Q&A with Bonnie Jo Campbell

  

Photo by Fran Dwight

 

 

 

Bonnie Jo Campbell is the author of the new novel The Spirits. Her other books include The Waters. She lives outside Kalamazoo, Michigan. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Spirits, and how do you see the novel relating to Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol?

 

A: Thank you so much for interviewing me, Deborah! I appreciate all the good work you do for readers and writers!

 

Well, after all that rough-hewn grit lit I’ve written, I had a hankering to write a Christmas story. I hoped it would be simple and cheerful and possibly even lighthearted. It had to have a happy ending—Christmas stories absolutely must have happy endings!

 

But as usual, my story got dark and brutal and difficult for my characters in the Michigan countryside. For a while I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to wrangle a happy ending out of it.

 

But I was inspired by A Christmas Carol. Now that is a rough story in which people are hungry—starving even—and freezing cold; children are in danger of dying. What could be more dire than that? Not to mention the dire danger that Scrooge’s soul faces.

 

But with the grace of imagination and a faith in human nature, Charles Dickens redeems a very challenged soul in a situation that is dire and wrenches a happy ending out of the swirling ghost-filled chaos. So, I had something to shoot for.

 

I find that once my own story is in conversation with other stories I love, then I can begin to see light at the end of the tunnel. And isn’t that what the Christmas season is all about, as the nights become long, isn’t it about coming through the darkness into the light!?

 

Q: The author Pam Houston said of the book, “I relate to [the character] Sister so fully and deeply, the hair stood up on the back of my neck. A haunting and a healing, all at once.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Gosh, I’m so flattered and thrilled that Pam liked the book. And the fact that she related so profoundly to it means that, even though I’m writing about extreme events, about something that is out of the realm of normal experience, the work connects emotionally to real-life situations and relationships that folks like Pam have had.

 

That is why we read, of course—we need to experience extreme things on the page instead of real life, where there would be terrible consequences! Stories can show us more outrageous versions of our real-life experiences, allowing us to cope alongside the folks in the story.

 

Sometimes in real life we would like to respond with violence or violent words, but we don’t want to suffer the fallout, and so it can be cathartic to read about someone responding harshly on the page.

 

I’m especially glad that Pam found the book healing because that became my purpose in writing the book, to show how a person—even a whole family—can heal from even the most difficult or most soul-crushing experiences.

 

As for the “haunting” part, I’m so glad I have succeeded in being spooky—the supernatural is something I’ve been hesitant to employ in my work, but let’s face it, we are living in surreal times, and sometimes we need to explore something a little outside our ordinary reality.

 

Q: What do you think the novel says about family?

 

A: People are complicated, filled to the brim with their passions and their hurts and their blind spots, all of that tangled into what we might call a personality!

 

As they grow up, they learn to sublimate some of that to behave in a way that helps them get along in the world, but when they come home, a lot of that falls away and the hurts and passions and blind spots come out of hiding. When any family gets along it is a miracle! In a beautiful world, family members can actually relax and be themselves and still get along.

 

The rewards of a family coming together are profound — families are the places where people know us best and can still accept us, or so we hope. That is why so many of our favorite stories are family stories. (Little House books, all of Jane Austen’s work, for starters).

 

Also, a family story allows for a lot of variety for the reader. We know so-and-so is clever and can lighten the conversation, while we know what’s-her-name is the peacemaker, something that is often needed. Maybe another family member seems a little dull, but that dullness may be an important stabilizing force.

 

I don’t know what more my work can add to the study of the family, but I know I love these characters and find it fascinating how they do fit together into a perfect whole unit; ideally this means that the family allows for a place for everyone to feel welcomed and safe.

 

In the difficult times we live in, with so much fighting and anger in the world and often at home, too, creating this family and seeing them work together to survive a difficult night is a Christmas gift to myself.

 

Q: As someone who has written novels, short stories, and poems, do you have a preference?

 

A: When I was working on The Spirits, the novel seemed so important that I feared I would die while trying to finish it, both from the effort and because I feared I would take 40 years to figure out what happened to this family, the Whitbys.

 

And I strongly preferred writing a novel because so much is possible in a novel, and so much that matters desperately can be worked out.

 

But the truth is, whatever I am currently working on feels the most important. I recently finished a poetry collection, and I wondered if I could ever write prose again, as I was enjoying paying such exquisite attention to each line as a line, and language became medicine for me, and I found I could disconnect from ordinary logic.

 

As for short stories, I wish I had more situations that would make short stories because nothing is more satisfying than a good short story, but those ideas aren’t coming to me.

 

I used to work on a lot of different things at once—I used to keep poems, stories, novels, and essays all going, but now, once I have a novel going, I feel compelled to focus there, and put in the hard work on that. Novels seem to hold up over time—people keep reading novels for decades, even centuries if you’re lucky!

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Lately I’ve been working on essays about my mom—essays, there’s another form I love to write. I’d like to write a full-length book about being my mother’s daughter, but that doesn’t feel like a sharp enough focus for a book. I am writing about various aspects of our relationship, and I’m going to see where all that goes. I am reading her journals, and that is pure joy.

 

I also have just finished that book of poetry I mentioned, but we live in a world where there are many books of poetry, so I’m not sure what I should do with it.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I’m working hard trying to get my donkeys healthy in time for my book tour, when I will have to neglect them a bit. Jack and Don Quixote are 28 and 26 years old now, so they are getting up there.

 

Donkeys are survivors, and they are desert animals, and that means that the two things that can do them in are moisture (too much rain, snow, and humid weather) and overeating. Too much protein or sugar affect their hooves badly. I love my two boys, and I hope they have another decade of stomping around my pasture.

 

Oh, and today, as I’m writing this, I’m about the celebrate my 39th wedding anniversary with my Darling Christopher—he’s pretty great, too!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Bonnie Jo Campbell.