Best of Interviews: Mameve Medwed

We'd gotten a question on inspiration, and began thinking of memorable inspirations for stories we'd come across. One we love was the crazy kernel that Mameve Medwed nurtured into Of Men and Their Mothers. Rather than answer the question ourselves, we thought we'd bring back a "Best Interview" so you can hear the story again from Mameve yourself!

Mameve Medwed’s books are known for their strong sense of setting, fully-drawn characters, and plots that build on comedies of manners in the issues that matter most day-to-day: love, children, parents, career, self. Of her first novel, 1997’s Mail, Publishers Weekly noted that “Medwed’s talent is in the details,” and her books have been praised by the likes of Arthur Golden, Tom Perrotta, Gregory Maguire and Anita Shreve. Her book, Of Men and Their Mothers, was a BookSense “Notable Book” last May. She graciously agreed to be interviewed for The Writers’ Group blog, and offers insights into her path through and take on the literary life.

Hannah Roveto: Thank you for sharing your time with us. I’ve read your first four books, already bought the fifth, and the fact that you are known for humor is of particular interest to me. First off, Mail came out in 1997. What was your background to that point? You were writing already?

Mameve Medwed: Thank you, too! Yes, I was writing short stories and had published a lot. Mail started as a short story published in The Missouri Review. I thought I was a short story writer. Elinor Lipman called and said, you know, you need to write a novel. I told her I didn’t know how, and she said, “Nobody does. Take Mail and turn it into one.” So I did it, kicking and screaming. Then it finds an agent, results in a bidding war, and I thought, this isn’t so bad! I felt I never wanted to write short stories again. I love the luxury of working on something for a matter of years. I always panic at the end of a story, worry where the story will go, and will I ever get another idea. Novel writing delays that panic.

HR: How did you meet Elinor Lipman?

MM: I met Elinor almost thirty years ago in a writing class at Brandeis, adult ed, twelve weeks for forty bucks. We hit it off and became fast friends right away, especially since we were the only ones writing funny stuff and we were considered not “serious!”

HR: What did you learn as you grew into a novel writer?

MM: I don’t know what I learned, in that I did it by the seat of my pants. I’d always keep one paragraph ahead of myself. I was so certain I couldn’t do it, that nobody would want it, I didn’t set any limits on myself. I let my imagination spin, went on tangents, moved back and forth in time. I took classes, of course, at the Cambridge Center and at Radcliffe, which were tremendously helpful. I was quite sure nothing would come of it, though. I still feel that way with every novel, that I’m reinventing the wheel for myself.

HR: Did you have a writers group in those early days?

MM: I’ve certainly been sustained by writers groups and seminars, but all the groups petered out over time. They’d work for a while, then they didn’t. I have one reader over the years, Elinor, who’s been a constant. I read her work and she reads mine. Sometimes my agent reads before I’m done, sometimes someone else.

HR: Do you have a formal process or rules any longer?

MM: No. (Laughs.) Ellie send stories chapter by chapter, very polished. I send her big messy manuscripts I’ve certainly gone over a number of times, but I think she has the harder end of that deal. I don’t want to be stopped too early on.HR: If you are asking someone else to read, are there any guidelines you suggest to them?

MM: I’m very careful whom I ask to read. I have to know the person, know they know me. I want brutal honesty wrapped in encouragement. I don’t want to feel like I’m going to go home and fall on my sword; I want a certain professionalism. You need to know if the story works, the characters are real, whether there are any confusions. Is it too long, and so forth.

HR: You’ve said Mail took about three years to write, and your other books have come out at about two year intervals. Can you talk a bit to your process while you write? Do you outline, or know where your stories are headed, and do you have any thoughts on those “messy middles?”

MM: I’ve been told I’m “so prolific.” Of course, between the time you have a book accepted and when it is published is about eighteen months, so there’s been an additional six months or so of time nobody sees. I have very bad habits, or at least, a horrible time starting a new book. First, I’m often in the whole publication-touring-promotion phase for another book, so it’s hard to switch heads. I haven’t given birth to the old book yet, fully. Nothing flows, and that is torture. It’s an exquisite and delightful torture.

