Lynn Lurie is the author of three
novels, Corner of the Dead (2008),
winner of the Juniper Prize, Quick Kills,
which Brian Evenson describes as "filled with quiet menace" and Museum of Stones, which Noy Holland
writes "a dreamy, haunting, clamorous book but one of the bravest souls
anywhere." Her short fiction has appears in Vol. 1 Brooklyn and Midnight
Breakfast.
1 - How did your first
book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous?
How does it feel different? Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your
writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What
do you even think the current questions are?
My
first book gave me reassurance I could write. This allowed me to work on the
second, which, because of the subject matter, was a more difficult project. I might not have attempted the second without
the sense that people I respected had praised my work. My fiction circles around a few central questions
I have been working and reworking throughout my life: the capacity and depth of
human cruelty, the ways in which we manage grief and how we cope with personal
failure. While the subject matter may be similar in my novels, each has
challenged me to write differently. I am
most interested in words. The subject matter is secondary.
2 - How did you come to
fiction first, as opposed to, say, poetry or non-fiction?
Fiction
makes most sense because I am not relegated to the facts. It allows me great
latitude to reconfigure memory in the hope of creating something that is
emotionally true but not necessarily factually accurate.
3 - How long does it take
to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come
quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their
final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
It
seems to be a five year or more process to write a novel. I need to live with
my characters and allow them time to develop. I do not have an outline or an
idea of the structure until I am well underway. It is a bit of a mosaic where I
am looking for the right spot for a fragment and then a way to link them into
something whole. This was especially true of Museum of Stones, where I often
was a moving around of index cards.
4 - Where does a work
of prose usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up
combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from
the very beginning?
A
book, in that I am not good at the pacing requirements of a short story. I like
the length of a novella and the idea that the work is best read in one sitting.
A story might begin with an image, something I have seen either in life or in a
book, or something I have heard, a conversation or parts of conversations. The
beginning is something like scaffolding or a nucleus. From there I build the
story.
5 - Are public readings
part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who
enjoys doing readings? What do you see the current role of the writer being in
larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the
writer should be?
I
do enjoy reading my work to others. Listeners tend to see or intuit something
in addition to or different from how I think I saw it. The immediacy of the
interaction provides me with an opportunity to see how the work is perceived. Etruscan press has a very successful outreach
program, which involves bringing books and authors to underserved high schools.
I have also been able to work with incarcerated men and women who have, through
Etruscan, received my book. These readers are the most diligent. I do not think the writer needs to have a
larger purpose, but for me, attempting to bring reading and literature to
groups who have never owned a book is an honor.
6. Do you find the
process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
An
outside editor I trust is essential. I am not a generous writer in that I want
to provide the minimum of information and my hope is it is enough for the
reader to become a part of the story.
This requires the writing to be precise, almost exact. A close
reader/editor gives me confidence that I am conveying what I intend. The process of writing is a solo venture, and
I am a hermit so it helps a great deal to circulate pieces of my writing as it
is evolving.
7. When your writing gets stalled, where do you
turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
When
stalled I will read go out into the world and listen to regular conversations
on the street, or go to a museum. The books I read when I am stuck vary
although I think it is fair to say that I gravitate to writing for its style
rather than its content. The other day I wandered into a gallery and the
installation was a film in black and white of two pairs of hands creating a
scene from tin foil. This led me to remember a story I had heard read about a
waiter in a restaurant who made a foil dinosaur for a child’s leftovers. In the
story he kept going back to the kitchen to make more and different forms. In
the end he created for the child an entire universe. On the day I sat in the
gallery foil took me in an entirely new direction—it seemed to represent our
craving to communicate, to transcend the usual, and in doing so it allows us to
witness, if not implement, incremental change.
8. What fragrance
reminds you of home?
Eucalyptus.
I lived in rural highland Ecuador for a
number of years and every evening and morning there was the smell of the
villagers burning Eucalyptus branches for their cook fires. I will never smell
Eucalyptus without feeling I am walking down the path to the barn where I once lived.
Even in the daytime when no fires were burning the wind passing through the
Eucalyptus trees created the scent of Eucalyptus. Although Ecuador was never
formally home, it is the place where I learned what links all of us.
9. If you could pick
any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you
think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer? What made
you write?
I
have had a lot of different occupations in my life. They all add up to a whole.
Each occupation has been important to my writing. I am grateful to have done
other things. Writing is so personal and often harrowing. I didn’t begin as a
writer but came to it because I needed to make sense of things that had
suddenly overtaken me. I was working as a lawyer and when I found myself
writing briefs with descriptions and emotions I knew it was a sign I needed to
write about something that was far more important to me at that moment in time.
10. What was the last
great book you read?
In Our Mad and Furious
Cityby Guy Gunaratne is on the list. Lately there is a group of books by respected
authors who have attempted to describe the immigrant experience. He goes to the
heart of the grief of the immigrant experience and through his use of dialect
he brings us along. His placement of words, his sentences are breathtaking. David Chariandy’s Brother is very beautiful
as if all of Miriam Toews’ work.
11. What are you
currently working on?
Currently
I am reading. I haven’t felt the need to write.
12. David McFadden once
said that books come from books but are there any other forms that influence
your work?
I
began as a black and white photographer. All visual arts remain a source of
influence for me but it is language that most moves me. Translating has also
been something that has made me linger over each word and meaning. Music less
so, but the speaking of voices, hearing conversations, the cadences of
conversation are something I listen to and appreciate.
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