Rebecca Curtis, Author, Twenty Grand
By Ben Kharakh
Of Rebecca Curtis, Time Out New York has said, "This is a writer who astonishes with her versatility of styles and techniques," calling her stories, "Wise and often emotionally devastating" The Village Voice declared that her debut short story collection Twenty Grand
What elements of the stories in twenty grand are drawn from things you’ve personally experienced?
Only settings.
Have you had any encounters with shysters like in Alpine Slide, burned down a house like in Hungry Self, or witnessed the death of another under similar circumstances to The Witches?
No. I wish I had though. That would be hot.
In your story Monsters, frightening beasts exist and a family must choose which member to offer up for them to eat. How do you feel your own family would handle this situation?
My family argues a lot and the tide really shifts. So I think it would be whoever was in the doghouse the most recently. Like, whoever accidentally threw away the mail that seemed like credit card offers but was really bills, or whoever ate the ice cream and put back an empty container, or you know, whoever forgot to clean their hair from the shower drain. It could be anyone.
What was the most common reader reaction to this piece?
Most people seemed to find this story stupid. I know several reviewers felt the collection would be better without it. Maybe they're right. A few people like it. One guy came up to me after a reading and thanked me for writing it. I think he felt like in his family, he'd be the one to be eaten.
I liked it. I thought that the pieces that were less grounded in reality brought an enjoyable sense of variety to the collection. Do you often find yourself delving into the absurd?
Well, thanks. I do write absurd things a lot, often in my notebook, and most of them are really silly and never see the light to day. But that's a good thing because they really are silly.
What sort of silly things do you write?
--oh, they're too silly.
How do you feel about the value of silly things compared to the value of serious things?
In order to achieve true seriousness, a piece of writing must contain a good portion of silliness. Otherwise the seriousness will be boring drivel and will never make us feel anything. Also vice versa--for something to be really funny, it has to be serious at least for a moment--to do something unexpected, you have to first establish an expectation, so some pattern or formality is needed.
Now I have a question for you: you have some awesome humor pieces on McSweeney's. Why is it that you write funny pieces and not "serious" pieces?
I was always trying to be the funny guy in the group and writing humorous pieces is just an extension of that. Why I try to be funny is a different question all together. I have yet to attempt a serious piece, although I have contemplated it and even have a project in mind called People: The Movie. I'd also like to do something on hubris. It may be that if I attempted a serious piece that it would still have elements of humor in it because of my sensibility.
What happens in "People: The movie?"
I would like it to encapsulate a part of the human condition, but outside of that I am unsure. I often like to start my pieces with the title first and work from there. It's even better if the title and the premise are the same thing, like my current screenplay project Undercover Mummy. It's 21 Jump Street meets The Mummy meets Revenge of the Nerds.
How do you think it is that a piece becomes "funny"?
Usually when I write I try to think more along the lines of "good" as opposed to funny. For example, if a boy in an English class was asked what an analogy was, I think a good answer would be "albatross". It's not necessarily funny, but I think that's good. Some people believe that incongruity is at the heart of all humor, others think it's halibut.
Define metaphor: a metaphor is an albatross! I like it. It makes perfect sense. But can you distinguish a bit more between "good" humor and "bad" humor?
What's funny is very subjective and varied in nature, but the one thing that all of my favorite humorists and comedians have in common is that their humor reflects their unique perspective. It doesn't matter if they're political, absurd, observational, or even innovative, as long as what they have to say could only be said by them. After all, if anyone can say what you've got to say, we don't need you to say it.
One of your pretty funny pieces is "Sexual Euphemisms that won't catch on" in McSweeney's. Some of the euphemisms are so weird, offbeat & hilarious as to be almost absurd, "Buying pants at Marshall's;" "Separating your colors and whites before doing the laundry;" "Trying on the sweater that Nana sent you;" "compounding 4% interest annually." Again, what's wrong with you, and how do you think of these things?