I never know the story when I start to write it out. That’s what makes it interesting to me. If I know, then to me the process feels too mechanical. I like the surprises along the way; they keep me going. If I felt I had to analyze or intellectualize the elements, I’d be paralyzed. I used to feel dumb, but I’ve learned to trust the subconscious when I’m in the zone.

The first draft, I try not to overthink. E.L. Doctorow had a quote about writing a novel: “It’s like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” I keep that over my computer.Once I have about fifty pages, though, I have a place to go. Then I’m really good, have exemplary habits. I can work for eight or ten hours a day and will do at least two pages each day, which accumulates. I let myself write badly; everything including the kitchen sink goes in, what I read in the newspapers, everything. I don’t worry about the middle, because I know I’m going to revise. In revising, I cut huge swathes through it, connect the dots, address continuity. If you allow yourself to write badly the first time through, you use some of it, not other parts, but it’s all there on paper.

HR: So you never know the endings, even in a book like The End of An Error (re-released in paperback last April)?

MM: No. I didn’t. And I don’t know that afterward she sticks with that choice or regrets it, either.

HR: Humor is tricky. What do you think makes it work, if it is something that can be quantified at all? Any tips for someone working in this category?

MM: I don’t think I’m funny. I’m dead serious when I’m writing. That it was funny was a surprise, that people laughed. I suppose it’s my voice, my style. I’ve been on panels, talked about it a lot, and I’ll say that when you’re going to write anything, even humor, it still has to be serious. I do write serious books, about life, love and loss. Robert Stone said it’s the great thing about literature: it makes the world less lonely.To write it, I know the characters have to be real, layered; they can’t be caricatures. The biggest danger in comedy is to have cardboard characters. You need a real person with an inner life. Trollope says that easy reading takes hard writing. You have to go over it a million times to make it seamless, make sure it flows.

HR: When you are ready to start a novel, what sets it off: a moment, a story you hear, a character idea? What inspired your newest book, Of Men and Their Mothers, for example?

MM: I always like writing about mothers and sons; there were certainly experiences with my own mother-in-law that prompt thoughts, and stories I hear. Although then you need to take it and bring it to another level. And class – that’s something we dare not name in our society. For the new book, I’d had some thoughts. Then a somewhat scruffy man was looking for some neighbors, who were out. I told the woman later about him, and she asked me to come over. She pulled a bag from the freezer: breast milk that had been in there for three years or so. Her husband was a lawyer who’d done a pro bono case for DSS and his client asked him to store the milk. The idea of someone’s breast milk in a stranger’s freezer for years… well, that clicked right away with what I was thinking!

HR: What do you like best about the literary life?

MM: I like that I am the god of my domain. I can do whatever I want. And I do love the torture of writing, which gives me the clay to do revision. I like the big feeling of having a book in me, no matter where I go, carrying it inside of me. I don’t like giving up that control once it’s done, when it depends on so many other people, on budgets, reviews and sales. It’s hard to give up the story to that. Most of us are shy, find it hard, worrying about what another person will think even though you know it’s only one opinion; but will it make or break the book? The lovely part, then in turn, is to have a book in your hands, in bookstores and libraries. You get that connection with readers.When you start writing, all you want is to have a book. Then you say, okay, all I want is another book. You’re never satisfied, and each time the anxiety gets ratcheted up, and then the book comes out and that alone doesn’t fulfill you. In the end, it always goes back to the joy and torture of writing your world. Every single time, you have to go back to the writing.

Information on Mameve Medwed’s books, from those above to How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life and Host Family, as well as essays and public appearance dates are at http://www.mamevemedwed.com/.

Publicity

Posted by Lynne Griffin

This is funny to me no matter how many times I view it. Partly because I feel his pain and partly because it's a bit ridiculous.

Watch, laugh, and learn.



On a more optimistic note, Editor-in-Chief George Witte of St. Martin's Press spoke about Life Without Summer on Online and Unscripted, a webcast sponsored by Publishers Weekly and the Association of American Publishers. You can listen to it by going to the seventh link down, where George's name is listed. Once you download the program, SUMMER is the fourth book of five he discusses.

Note: You can go here if the embedded video is glitchy. This clip is worth watching.

The Etiquette of Book Signing

FYI: I'm over at Jungle Red today. Check it out!

