Marian Thurm is the author of the new novel The Good Life. Her other books include the story collection Today Is Not Your Day and the novel The Clairvoyant. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including The New Yorker and The Atlantic, and she has taught creative writing at various institutions including Yale and Barnard.
Q: How did you come up with the idea for this novel, and for
your main characters, Stacy and Roger?
A: This happens to me frequently in life as a
writer—somebody will tell me a little of something and I become very intrigued by
it. That’s pretty much what happened here. That’s why writers are so curious
about everything…
So I went on the Internet, I found out a little more about
this particular tragedy, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it…when you stumble
across the right inspiration, you know it.
Q: So your characters are based on actual people?
A: No, the incident that inspired the novel—I didn’t know
the people personally. They were characters I created. Inspiration just means
you learn about something that happens and take it in your own direction.
Q: The novel opens with Roger buying a gun. Why did you
decide to start this way?
A: It’s interesting because the very first page I wrote, I
revealed on the first page what had happened. It was the paragraph that came to
me. I was having problems as I was writing, and I showed it to a friend of
mine.
She instinctively knew I had revealed way too much, and this
was a big mistake. She was absolutely right. Sometimes it takes a fresh pair of
eyes. I couldn’t let go of the darkness; it was the way I wanted to open the
book. It seemed like a compromise to me.
I’d never done a blog post before, but the publisher asked
me to write something—[handling a gun] was a traumatic experience for me. I
will never forget it as long as I live. I will never understand it. I lost my
appetite for lunch.
This was territory I’d never dealt with before. This book is
very different—it reveals my dark philosophy of life.
Q: Yes, you’ve mentioned that this book was a departure from
some of your past work. Did your writing process change for this novel?
A: One thing was different. I actually found myself, in two
particular scenes…I had to reread and write over and over, and each time I felt
sick, so terrible for my characters. It was a very visceral feeling…
I knew from the beginning where it was going—some writers
say they don’t. The narrative arc was clear, but I allowed myself to forget how
it would go. I was fooling myself.
Q: You switch back and forth between the present time and
various other times in the characters’ lives. You knew the narrative arc, but
did you make any changes as you went along?
A: My daughter is a social worker and a novelist. She and I
did a Q&A together, and I was shocked when she told me she would write a
chapter, write another chapter, and then fit it all together! I said, Are you
kidding me? It turned out to be a good book, and she knew what she was doing!
A friend who’s a novelist…would write things on index cards
and put them on the floor and mix it around. I don’t understand that!
Usually for me, I have a strong sense of where the narrative
is going, and I would never start a book without fully understanding who the
characters are. I always know how old they are, the year they were married, how
old their children are.
When I ask my students, how old is this person, and they say
they’re not sure—these are things I have to know! I know where the book is
going to end. I start typing and I have an innate sense of things. I don’t have
to refer to notes…
Q: How did you come up with the book’s title?
A: I wish I could have had a more original title, but I knew
this was the best title. I felt the title was chosen with great irony…
Q: What are you working on now?
A: There is a fascinating answer to that question…Sometimes,
astonishingly, things happen in life where you’ve written something and find
out after 125 pages that it may have been the story of your life and you didn’t
know it. Life is full of all kinds of surprises. I can’t really talk about it.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I guess it’s so interesting to me—I never imagined I
would be writing a book that involved the purchase of a gun. I surprised myself
in a good way that I was able to write something different. I always had a dark
sensibility—I only wish it hadn’t been historic. Ultimately, I was compelled to
make things a little lighter.
I wrote it very quickly. I knew the story I wanted to
tell…it was easy to write from one day to the next. I couldn’t wait to go back
to it. That’s always a good feeling for a writer. Even though I dreaded the
narrative arc, it was a good feeling to get back to it.
Also, there is a lot of humor in the book, and I hope
readers will see that…
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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