I don't actually remember how I came up with them because I wrote that when I was 15, but I believe I tried to go for activities that sounded like they were in no way sexual, although, in retrospect, some of them might act as a Rorschach test for an overly-sexualized mind. I went through a period where I was writing one list a day with the goal of not stopping until I had one published. It took 6 tries, I think. Unfortunately, at this point, having that list in the paperback edition of The Best of Humor Category is the peak of my career.
Can you think of any sexual euphemisms that *might* catch on?
That takes hours! When I made my original list, it took me an entire afternoon. For that tree scenario you mentioned, I thought about a possible sitcom name and the best I could come up with was Arbor Man (like Aqua Man) and that only came to me a few days after I wrote my original response, and it's not even good. However, I think it's a great way to spend an afternoon.
Do you ever feel torn between writing silly things and writing serious things?
No more than I feel torn between deciding on whether to have oatmeal, or toast and eggs, for breakfast. And I do feel torn about that, all the time, because I like them both so much! Oatmeal is sweet and satisfies that carbohydrate craving, but toast and eggs are salty and buttery. In the end I just console myself that if I have toast and eggs for breakfast today, I can choose oatmeal for breakfast tomorrow. Or you know, if I really get desperate, oatmeal for dinner.
When did you begin to write?
I wrote my first sentence at age 4! but I didn't publish my first book until last month.
You're pretty young, to be writing & publishing fiction. A lot of guys your age (or what I guess your age is, from what I can gather) are focusing on getting MBAs and making tons of money. How come you're not? Do you realize what you're passing up?
Until recently, I was constantly myself down for not having accomplished more and felt even worse when I compare myself to someone like Wittgenstein or Simon Rich . I know that people like that are one in a million, but so am I! I am the rare combination of someone who can't wink, snap their fingers, or do a tumble.
I think the only thing I'm missing out on are all the books I read when I was younger and all the things I studied in school that I no longer remember. Where did you go reasons for World War I, plot of East of Eden, and whatever multiple alleles are and how they work?!
In my own experience, I've had success only when I did something for no other reason than to do it. If my reason for doing something is replaced by something like money, I find myself enjoying it less and not doing it as well. So, I wrote because I wanted to write, and when I was told that I need to write to make money I found myself enjoying it less, doing it less, and being less good at it. I've decided to return to my old goal, to write for the sake of writing, and will hopefully be back in that earlier state of mind.
What is the difference between you and Simon Rich, anyway? Or, why would you be compared in the first place?
It's not who Rich is, as much as what he is: young, successful, and wealthy. There is a great deal of emphasis in American culture on success, youth, and wealth, and I often found myself feeling negative because I have not had enough "success" in my youth or accrued enough wealth, but when I spent too much time worrying about wealth and success I ended up not enjoying my youth as much. As for Wittgenstein, well, who wouldn't want to be as smart as him?!
Why/when/and how did you decide you didn't want to be a comedian after all, and how/why did you decide you wanted to be a writer?
When I was a young boy, whatever age one learns to speak at, and I was learning how to speak Russian, I'd often mispronounce words and make my parents laugh. I tried mispronouncing words on purpose, but it didn't have the same effect. So, that is the root of my desire and I had once even said that what I wanted to do when I grew up was a comedian, probably figuring that certainly then I'd be able to make my parents laugh. Then, when I was eight, I was watching Animaniacs and I noticed that one of the character's names, Dr. Scratchensniff, was a joke- scratch and sniff. I realized that the show was full of jokes and all I had to do to get them was pay more attention. I figured that I could make jokes of my own if I just paid attention to my surroundings, think, "It would be funny if I said this now," and then say the funny thing that I came up with.
I enjoyed creative writing assignments in school and had a teacher tell me I had a "unique point of view" in the 8th grade. Also in the 8th grade, I got punched in the mouth by an older boy and when none of my friends had come to my aid, I decided that I shouldn't be their friend anymore. With my newfound free time, I decided to pursue writing, although I think it would have led in that direction anyway because by that point I had started collecting bits that I'd repeat to friends.
Any regrets?
None.
So, when you first started writing, did you lean toward the more serious or the silly?
