Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Q&A with Meredith O'Brien

 


Photo by Nancy Gould

 

 

Meredith O'Brien is the author of the new novel Louie on the Rocks. Her other books include the memoir Uncomfortably Numb. She lives in the Boston area.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Louie on the Rocks, and how did you create the Francis family?

 

A: The political polarization spawned by Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, his first term, and his 2020 campaign amid the COVID crisis and the Black Lives Matter protests seeped into many areas of my life, from teaching undergraduates about the day's news to the political content I consumed on the social media platforms I frequented.

 

And, although friends and family members with whom I disagreed politically had always been able to set differences aside, the Trump era changed everything. 

 

Ugly divisiveness came to a head in the summer of 2020 when amped-up emotions lured me into the fray, resulting in me arguing about politics online with my father.

 

You see, my dad is the one who role-modeled a love of news, reading, and history when I was growing up. Even though we'd been able to get past our political differences over the years -- or at least table them in order to achieve peace -- in the summer of 2020 I couldn't stop myself from fact-checking erroneous memes he shared online because I thought they were destructive.

 

At first, I sent the fact-checks to him privately. But when the vitriolic memes didn't cease, I worried that my children and nephews would see and believe these error- and lie-filled memes, so I made a few of my comments in public so the kids would be able to read a fact-based response. 

 

At the time, I'd been working on another novel on an entirely different subject, but couldn't stop wondering and thinking about intergenerational family divisions over politics and how the rifts felt acutely horrific. I discovered anecdotes from others who'd severed relationships with family members or friends citing irreconcilable political differences.

 

I wanted to understand this phenomenon more deeply, to see how the sentiments of the day infiltrated relationships, sometimes aggravating pre-existing fault lines.

 

And since my mom passed away in the 2010s, leaving my dad alone on the other side of the state, I decided to craft a Massachusetts-based story exploring the impact of political acrimony on a father-adult daughter relationship, with the deceased wife/mother chiming in, as I'd always wondered what my mom would've said if she could've seen the online dialogue my dad and I had during the [first] Trump administration.

 

For the record, my father and I are on fine terms now. We don't discuss politics on or offline.

 

Q: How would you describe the relationship between your characters Louie and Lulu?

 

A: When the book opens in January 2019, it's been six months since Helen -- Louie's wife and Lulu's mother -- passed away. The father-daughter duo were never close when Helen was alive, even though she tried mightily to serve as the glue to keep them connected.

 

Without her, they remain in tenuous contact. They speak briefly on the phone every few weeks. They don't really see one another. But they do respect the familial tie they have to one another through Helen, whom they both adored.

 

In spite of the estrangement, Lulu tries help her father when he starts engaging in self-destructive behavior because she thinks this is what her mother would've wanted.

  

Q: How was the novel's title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: The title was workshopped with my family. I believe it was my daughter, Abbey, who ultimately came up with it. I had one of those poster-sized Sticky Note pads on the dining room table and had jotted down some of the book's themes, along with words associated with the themes. Everyone pitched in some ideas.

 

Abbey landed on the current title as it has a multitude of meanings both literal and figurative. It's left to the reader to decide in which way they choose to interpret it.

 

Q: The writer Megan Collins said of the book, "With humor and style, Meredith O'Brien has written a book that will resonate with--and be cathartic for--anyone whose family has been divided by political differences that often feel too massive to bridge." What do you think of that description?

 

A: I deeply appreciate Megan's take. My goal with this book was to examine three distinct and messy points of view from the tensely polarized moment of America in 2019, pre-pandemic. I hoped that readers might see themselves and/or family and friends in one of the three main characters: Louie, Lulu, and Helen.

 

No matter people's political point of view, I want readers to spend time inside the head of a Trump fan, the title character of Louie, to imagine the sense of collective strength and power this grieving widower might have experienced by feeling as though he was a part of the muscular, masculine Make America Great Again movement.

 

Daughter Lulu -- who represents the bookish, outraged, progressive-liberal-resistance point of view -- is written as holding polar opposite viewpoints, favoring the policies of the likes of her favorite lawmaker, US Senator Elizabeth Warren.

 

Mom Helen was the person in the family who most embodied Switzerland. She was a centrist-liberal (the book takes place in bright blue Massachusetts, which does have some Trump enclaves) who, while she clashed with her husband about Trump, often tried to bridge the gaping chasm between Louie and Lulu.

 

While she lavished support and unconditional affection on her daughter, Helen also encouraged Lulu to see Louie through kinder eyes, to observe him as a man who worked hard to give the family a good life, who'd always been there, and who, despite his gruffness, offered incredible affection and tenderness to Helen during her illness.

 

But since Louie and Lulu are equally stubborn, refusing to consider the other's perspective, once Helen is gone, they can't find a way to cross the divide.

 

Louie is meant to get readers to spend time inside different people's heads and consider how not only politics but also grieving, substance abuse, and caring for one's aging parents with whom you have disagreements can affect an entire family. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I have a sequel to my 2020 medical memoir, Uncomfortably Numb, slated for publication in mid-2025. Uncomfortably Numb 2 (Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing) will feature stories and advice from an array of multiple sclerosis patients and advocates, including me, about how to cope with this life-altering diagnosis.

 

I'm also working on a nonfiction book about a Massachusetts millennial minister's first full, in-person year as the head of a small Unitarian Universalist church. (Her initial year as the pastor was interrupted by COVID lockdowns.)

 

With the working title The Making of a Millennial Minister, the book will follow Rev. Laurel Gray's challenging journey throughout a financially-strapped congregational year, full of growing pains, generational differences, and unexpected illnesses.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I live in the Boston area with my husband Scott and our yappy dog Tedy, and am always happy when one or all of my three 20something children descend upon my kitchen and leave a ubiquitous trail of crumbs in their wake. 

 

I teach journalism at Northeastern University and creative nonfiction at Bay Path University in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. 

 

Additionally, I've followed the Red Sox since I was a young girl growing up in western Massachusetts. And, shockingly enough, I've been following the Liverpool Football Club since August 2023 in an attempt to bond with my sons, who seem to talk about little other than British soccer.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

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