Q&A with Alice McDermott

 

 

 

Alice McDermott is the author of the new novel Absolution. Her other books include the novel Charming Billy. She lives in the Washington, D.C., area.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Absolution, and why did you decide to set the novel in Vietnam in 1963?

 

A: No one thing, of course. But Graham Greene's The Quiet American was much on my mind as I started out.

 

A novel I first read as an undergraduate, and have read many times since, always marveling at its political prescience, but also always dismayed by its failure to give any depth to its female characters, the Vietnamese women as well as the briefly-noticed American "girls" working in Saigon.

 

1963 was pivotal in Vietnam, in the U.S. as well. I'm not the first to notice what an incredible year it was.

 

Not just the assassination of Diem in Saigon and JFK in Dallas, but the year of Medgar Evers's assassination, the March on Washington and MLK's speech, the changes of Vatican II and the death of John the XXIII, the publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. A year on the precipice of many changes.

 

But, of course, the entire novel is not set in Vietnam in 1963, and it's a memoir of sorts, recollected from a present closer to our own. 

 

To my mind, then, it's not so much about time and place but about the permutations of time and memory and the way time and memory can test our assurances and intentions.

 

I think the novel is more about our (human beings) troubling, noble, complicated notions about selflessness, and self-sacrifice, than it is about Vietnam in 1963.

 

In fact, even before I had the notion to riff on Graham Greene, I knew the story would be about Dominic's love for his adopted child.

        

Q: How did you research the novel, and did you learn anything especially surprising?

 

A: I began by revisiting all the Vietnam novels I knew and admired: Tim O'Brien's, Robert Stone's, Denis Johnson's. And then I reread the histories and memoirs of the war that I already had on my shelf. 

 

Of course, these were all war stories - and I knew from the start I wasn't writing a war story - but they gave me an immersive sense of place.

 

As the novel began to take on its own life, I read and watched news reports from the early ‘60s, just to be reminded of how we thought and spoke in those days. Our naiveté, as well as our gobsmacking biases - especially regarding women - were always surprising.

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between your characters Patricia and Charlene?

 

A: Don't know that I can describe it in a few words, thus the whole novel. But I guess I could say they are mentor and mentee, a "dynamo" and her reluctant side-kick. 

 

They share, of course, the constrictions of that time and place and culture, so in some way they're both making the best of their chains.  They're also friends, women friends - with all the complications and implications the label involves, if you can shake off the "Mean Girls" cliches. 

 

Q: In a review of Absolution for NPR, Maureen Corrigan said, “McDermott possesses the rare ability to evoke and enter bygone worlds — pre-Vatican II Catholicism, pre-feminist-movement marriages — without condescending to them. She understands that the powerhouses can dominate the helpmeets. She also understands that playing God is the role of a lifetime — and every human actor should turn it down.” What do you think of that assessment?

 

A: I don't read (or listen to) reviews of my work, so while I'm grateful for intelligent assessments - and Maureen's reviews are always intelligent - I can't take them to heart. 

 

But, for further discussion, I'd wonder about how one is to do good in the world (alleviate the suffering of children, say) and still avoid the accusation that you are playing God?

 

Do right intentions absolve wrong outcomes? Does hindsight give one generation the permission to condemn those who came before? Is it better to say (as the Generals sing at Charlene's cocktail parties) "What will be will be?" Or are we meant to "repair the world."

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Another couple of novels. Always. I've been at this long enough to know that is just what I do.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Alice McDermott.