My first published stories were fairly short, and silly. When I say short, I mean from 200 to 3,000 words. One was the story I mentioned about the girl who becomes addicted to licking rugs--that was a pretty developed tale of maybe 3000 words. Some shorts about a man who wishes that one day a man would be president--a longer one about a man whose girlfriend goes with him when he needs to get an abortion, and he's upset because the nurses at the clinic are a bit contemptuous of his carelessness and irresponsibility. I'm sure these stories would be found annoyingly & blatantly political by many people! But I had fun writing them. One was about a young lawyer whose wife gets picked to bear the Messiah and a hot Arab guy comes down to impregnate her, but the lawyer can't protest, or even watch, because it's God. So I guess the answer is 'silly.'
What is your writing process and how often do you write?
I write in a notebook, a lined notebook. Then later I type what I wrote in, editing as I go. Then I edit drafts on my computer. And eventually I'll show drafts to a few really smart people and try to get some help. I probably write every day but some days I accomplish more than others. And I write from 9 to 6, but I get up pretty often and run around the house. Between 7 and 10 I go running, and come home and have dinner, and I write some before bed.
Were there ever any moments when you doubted your ability as a writer or
perhaps contemplated pursuing a different career?
Yes.
How often do you have these moments and how do you work through them? Was there a period in your life where you had stopped writing for an
extended period of time?
In the extended sense, I haven't written a novel yet, and that's anxiety-producing. I think I can, but to have everybody asking all the time, with the sense of, what do you want to be when you grow up, little girl? or as if they are doing me a favor by implying I might one day write a novel. There is a feeling out there, you know, that to write a novel is Varsity, and to write stories is JV. I have no reason to believe I can't write a novel though--I'm a real windbag, and simply not as good as the writers who work is so spectacular, language-wise, that they tend to write only stories, such as Isaac Babel. And many writers started by writing stories--Hemingway, for example, everyone's hero. So anyway, there's no way to work through it, everyone goes at their own pace. I can't whip something out of my pocket and say, "It's a novel!" Unless of course I stick a novel in my pocket first, one that would fit, like "The Stranger."
In another extended sense, I don't like being a woman, and I especially don't like being a woman writer. I don't want to write "womanly" fiction, or to be domestic. Again, I can't change it, short of an operation. But I have some unwomanly sentiments. To reframe this, while books by women sell best--because more women than men buy books, and woman like to read books by women--it's still true that by and large, "Canonical" work, and work that is considered truly great, is by men. I took a class in college called "Contemporary Fiction," taught by an intelligent LA Times critic, and of the 20 writers we read, 17 were men. I said to him, "Why are all the books by men?" and he said to me, somewhat scornfully (let's say, secretly scornfully) "What women would you have me include?" The books taught in colleges are by and large, by men. The books that make the "top 100 books of all times" list are overwhelmingly by men. I'm not interested in agreeing or disagreeing with this. I'm interested in writing something that couldn't be identified as by a man or by a woman. It is just as easy to write bad "male" writing as it is to write poorly in a "female" way. There is a whole genre of the "male sentimental"--both in the "rough, woodsy, horses and cowboys" sense (and I won't name the writers whose work sometimes slides into this territory, but you could guess who I mean) and also in the "lad lit" sense that people make fun of these days. Basically I'd like to do like Lady MacBeth, make a deal with Satan and have him rip out my womanly, well I won't say 'loins'--nature.
In a third sense, I think the fact that other people have doubted my ability to be a writer is what helped me the most as a writer. After college, after I applied to publishing jobs and found the best I could score was copyeditor for comp texts, at Penguin, for $18,500, I decided that instead I'd study fiction. I applied to 3 writing programs, Iowa, Columbia, and NYU, in two genres, fiction and poetry. (Poetry was a back up). I was rejected from all three places for fiction, and accepted to NYU for poetry. It was what I could get so I went. I figured I'd write fiction on my own and try to get what help I could while there. After NYU, I thought: Now I'm going to make it happen! Fiction! I had some bad stories I'd written, that I'd shown to my friends, about which they'd said the nicest things they could manage to say. I wasn't kidding around this time. I applied to 13 MFA programs, in both genres again, fiction and poetry. (I paid double application fees--it wasn't cheap). So, what happened was, exactly what had happened before: I was rejected from all 13, completely, except I was accepted by one program, for poetry. (I should explain that numerically, or odds/wise, it's simply easier to get in to these MFA programs, for poetry--fewer poets apply, for generally the same number of spots). I've always wanted most what I couldn't have. You know how the food tastes better when it's on somebody else's plate? Again, I took what I could get and went for poetry. to Syracuse. I just took all the fiction classes I could--the open workshops. I listened really hard. I knew I was terrible. They weren't wrong to reject me. They were right--I was terrible! But I knew it, and I wanted to get better, so, blah blah, I kept writing a lot of terrible stories. That's what I still do today.