By Amy MacKinnon

So I went into Boston over the weekend with a friend to visit area bookstores. Yes, of course I went to see if Tethered was out and if I could possibly, maybe, sign what was in stock. If you're like me -- and you're writers so I can safely assume you are -- it's a bit awkward to present yourself to the manager of a bookstore and say hi, I wrote this book, mind if I sign it? Luckily, for us, they're used to this sort thing, it happens on a fairly regular basis. In fact, it was happening while I stood in line at the customer service desk at the Downtown Crossing Borders.

To my left was an unassuming man in t-shirt and shorts, a backpack slung over his shoulder, stacks of books in front of him and he's waiting patiently, calmly. To my right, being helped by Dave the manager, was an older gentleman. Now while I should have been paying attention to the man on my left, I was in fact futzing with my outfit, smoothing my wayward hair, and standing there holding tight to my book, grinning like a game show contestant, angling it so anyone walking by might see the lovely cover. Waiting, waiting, fidget, futz, wait. It is lovely, though.

Then the man to my left says to the manager, "Are there more in back?" At which point I look to the stacks of books on the counter, look to the man, who is already heading in the direction the manager is pointing, and then I grab Dave the manager's hand (yes, I did) and say, "Is that Richard Russo?"

"Can you believe it? He just walked in!" I ran after him. No, this isn't the dorky part yet, close, but it gets worse. You may need to stop reading now because it's too painful, but imagine how excruciating it is to write. Here goes:

"Mr. Russo?"

"Yes?"

"I'm a big fan, I love your work, like..." At this point, I'm so excited, I can't remember a single title. Not Bridge of Sighs or Empire Falls, not Ship of Fools or The Whore's Child. Not one. His smile is beginning to wane. "I loved that article you wrote for that Maine magazine, I can't remember the name of it, on Alzheimer's, it meant so much to me..."

He starts to back away, his smile waning. "Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you."

There was more, luckily I can't remember it all. Then I really did it. "Could you sign my book?"

You see I'm still holding my copy of Tethered I'd hoped Dave the manager would want me to sign so he could slap that shiny sticker on it: autographed. But I was waiting my turn and hadn't asked yet and it was the only book I had on hand. It didn't occur to me that we were standing in the Richard Russo Aisle (can you imagine having your own section in a bookstore?) and I should have plucked one of his off the shelf.

Now Richard Russo's smile truly falters. He gestures to Tethered. "You want me to sign this book?"

"Yes, it's mine, I wrote it." I'm beaming, from nerves not pride. Even I can see how this is going, but I can't stop the train wreck.

"Oh, congratulations." He's so very nice. "But I don't think I should..." He's shaking his head, looking from me to the book.

"Of course, that would be silly." I may have stopped beaming here. I may have even gulped and developed a nervous tic.

"Hey," he said, angling my book so he could see it better. "Tethered, huh? And you're Amy MacKinnon?"

I nod. Futz, twitch, tic.

"I'll have to get that. The cover is really great."

I thank him, I leave, and Dave the kind manager, leads me over to my own -- much smaller -- stack of books on the front table and I begin to them. A man passes, he stops and turns to regard me. It's him, Richard Russo. He calls out across the floor.

"Is this your first one?" He's walking backward, toward the exit, that face I know so well smiling, for me.

"Yes." I'm beaming again.

"Good luck with it. I'll be looking out for it!"

And then he was gone and in an instant, he made me feel like I wasn't quite the big dork I knew myself to be.

When Bloggers Panic

by Hannah Roveto

You'd think sharing a blog with three other people would be easy. Once a week, plus an answer to a prompt on Friday. We're writers, we can do that, no problem. After all, it's about writing, too, so what could be easier, really?

Tuesday, 5:30 p.m. Think about blog post for next day. Something scintillating, although how to match Lisa and Amy's? "Close to done revising" won't cut it. So what? Distracted by child needing ride.

Tuesday 9:00 p.m. Drag to bed. Shoot. Didn't even think of what to post.

Tuesday 9:15 p.m. Once thought about posting my paid writing as comparison to the literary side of me. "Do you dream of sitting by the seaside, on a villa patio, or in a tropical paradise, yet think you can't justify such a splurge?" This lead sentence continues, one graph later, into five tips for creating a fabulous outdoor area, layering in Furniture as a Focal Point, Tabletop Touches, Details That Create a Difference, Don't Forget Fabrics, and Give It A Glow. All in under 400 words. I'm so convincing I want to decorate my own patio, which is saying something as my whole house, nevermind the bricks outside, suffers from being highly "underdecorated."

