informs us. Meanwhile, the ring has turned up in a safe deposit box in the Cayman Islands, and each of the siblings is ready to snatch it for their own.

As further Schneider family drama unfolds, the homage to Taylor weaves through the plot. Not only do Lizzie and Ritchie share their first names with the famous couple, but their last name, Schneider, is German for tailor.

We caught up with Janowitz on Zoom to find out more.

Your seventh novel, like several of its predecessors, is set on the South Shore of Long Island where you grew up. But you seem a little too young to have been living the high life of Lizzie and Ritchie in the '70s.

I interviewed friends and family about their lives on Long Island at that time, and got awesome responses. I tried to capture the mood of the period, the nightlife, the clubs. As my editor, Melanie Fried, who's also from here, calls it — Long Island glamour.

On one of their first dates, Lizzie and Ritchie leave a house party and go out to a restaurant — I was picturing A.J.'s in Atlantic Beach, a long-gone spot on the bay side. As a South Shore girl, Lizzie gets confused for a moment when she can't figure out where the ocean is, yet she's looking at water.

Gambling is big in both generations of the Schneider family, and many twists are caused by their wins and losses. Is there anything autobiographical here?

Well, I definitely have gambled quite a lot in my day. My dad loved to gamble, too, and we spent a lot of weekends in Atlantic City, so those scenes were based on experiences I had. But you know, I'm a writer — I'm not that good at math. When my husband read it, he was like, you've got the odds all wrong. You can't have been a very good gambler.

Courtney, the youngest sibling, who has just lost her apartment in Los Angeles to her bookie and is probably an alcoholic, was my favorite character. The first thing she does when she comes to town is start a house fire while trying to cook a steak.

Actually, the first thing she does is tell Nathan's husband, Diego, that Nathan doesn't want the secret birthday party he's planning. In my head, it was Courtney flying into their life and metaphorically burning their house down. Then I was like, "Oh wait. She's going to burn their house down!" There's also a little autobiography here — having once started a fire in my kitchen that almost burned my house down. I have experience with that.

So we've had The Grace Kelly Dress, The Liz Taylor Ring... what's next?

The Audrey Hepburn Estate.

Really?

Yes! Out next year. It's heavily influenced by the movie "Sabrina," a love triangle, which was filmed on an estate in Glen Cove.

More Long Island glamour!

Always.