But, how about you? What do you think are the qualities of, say, a great humorist?
I read a primatologist's essay about the role laughter plays in the lives of chimpanzees. It's used as a means to establish an air of well being in social situations and to show that there is no aggression. Basically it's used for rendering something as harmless. For example, if chimps are play wrestling, they'll laugh before it escalates into a real conflict to show that there is no aggression. For people, humor is an ex-adaptation, meaning that it serves a different purpose from what it once did, thanks to our ability to think abstractly and the advent of humor. Humor, at its core, stems from incongruity, such as surprise, juxtaposition, or irony. When people laugh, they're categorizing that incongruity as harmless. Of course, it all depends on the context. 9/11 was incongruous, but I doubt anyone found that funny. So, humor is all about taking that incongruity and putting it in the right context. The more interesting the context/incongruity, the better the humor. Sometimes it's possible to use a context that's unfunny but the incongruity is so effective that one can't resist laughter. That's always fun.
What do you think are the qualities of a great writer?
I imagine they'd be similar to that of a great humorist. I think a mistake people make when judging art is that they make criticisms about what the piece didn't do as opposed to looking at the artist's goal and how close it came to achieve. I think art should be judged for what it is and not what it isn't.
Who are the writers, do you think, that are most consistently and compellingly saying what they want to say in a way that only they would say it?
I don't read enough to be able to give an answer to this question, but there are many comedians that do this well. Paul F. Tompkins, Maria Bamford, Jen Kirkman, Neil Hamburger, Andy Kindler, Todd Glass, and Louis CK, for example.
To be honest, I think that literary fiction has to absurd, and/or funny, in some way (even an understated or very subtle way) to be good. For example, Chekhov's stories have an underlying absurdity, and a subtle humor, even though we think of him as a very realist and straight writer. To me, a lot of the "good" contemporary fiction takes itself too seriously to be funny in any capacity. Are there any writers whose work you think *isn't* funny in any capacity? Who are the fiction writers whose work you do find funny?
I think Woody Allen, John Swartzwelder, Neal Pollack, and Douglas Adams are consistently funny. I just read a book called A Woman Trapped in a Woman's Body by Lauren Weedman that I thought was terrifically entertaining. I once read Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin and didn't think that was funny at all.
Back to that rape story, that was pretty (hilarious and) perverse. Don't you think there's something wrong with you, that you would write such a story? Or: How dare you make a rape story funny?
I had read about an incident where 11 men raped one 14-year-old girl but didn't kill her and I was confused. It was such a heinous act, and yet they spared her life. This raised a lot of whys for me. Did they do it because they had a moment of clarity? Certainly that couldn't have been why. I wanted to discuss it more with others, but no one seemed to be interested. So, I contemplated it on my own. Later I wrote that piece for my How to Read a Play class at The Eugene Lang College for Liberal Arts of the New School University. The teacher asked the class, "How did you feel laughing at that?" and they said, "Uncomfortable," and she said, " Sometimes it's good to be pushed out of your comfort zone." She asked me if the reason I used the word rape so often was because I wanted to strip it of it's power and when I answered, "No, it's because it was a play about rape," she seemed very disappointed. It's actually only the first draft. I never revised it because I left Lang. Surprisingly, every piece I ever wrote or had published is a first draft, including the Sexual Euphemisms List, which wasn't even shortened by the editor. I think the lack of revisions is quite evident in my pieces and they certainly would have benefited from multiple drafts, but I didn't have anyone to look them over. But I am now, after many years, discovering the usefulness of multiple revisions.