Wednesday 6:00 a.m. While riding the exercise bike, think of letting the cat out of the bag. Elinor Lipman agreed to be interviewed for this blog! Am so excited. Start to finalize my question list for her and stop thinking about the blog. Did you know Then She Found Me is coming out as a movie? It is being screened outside of Boston tomorrow night, with Elinor doing an intro, then Q&A afterward. Helen Hunt, who directs and co-stars, was told Salman Rushdie wanted to read for a small part and responded with the following: "Shut up!" Yes, he got the part.

Wednesday 7:00 a.m. One child out the door, the other lumbering down the stairs. Spy the book I've been reading on the coffee table: Waiting for Teddy Williams by Frank Mosher. Fun read, by the way. My library had a whole section of baseball fiction, which will be great when my own book comes out. I've thought of posting about dream blurbs; I scan Mosher's for people I might approach: Ken Burns, Dan Shaughnessy, Bill "Spaceman" Lee, Jodi Picoult, Chris Bohjalian, Richard Russo. Gulp.

Wednesday 7:45 a.m. Two children out the door. What to write? What about how I can't decide what to post? Too boring. What about my outdoor entertaining patter? That'll scare everyone. Elinor Lipman? I haven't interviewed her yet, and she's got that screening tomorrow. Blurbs? Not yet. All of them together? Maybe, maybe, although then I've used up multiple ideas in one shot. Then again, I've got time.

Laughing At The Funeral

by Hannah Roveto

Inappropriate in real life, sure, but in writing it can make sense. Yes? Or maybe not.

Humor is frustrating. Being funny is a matter of what? Timing, situation, conflict, character, all of that, sure. Gulp. Still, putting what I thought I knew of humor into practice has been quite the learning experience.

In my revision, no matter how confident I was as it flowed from my fingers, building on a neat stack of pages outlining each chapter, there was some hurdle I needed to leap that I couldn't quite put my finger on. It all came clear when I had to deal with the funeral.

In previous drafts, I avoided a funeral by making the timeline such that my protagonist went off to claim an inheritance post-death. The Group, however, noted this particular young man would not have missed the funeral of this particular beloved, aged relative. Can't do that. No how, no way.

Sigh. I had writerly reasons for avoiding the funeral and the reception afterward. Too many family members, more Scenes Where Everyone Eats, too many threads to weave just so without getting caught up in a knot. Oh, right, and I wanted to make people laugh, without being predictable. The biggest writerly reason? Deep down, I probably thought I couldn't do it.

In retrospect, the funeral scared me the most because it scared my character the most. He was easy to make amusing when he was full of bravado. How could I keep it rolling and still make him genuinely sympathetic and still funny in the depths of grief? I wanted to do it right, keep him real and not a caricature; I wanted suprise. It was a bit overwhelming.

Having narrowed my threads in this revision, focusing and strengthening each across the story, I was feeling fairly confident. Still, even with a clear story outline and details in mind as I sat down to write that particular scene, the results were not as I imagined.

I assumed the character might laugh during the funeral, yet when the moment came, he didn't do that at all. He was angry, sad, indignant at how the funeral was unfolding, and in the gap between the poor guy and what is going on around him, I found where the humor lay. Suddenly, in turn, the reception also became manageable. The rest of the world disappears as my character learns something that makes him fully understand what he is up against in his quest. The hordes vanish, the food disappears, the plot moves forward. Best of all, I "got" it, not just on a philosophical level, but in the mechanics of it.

The lessons I've learned? A trio of useful bits: First, the challenge you avoid is the one you most need to tackle. Two, credit to the Group, throw everything at your character. Easier to pull back in a future revision than to find out you needed to throw more at him or her in the first place. (And refer to lesson one when you do this!) Three, on a side note, you can write scenes with food without stuffing your readers. I promise.

At Work in the Post Office

by Hannah Roveto

The woman is suspended from the post office counter by her elbows, which rest a good foot or two across the surface. Ugg boots dangle an inch or two off the floor. An inch-wide line of skin shows between her jeans and her fleece.

