Photo by Fran Dwight
Bonnie Jo Campbell is the author of the new novel The Waters. Her other books include the novel Once Upon a River. She lives near Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Q: What inspired you to write The Waters, and how did you create your character Herself and her family?
A: Thank you, Deborah, for asking and for inviting me to discuss The Waters! There are so many ways to answer this question! I was inspired at first to write about a teenage girl who loved math and came from a rural family where logic was not respected. And then the girl started talking to animals.
Then I realized the girl had an old granny who was very tough; she was the honest descendant of the tough old farm wives I met as a girl, the ones who hang a hundred chickens on a clothesline in the afternoon and dress them out while having a conversation with a visiting neighbor.
This old woman was in touch with the earth in a profound way, but nobody respected her work anymore. She was exhausted.
And I have always been inspired by women who don’t follow the rules. My mother was one of these outrageous women who filed for divorce when women simply did not do that.
And we had a beautiful girl in our neighborhood, and this girl, this woman, she couldn’t bear to work a job, was lazy, just wanted to relax and laugh and drink beer. People judged her all day, and it didn’t matter. She was exactly who she was.
In The Waters, Rose Thorn is a mother who runs off and leaves her child with her grandmother, and yet I don’t think she’s the worst mother. There’s room in the world for all kinds of us.
And so, I put these women together in a fertile swamp and let them do what they wanted. Meanwhile, I surrounded them with a chorus of hyper-masculine men who felt threatened by the women’s independence. That looked like a version of America to me.
Q: The Kirkus Review of the book says, in part, “A fairy-tale atmosphere coexists with harsh realities from the opening sentence...” What do you think of that assessment?
A: Well, it is a true statement, that I mix fairy-tale elements with brutal realism.
What surprises me is that the Kirkus Reviewer seems to think harshness is not part of fairy tales—nothing is more brutal and thorny than fairy tales.
Children being left in the woods to starve, girls being kidnapped and imprisoned, bodily assault and people being devoured left and right. The shabby violence of women cutting off their heels and toes to fit into shoes!
No denying that I have written a story about a swamp witch who has three daughters, the youngest of whom is the most beautiful. There are some people from the town who behave like ogres and there are men who are princes.
Animals speak and they are characters in their own right. The land and its elements are enchanted, and the old witch heals with herbs—what could be more magical than the placebo effect?
And so, yes, I’ve written a fairy tale! I wanted to play with those elements just the way Carson McCullers did when she wrote her own contemporary fairy tale, The Ballad of the Sad Café.
Also, I’ve written from the omniscient point of view, the way fairy tales are written. This seems like a very good way to convey truths of the human heart, the difficulties of class and gender, and economic struggles. And it sets up the expectation that I’ll wrench a happy ending out of it. And I do, sort of.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: Oh heck, I had no idea what I was writing. Even after the first draft, I had only an inkling. There is probably nothing left from my original conception of the novel.
At one point I thought it would be a comic novel about a girl who loves mathematics. Then I thought it was her coming-of-age novel. Then I thought it would be a romance between Rose and Titus. I have also called it my menopause novel. And, of course, it is a modern fable.
I always start out writing from an idea, and then my heart gets involved and ruins the whole business, and I have to write about whatever I care most desperately about.
And, it turns out that the political divide in America at this time is what I care about most, and so that is the subtext underneath the story of a family of women living on an island.
I always write in an organic style, seeing how one situation leads to the next, always trying to be natural and realistic, even as I heat up the situation to keep it interesting. I don’t mind throwing out hundreds of pages if there’s a better story without them.
I always swear I’ll learn a new way of writing, a faster and more efficient way. I will learn to write from an outline, that is what I will do, but then I don't.
Q: The novel is set on an island near a small town in Michigan--how important is setting to you in your writing?
A: Landscape is everything to me. People are who they are because of where they are. At least in my stories that is the case. Their myths and stories rise out of where they are.
You might question this in real life, since people up and move all the time, but it works well to have people be reflections of their backdrops. That way I can create a richness in the character that reflects onto the landscape and then let the landscape reflect back again on the character.
The swampy landscape gives birth to everything else in this story.
Actually this is true in most of my other work as well--my novel Once Upon a River is about a girl who is the physical embodiment of a Michigan river.
The Waters is the swamp, through and through, with all the stink and lushness and fertility and uncertainty—the very ground is unstable and might swallow up a hapless wanderer. The landscape and all the creatures living there make life rich.
All the characters love the swamp, but interestingly some want to preserve what they love while others want to eliminate it and turn it into farmland and kill all the troublesome creatures—this one thing reveals much about character.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Oh, a dozen projects, including a story collection about fathers and daughters, a book of essays about my mother, a poetry collection, an epic poem about womanhood inspired by Virginia Woolf, and another novel that begins where The Waters leaves off.
My life is busy now, but I write any time I have a spare minute. We’ll see what I settle down into when the smoke clears.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: If anybody is interested in knowing more about the background of the book, I’ve kept a daily Substack blog (Bonnie Jo Campbell’s Substack) counting down the days during the last two months before publication, both to let people know where some elements of the book came from (for example, the history of the donkeys in Wild Will’s pasture) and to let people know what goes on behind the scenes as a W.W. Norton author approaches the publication date of her novel. I also talk about topics of interest to writers.
Also, this book wasn’t written in a vacuum. Many people were supportive and helpful, and I want to thank them continually.
I just want to say thank you to the many people who have helped me write this novel. My Darling Christopher, my constant literary companion Heidi Bell, my agent Bill Clegg, my editor Jill Bialosky, just to name a few. And so many more whom I’ve thanked in my acknowledgments page.
It is a novel about a community, and it only got itself written with help from the community that has supported me. Also, I can’t forget the swamp—thank you swamp and rattlesnakes!
And thank you, Deborah, for taking the time to visit The Waters and for all you do for readers and writers!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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