So, what would you do if you weren't a writer?
Well, I do teach. It's a pretty full time job. I'm an English Professor. I taught for a year in the MFA program at St. Mary's College of California, and then for three years at the University of Kansas, and I'm now in my second year teaching in the Writing Program at Columbia. It's an honor and I'm very lucky to have these jobs and be involved in these excellent programs. It's exciting.
I do think that's not what you mean, however. When I was a kid, I intended to be the first female president. Eventually I decided my past was too sordid for that, and that I would be a lawyer. I took summer courses in Law & Government at St. Paul's, in NH, during high school, and was on the debate team, and began college as a government major, all with that in mind.
How come you do all these interviews? Is this a PR move on your part, and/or do you get tired of hearing self-absorbed writers babble on about their formative moments?
I wanted to be a comedian for a long time, so my first interviews were all with comedians and about their formative years. I thought I'd benefit a lot from learning about them and the art of comedy. Since then, I've expanded to other types of subjects. I never get tired of hearing about formative moments, but my sometimes editors do! Personally, I'm much more interested in bits like that than promoting someone's movie or asking, "Mets or Yankees?" Also, it's great for networking and getting free stuff. I don't think there's any other way that I could have met Todd Glass and Andrew WK if it wasn't for interviews.
So your editors do get tired of hearing about writers' formative moments--what do they really want to hear about?
They want the interview to answer the question, "Why should I read this interview?" Although I think that's the job of the intro.
Do you get sick of doing interviews?
I only get sick of transcribing interviews.
What's the most obnoxious answer you've gotten to an interview question?
If I ever get an obnoxious answer, I think it's because I asked a bad question or was unable to ask a decent follow up. On the phone, I'm able to adjust my questions to conform with the subjects answer style. For example, if they provide short and vague answers, I would ask questions that flesh them out.
So, have you had any personal experience similar to that of Twenty Grand, where you lose something or someone only to discover their true value afterward?
No. Someone? You mean like, break up with someone and then realize it was true love?
Are you projecting an interesting personal experience onto the story...? Sounds intriguing.
No, I meant more of along the lines of the old saying, "You don't know what you've got until it's gone," which could apply to a valuable coin or an elderly relative whose kindness you never reciprocated. Have you had an experience along those lines?
Once my mom had a set of "tricky dogs" that were magnetized and came inside a special matchbox. The dogs were tiny, one black, one white, terriers, and they stuck to each other's feet, and I liked to play with them. The match box they "rested inside" when I wasn't playing with them was a bit fragile. Also these "tricky dogs" were my mother's, not mine, and they lived inside her high bureau, the top part where she kept special things like jewelry and scarves. Well one day I was lying on her bed playing with the "tricky dogs" and I felt antsy and busted the matchbox they lived in. I just pressed it too hard and it smooshed flat. Then my mother ran in the room, saw the smooshed match box, and started crying and screaming that the tricky dogs were antique, and that now they were ruined. Being about five years old, I didn't quite understand and protested that the dogs were just fine, and she explained to me, still angry and sobbing, that in order to be of value, the dogs had to come with an original un-smooshed matchbox, etc. I think my reaction, interior at least, was to conclude that the world, my mother, and the notion of antiques were all dumb, because it seemed senseless to me to care so much about whether a match box was flattened or not. But then, at five I was a jerk, and lots of things seemed illogical, including both my parents.
I later realized, that my mother had very few things around that had belonged to her parents, and that those "tricky dogs" were one thing she did have. She had the dogs, an antique secretary, and a rocking chair. She'd lost her parents at an early age--at ten--and so having a thing or two that was an "antique" meant more to her than it might have to people who'd inherited whole houses full of their parents' things, or who could feel sure that they one day would, or who better yet, had their parents.
Do you have any other examples of being a jerk at young age?
Sure. Once I poisoned a guy I had a crush on, because he didn't like me. I wasn't that young though. I was eighteen.
I told you my poisoning story. Make me feel better. Tell me something "Bad" you did. Ever kill anyone? Ever come close?
