Q&A with Mary Troy

 

 

 

Mary Troy is the author of the new story collection In the Sky Lord. Her other books include the novel Swimming on Hwy N. She is Professor Emeritus at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

 

Q: Over how long a period did you write the stories in your new collection?

 

A: The oldest story in the collection, “In The Sky Lord,” was written about 12 years ago, published then too, but with a different title and a very different ending. Most of the others were written between eight and three years ago, and one is just a year old.

 

The oldest ones changed significantly from their original versions, most notably in their endings. The characters have deepened with every pass, and in fact, each of these ten women now seems like family.

 

Q: How was the book’s title--also the title of one of the stories--chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: “In the sky lord” is a line from that lovely old bluegrass hymn, often sung at funerals, “May the Circle Be Unbroken.” I was not raised in that tradition but learned to love such music when I went to the University of Arkansas for grad school. I picked up my husband there, and he further influenced my taste in music (and more).

 

I have heard many versions of “May the Circle Be Unbroken,” and once, long ago, I laughed at the lyrics that a better world is waiting in the sky. I told my husband that someday I would write a book with that title, but of course, first I had to write a story with that title. A decade or so later, I did.

 

The song is sung poorly in the story named for it, and becomes an irritant, but the story is, like the song, about our mortality, our duty while here, what gives us a better world right here, not waiting for that world in the sky.  

 

Q: The writer John Dalton said of the book, “Just beneath the eccentric humor of these stories lies a cache of treasures. Plots that morph gorgeously from one thing to another. Bold, funny, knowable characters. A sense of the true bewilderment life brings--and the courage to keep going. In other words, real humanity.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I love it. If you have read John Dalton’s work, you know that’s what he does, move down to the humanity, so such a line from him is very high praise.

 

I believe it is what I aim for when I create: characters who have some strength and the “courage” to keep going. Of course, we mostly have little choice but to “keep going,” but how we do it, how we decide to do it, what we find in ourselves that has been hidden—these are what I find especially fascinating.

 

Going on always partakes of both hope in some sort of tomorrow and faith in ourselves, perhaps trust in others.

 

Q: How did you decide on the order in which the stories would appear in the collection?

 

A: I wanted love stories as bookends, first and last. What I see as ways to fall in love. So “Rent-To-Kill” and “A Goat’s View” became the first and last.

 

Also, a character, Stella Luck, appears in every story, never as the protagonist and often as a mere mention, but she moves the plots in the first and last stories, another reason to use those as bookends.

 

The stories in the middle, numbers 2 through 9, are ordered by the age of the protagonist, the youngest 17 and the oldest 50. I did that at first to give myself some order, but decided it worked.

 

And most of the other stories are about love, too, such as the love for another because she is a human in need, the profound love of a child for a parent, the ways we struggle when we talk about love, the pain of love, the love we give animals and ourselves.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I am writing a novel set in the town I created for In The Sky Lord, Wolf Pass, Illinois. I have a few chapters done, and have, naturally, rewritten them all many times. A few of the characters in In The Sky Lord will make brief appearances in the not yet named novel.

 

I won’t say what it is about, not even to myself, as I want to discover it as I write. However, it is just beginning to consume me, to push me on, is at the point of being great fun.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Other characters in the book are repeated, too, some only twice, others five or six times. And many characters tell each other another story they have heard, tell it from different perspectives. Readers need not see these connections, but they are there.

 

Many reviewers have said my stories, especially my latest ones, are about connection with others, the difficulty of real connection, or the need and yearning for it

 

And I agree, but I also see a strength and power in these 10 women, not one of whom relies on another for her livelihood, for her validation, for her sense of self. And more important, not one of them lives only inside herself, but is always aware that she is part of a neighborhood, a family, a town, a world.

 

I am gratified when reviewers see humor in my writing, for I believe most (not all) that happens to us is both funny and sad, that humor and tragedy exist side by side.

 

I even play with that in the story “Butter Cakes.” In it, a family’s method of dealing with life is to turn most situations into funny stories, even if that means skipping the endings, telling only parts. This makes it even harder to connect with one another.

 

And finally, what often confuses me is the word “eccentric,” or words like it, used about my characters. I do not try for eccentricity; my characters do not seem eccentric to me. Should I be worried about what that says about me?

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Mary Troy.