Andrea Simon is the author of the new novel in stories Floating in the Neversink. She also has written the books Bashert and Esfir Is Alive. Also a photographer, she is based in New York City.
Q: Over how long a period did you write the stories
that make up this novel-in-stories, and at what point did you realize they
would form a book?
A: About 30 years ago, I was making the transition
from professional medical and corporate writing to personal literary prose and began
with a freewriting prompt about a magical time in childhood.
After a few minutes, my pen dug into the paper and the
words tumbled out as if they had been waiting years to spill onto the page. It
formed a story called “A Horizontal Weed on a Country Road,” which focused on a
traumatic childhood incident in the Catskill Mountains of my youth.
This story inspired me to explore other childhood-inspired
events, including those from my city life in Brooklyn during the 1950s and
1960s. Soon, I realized that in order to fully realize these stories — and to
protect the identities of real people — I needed to fictionalize them. I added
completely made-up characters and plot devices; the pages added up and a novel
materialized. Unsure of its audience, I put the book aside and concentrated on
other writing.
Years later, when I became an MFA graduate student, I used
some chapters for short story workshops, shaping each into stand-alone pieces.
Enthusiastic responses encouraged me to write new stories along a chronological
continuum.
Finally, I stopped at this form, seeming to fulfill two functions:
self-contained short stories and a fuller body of work that tied them together
with similar characters, setting, and themes.
Q: How was the book’s title — also the title of one of
the stories —chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: As a story, “Floating in the Neversink” symbolizes
many elements of the collection. It shows the protagonist, Mandy, in the
Catskills with both her country cousin and her Brooklyn best friend and
contrasts the differences in their relationships.
It includes a dramatic plot line with Mandy’s father,
encapsulating their difficulties in communication. When she begs her father to
hold her up so she can float on the river, he breaks that trust and helps build
an explanation for his remote behavior. As a metaphor, the title evokes the
symbols of the era and the girl’s disappearance from the scene, lending an air
of mystery and potential danger.
Q: What do you see as the difference between a novel
and a novel-in-stories?
A: The novel-in-stories contains developed individual stories,
with beginnings, middles, and endings, with tension points and potential resolutions.
Some of these stories have been published. As a collection, each story features
the same protagonist and a cast of familiar characters, as well as new
relationships and revelations, building interest that propel the reader to turn
the page for more.
Q: How did you create your characters?
A: Many characters are based on real people, though
each has morphed into unrecognizable facsimiles. Some characters, like Benny
and Brenda, are entirely fictional and serve as plot motivators and foils.
Others appear as means to depict a setting, enhance an emotion, present an
idea, cause tension, or resolve an issue.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am editing a collection of short stories that I
have written over the years, trying to consolidate them into an overall theme
for marketing purposes. I am also revising a novel I began last year which examines
what happens when an older person revisits the sites of her youth (New York’s
Greenwich Village in the 1960s and 1970s) and wonders if she had the life she
once envisioned.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
No comments:
Post a Comment