I hadn't killed anyone or come close, but I was recently introduced to the delicious world of peppers on sandwiches and in a single day had 4 sandwiches with banana peppers on them. After my ethics class, I was walking down the hall and down the stairs and the professor was commenting on the smell in the corridor. I was very embarrassed because I had just farted in the hallway! He's very smart, so he probably figured out it was me and was shaming me, which doesn't seem very ethical. But neither does farting in the hallway if I were to use the principal of utility or the categorical imperative.
What did you reply to the ethics professor?
I increased my gait so that he wouldn't know it was me.
BTW, farting in a corridor, even after having eaten a pepper sandwich, doesn't qualify as "doing something bad." Can you not come up with some better example of a "heinous" act? (and I'm using quotes to allow for varying interpretations--perhaps it was something the world might view as heinous that you might not view as such). If you can, what is it?
I recently found out that my friend's sister was pregnant and heard that there was an air of discontent about the whole situation. I said, "Sorry to hear about your sister," and he was aghast. I apologized profusely. It was a mistake on my part and there was no malice behind my comment, which, in retrospect, was entirely ignorant, unacceptable, and insensitive. I think talking about it makes it worse. And my acknowledging that I know it's wrong to share might make it even slightly more bad.
So, what were some other things that you thought were illogical when growing up? Were there any ways that you attempted to make sense of the world that you later discovered to be false?
I'm not sure I had wrong assumptions. I was tricked in a few ways though. For example, my mother told me that if I sat on the toilet for more than 2 minutes, my lower intestine would fall out, and land into the toilet, and I would need an operation to put it back in. I was probably 8, but I believed her, and so was always very fast on the toilet. She also told me my vagina was called a "zin." We didn't have a very good sex-ed program in my school, so even at the age of 14 I would say things like, "I hope this tampon fits in my zin!" or "I'd French-Kiss Jason Van Bennekum, but there's no way I would let him touch my zin." One day my friends were finally like, What the hell are you talking about? and I was like "What do you mean, what am I talking about? Didn't your mother tell you about your zin?"
A version of your story The Witches appears with significant changes from the one in your book on Fivechapters.com and the revised version will be appearing in the 2nd printing of Twenty Grand. What inspired these changes and how do you know when a story is truly done?
What inspired the changes was, I hated the story. I had this deadline--so I submitted the version I had. But I kept revising. I decided to kill another character off... it felt great. I don't think there's a way to know when a story's done. I tend to keep fiddling. I guess the answer is, "when you're happy with it." But what if you never are? Then you're fucked. However, you're also probably someone who takes themselves too seriously and probably deserves to be anally raped. Or at least forced to watch an Al Gore movie.
What was the worst letter of rejection that you've gotten?
Once I sent a story to Harper's through their slush pile. The story was about a girl who, one day when her family is out of the house on some errand, licks the living room rug. She's just curious what it would taste like. For some reason--the fact that her whole family has walked on it--she gets addicted to licking the rug, that one and the other one in the house, and rugs in general, also in other people's houses. She tries to keep the habit secret, because she knows it's gross, and she's ashamed, but one day her brother sees her doing it... and things go badly for her from there, she gets sent to an institution for other girls who also lick rugs. It is, as you can see, absurd. Anyway, Harper's didn't like the story, and the rejection letter said: Dear Rebecca Curtis: Thank you for your insight on licking rugs!
You teach at the graduate writing program at Columbia University. Your classrooms may contain the future great writers of America. What do you find to be some interesting trends and influences in the work of your students?
Well, they're very talented. They write about TV and popular culture a lot. They're also very experimental. They like to try different things, they're not hung up on writing traditional narratives. They're well read and eager to read exciting new stuff. They're all reading George Saunders, Ben Marcus, David Foster Wallace, Roberto Bolano, Gary Lutz, and Lydia Davis. They have good taste.
What are some things that you have learned from your students?
Not to make George Bush jokes. I used to do that sometimes, to try to be funny. But A) I'm not good at telling jokes and B) I upset the republicans in the class, who rightfully pointed out that I was using my position of power, as teacher, to propagate slanted political views.