"Ooh! That one! What's that one?"

The postal clerk says something about cars.

"Yes! Cars! I need two sheets of those."

The clerk looks at me and the woman turns, still in mid-air with a grin.

"I hate being behind people like me at the post office." With that she points at another page to which the man turns. "What are those? Kwanzaa? No. Muslim? Oh, no. Christmas? Now, how come they can't make good Christian stamps? Those aren't pretty at all."

The clerk is a neutral party, offering only the tidbit that the Madonna of the Carnation is an old painting. The factoid is greeted with a grunt.

The post office is a two-room building circa 1880 or so. In the front half, fifteen-foot-long walls of brass mail boxes in three sizes with dial combinations are centered by this counter and this woman. Her long, curly hair is topped by a cap similar to Eastern bloc sailor hats. With a slight shift in angle, one can see postal logos on it.

By the time the woman is done, she has asked for all the sheets of stamps for the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign, featuring birds and bees, bats and butterflies near gorgeous blooms. Dozens of them. "A bat! Look, it's all the animals in my backyard! I have that exact bird!" She wants the cars, passes over the princesses, returns the Liberty Bells, waves away all holiday leftovers.

As the clerk rings her up, she proceeds to put twenty or so individual stamps from the hundreds before her onto envelopes. Where I assumed she was buying sheets for younger relatives who collect stamps, no, apparently she is known in her family for using fabulous stamps on her mailings. She proceeds to put each stamp where the return address should go.

The two women behind me are agitated, with thin smiles that reinforce exactly how pleasant they are being at great effort. Maybe it is because I have a front row seat, but I am enjoying this all greatly despite the fact that I should have been home by now.

"Sorry for the wait," the clerk says without expression when the woman leaves, waving her sheets at us and giggling at how she never knew the post office could process mail with the stamp in the upper left hand corner.

"I'm good," I tell him. "I'm a writer. You'll be reading a novel some day, and there will be a scene that seems eerily familiar."

Not a single muscle in his face twitches or shifts, up or down. He hands me my change and takes my single, small package. The woman directly behind me laughs and winks at him.

"John, this is your big chance." She takes her turn at the counter. "Make sure the postal clerk is very handsome and charming."

And so he will be.

What Makes You Laugh?

by Hannah

Laughter is a mysterious, wonderful thing. The Navaho or Diné people have a ceremony to celebrate the first time a baby laughs. In China, a New Year's cookie called "laughing open mouth" symbolizes happiness for the coming year. Laughter is a magical moment, and humor a magical craft.

If one is writing or revising a novel that falls into the category of humor, what are the rules to make it so? I don't know, despite the fact that what I write is intended to be funny and apparently hits the mark a good chunk of the time. Even when I try to boil down what makes me laugh in other people's work, or in those moments that work in my stories, it doesn't sound like a recipe anyone else can follow.

So to kick off the New Year, I'm asking you, what is funny? Funny as in, makes you laugh even as you shake your head and feel sorry for a character? How much is too much or not enough, given that pace should move, like any other novel, in waves that crescendo toward the close?

My librarians must think me a bit Pollyanna-ish in my constant requests for what is new and funny; they know not to try to sell me on the latest tear-jerker. I only take recommendations on sad and beautiful books from friends; it is a measure of the depth of a friendship when I dive into a book that promises heartbreak and misery.

In asking for suggestions on humorous novels, it is amazing how broad the category is, and how differently people define it. The challenge is that I want real stories, with real problems, a take on the world that delivers punch and still a laugh. My own bookends in this category – the first book I read that captures what I am aiming for, and the most recent – are Fannie Flagg’s Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café, and Mark Haddon’s A Spot of Bother.

The set-up of the first, as you know, is hardly grounds for a chuckle, and the latter is a must-read about a gentleman who is slowly going crazy, as is most of his family for one reason or another. Well-crafted characters searching for meaning and truth in their lives. Tragedy at every turn, and yet we cannot help but smile, at the least.

What allows that moment of recognition and self-recognition to not only connect, but make us actually, physically laugh? It’s in the writing, in the moment, in the conflict, in the character, and still it goes beyond definition. We know it when we see it, because we react to it with our hearts and souls.

What do you think? What makes you laugh out loud? What are your thoughts on funny?