In the case of the Virginia Tech Massacre, Seung-Hui Cho took a writing workshop where he produced violence and profanity-laden plays. It was said by some that his writing was an indication of an unhinged individual and that teachers should have taken action after reading those pieces. As a teacher, how would you have responded to writing of such a nature?
Well, I don't mind violence or profanity in fiction, as long as it's funny profanity and interesting violence. So it's hard to say. You yourself have a story on your website about rape, that I think is quite funny. If I recall correctly, six men rape an eleven year old girl, and then go on discussing it for a while--they are trying to figure out how to not get sent to jail, or something like that. It is actually a very funny piece, and I do not think you are psychotic for writing it. Isaac Babel has a similar story, which begins "The previous night six Makhno boys had raped the servant maid. Learning of this in the morning, I thought I would see how the woman looked after her sixfold ravishing. I found her in the kitchen, where bent over a tub she was washing clothes. She was a fat wench with blooming cheeks. Only unhurried existence on the fruitful Ukrainian soil can imbue a Jewess with such bovine juices, lend her face such a suety sheen. The girl's legs, fat, brick-red, swollen like globes, gave off a sickly-sweet smell like fresh-sliced meat." As you can see from the opening, the narrator is not exactly a nice guy. He doesn't seem to mind that the maid has been raped, and in fact is curious to see what she looks like after having been raped,. and calld "rape" a "ravishing." He is simply an "unreliable" narrator--meaning, the thoughts and feelings of a narrator are not at all necessarily the thoughts and feelings of an author. Isaac Babel himself, though a philanderer, seems like a decent guy to me, and an early feminist. So overall, with violence in fiction, it's a tough task: the question is, is the use of violence and profanity something within the control of the author, weilded artfully for a purpose, or does it seem like a reflection of the writer's own creepiness?
In almost every case, the violence in my students' writings seems artful, rather than indicative of a psychosis within the student herself.
What attracted you to academia? What jobs have you worked in the past?
1) the summers are nice. ha ha. no seriously. I like teaching, and it's nice to have a job that allows me time to write. It's an honor, and a pleasure, to work with the Columbia students. And the classroom is very inspiring--the students bring great energy to it and see things in fresh ways. 2) I've worked as a waitress, a busgirl, a waterpark attendent and lifeguard, a fruit picker, a journalist (well, in college--does that count?) a countergirl, a tutor and test-prep teacher.
Fruit picker?
I was twelve. For some reason, at twelve, I longed to have a job. I don't know why, I must have been crazy. The only job I could get was "fruit picker". There are laws that regulate how old you have to be to have a job in the first place (you have to be 12!) and more laws that regulate what kind of work you can do. In NH, when you reach age 12, you are allowed to work on a farm. Where I lived, there were quite a few family run farms, that sold seasonal fruit, on a pre-picked as well as a pick-your own basis. I worked at a farm called "Kindred Spirits," run by a very cranky old Swiss woman. The old farm was probably a few hundred acres. There were apple orchards, raspberry patches, strawberry and blueberry fields. She had hayfields, cows, horses. Cornfields. In fall she had a corn maize and a horse and carriage operation. Also, families and tourists paid to come and ride the horse-drawn wagon from the farmhouse to the adjacent apple-orchard, where they would pick their own bushels. Anyway, I rode my bike to this farm, since my parents weren't the kind of parents who wanted to drive a kid to work every morning. It was summer, of course. The farm was a couple miles away, uphill. It was probably good exercise for a lazy kid like me. When home, I just sat around reading books. I picked strawberries, in 80 degree muggy heat, alongside a few other kids. I rode my bike to Kindred Spirits at 6 am each morning, squatted in the long dirt isles of the strawberry fields from 6:30 until 12:30, filling quart boxes with strawberries. I also ate a lot of strawberries. That was part of the deal. You could eat what you wanted. We got 25 cents a quart. At the end of the week, the old Swiss woman would give us what we'd earned. It was usually 30 bucks. A sizable amount.
Tell me about your novel in progress.
It's a historical novel about an auntie's escape from the Armenian genocide. She was a young wife, with a newborn baby. Her husband got sent to work on the railroads (then killed) with the other Armenian men. A lot of Armenian women were just throwing themselves down wells, rather than dishonor themselves by fraternizing with the enemy. But this auntie, she went for it and married a Turkish man, just to save her life. And her baby's, of course. She became the 5th woman in his harem, and rode with across Turkey on horseback. The woman was my grandmother's best friend, and semi-raised my mother, who's Armenian. She wrote a 5,000 word, very journalistic account of her experience. My mother gave me the document when I was 14. She thought I might want to write about it someday. Right now I'm doing background research, and interviewing the woman's daughters.
Hey, how about this: you can have any one of these four options. Rank them, 1-4, in that order, with one the least desired, and four the most. For each one, explain a bit as to why or why not.
1. Trees talk to you. They tell you what they know.
Trees know a lot that I don't, and if there's something one of them doesn't know I could plant one near someone who does. Plant? What am I typing about?! I could just move the pot they came in. Combine this with private investigation and you've got a great premise for comedy, maybe even a TV show. It could be called Funny Tree Pun. If you read some of my works in progress, you'll notice that that's how I write a lot of my jokes. I'll write, for example, "The room has a painting in it and it's of something funny," or, "Someone left something in the apartment before they moved in and it was something funny."
2. For a day, you can be Simon Rich. You will be you, but in Simon Rich's body, with his abilities, and you can do whatever you want. Simon Rich has no idea this is going on.
I'd send a writing packet to The Simpsons because I think Rich would be a great addition to their staff and has the potential to revitalize the entire show. Being a fan of The Simpsons, I'd want that to happen. I wouldn't, however, want Rich's success because if I were to have any success, I'd want to have it because I earned it and not because I was able to take control of the body of whoever I choose.
3. You and six other writers hang out, over dinner and drinks, at a table at one of the writers' houses, and at the end of dinner you float up into the air and commune, which means, you become one mentally--thoughts are shared back and forth without effort, you understand each other entirely, and are temporarily, mentally and physically, one amoeba-like being. The writers must be alive, but we can use the term 'writer' loosely here--anyone who writes anything. For this one, who would you pick?
I would pick the writing staff of Talk Show with Spike Feresten because I think I might fit in well with the particular sensibility of that show and if I'm already having dinner at one of their houses then I can think of no better way to seal the deal than to float into the air and become one mentally and physically with them in the form a giant Flubber-like creature.
4. All the eligible, attractive Indian girls (I'm picking "Indian" randomly--they can be Native America or India-Indian, your choice) in NYC line themselves up in front of you, and want to go on a date with you. You get to ask questions, pick one, go on the date. It's paid for by... the Gothamist.
I'd want this one least because I already have a girlfriend and if I were to give any answer other than this one I might no longer have a girlfriend.
You've taught at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, grew up in New Hampshire, and traveled to Europe to research your book. How do these many locals compare to New York?
The rent is cheaper.
Could you share an "only in New York" moment?
This one is complicated, but: my roommate is dating a guy, who went to school (Yale) with my friend...and who it turns out was childhood best friends with her ex's best friend... because they shared a summer house in Connecticut together. Meanwhile, they're all novelists.
Given the opportunity, what would you change about New York?
The rent would be cheaper.
Under what circumstances would you leave New York?
Osama gets nukes.
What do you consider a perfect day of recreation in New York?
Last Sunday I walked up to Prospect Park with my sister and her fiancé. We jogged the 3 and 1/2 mile loop around it, then stopped in a couple used bookstores and one swanky food co-op, on our way back home. We drank some creamy ice-coffees, then walked to a barbecue in Carrol gardens. In the backyard of a nice hedge-fund manager's brownstone. He claimed not to read books (the bookshelves were empty, and one room upstairs was full of boxed tomes) but when I quizzed him later, he knew all the answers. After the barbecue, a bunch of us went to the Brooklyn Inn and drank cokes.
You can see Rebecca read on September 12th, 2007 at 8 PM at the Happy Ending Lounge 302 Broome Street, btwn Forsyth & Eldridge Streets New York, NY
Photo by Andrea Artz
After our own Q and A, Rebecca asked me some questions, which you can read here .