Interview: Darcey Steinke
Darcey Steinke is the author of the memoir Easter Everywhere and the novels Milk, Jesus Saves, Suicide Blonde, Up Through the Water, and Sister Golden Hair. With Rick Moody, she edited Joyful Noise: The New Testament Revisited. Her books have been translated into ten languages, and her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Boston Review, Vogue, Spin Magazine, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and The Guardian. Her web-story “Blindspot” was a part of the 2000 Whitney Biennial. She has been both a Henry Hoyns and a Stegner Fellow and Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi, and has taught at the Columbia University School of the Arts, Barnard, The American University of Paris, and Princeton. (bio adapted from the author's website).
TCJWW: When did you begin writing, Darcey?
Steinke: I started writing as a very young child. I had a stutter so the only way I cold be elegant and fluent was on the page. I kept a journal starting at about age 8 or 9 and wrote stories and poems all through school. I have always wanted to write things down. I also had the model of my father working on his sermon in his office, writing, and this influenced me a lot. It seemed like THE THING to be doing, being at your desk writing.
TCJWW: What inspired you to write Sister Golden Hair?
Steinke: Many things! First of all, I had a daughter who was the same age (13-16) as the narrator as I was writing the book. When my daughter turned 12 and started to enter puberty, I really saw how hard the whole thing was up close. How awkward. And how odd the physical changes. This made me remember things about my own girlhood in the 70s. So that was one thing. I also wanted to write a coming-of-age story that had to do with female relationships, female friendships, and how intense they are at that time. How women look to women to figure out how to be. I also think you never get over the people you come-of-age with—you have love/hate relationships with them your whole life. Also when I was writing the book, I had a sense of wanting to create the sort of 70s malaise I remember. Do my 70s. When I started, I was thinking that it was a sad time—parents preoccupied with social change—and just a lot of inattention, but as I wrote I started to remember the freedom we had as kids and also how much slack there was in life, nothing like now when everything is planned to an inch of your life and I started to sort of miss that.
TCJWW: Did you structure Sister Golden Hair as a kind of biography, in order to set time and place for the reader? How did you set out to do this?
Steinke: This is a great question! You know when I saw the film Boyhood, I felt the form of it was very close to Sister Golden Hair, the idea of life moving in episodes and over time, with a different sort of arc then a traditional narrative. I did not want a climax in this book, I wanted each phase to be its own story. In those teenage years for me, each time period was defined by a relationship, a friendship usually, and that's how I wanted this to be structured. Also, I think because I wrote a memoir (Easter Everywhere) just before I wrote Sister Golden Hair, I realized the power in the episodic, the power in quiet scenes that build over time, that maybe are not so dramatically directed as a story with a tight traditional arc. I like the feel of that, it feels more real at the moment.
As far as biographies, I love them! They are my favorite genre to read. I love the feel of a whole life. I particularly love Robert Richardson's books about William James and I loved Megan Marshell's book about the Peabody sisters. More recently Charles Marsh's book about Bonhoffer is great. I feel that's what we have to give to each other ultimately, not only our stories, but our life. I find reading about a whole life to be very inspiring and also having read them for so long, I think that has finally gotten into my ideas of form as well. To get the feel of a life lived, maybe more non-linear and messier and less of the tight story arc.
TCJWW: You chose the time period of the 70s to write about. What interests you about this time?
Steinke: I came of age in the 70s. I think the period you come of age in, you never really get over completely. You have a unique relationship and unresolved feelings also, all your life. You have a love/hate relationship with the people you come of age with with as well. So I was feeling that as I went into the book. Also, while there has been a lot written about the 70s, I felt the tone I remembered had not been done yet. So I wanted to do that as well. The 70s was when the social changes of the 60s finally made it out to the suburbs. There was a lot of displacement and confusion. Gender roles were changing, there was a lot of divorce. The adults seemed preoccupied and confused. As if they'd started out with one set of values, those of the 50s, but now had to negotiate a whole new set. This made for frustration and anger.
As I wrote the book, I also missed some of the freedom available in that time. n+1 has an essay about 70s fiction in their new issue. My novel, among others, is considered. The author comes to feel that writers, though depicting the 70s as "bad," have a certain nostalgia for the carelessness, freedom, and openness of that time. It was before making money was such a big thing, and we were less stressed and over worked. The rattiness of it was freeing in a way. And I do think that's true as well.
Also Sister Golden Hair, is a sort of soft prequel to my novel Suicide Blonde, so I wanted to write about Jesse at the earlier points of her life.
TCJWW: How do you keep a reader interested when writing?
Steinke: This is another great question. It's about many things, I think. The language has to be original and not loaded with cliché (though for everything I say here, there are books that challenge it, like Fifty Shades of Grey which is so badly written but obviously appeals to readers) and also there has to be tension on many levels, tension on the thematic side, the character and the story moving things forward, complicating and heightening the theme. I think readers read forward most passionately for emotional continuity. They want to see a character feel something and then see how that feeling moves into the next section or phase.
As a reader, I read for intimacy mostly. I want to feel close to the narrator and I want to feel that the narrator is honestly laying how they live their life to me. Even if they are messed up, blocked, or stuck, I want those things to be shown in a raw way that I can identify with as a human. I was talking to a friend about Leaving Antioch Station by Ben Lerner, and my friend was saying she could not get into the characters' bad behavior and why should that be appealing? And I said, because that's humanity. There are always motives at odds with the ones we think we are being motivated by and if you can let the reader into that it can be very strong. People beat up on Phillip Roth a lot, but I think he is great at this. I loved Sabbath's Theater because of how depraved it was. That seems very human to me. That honesty is riveting.
TCJWW: What are you doing when not writing?
Steinke: I teach at Columbia, The New School, and Princeton, though not all at the same time. I swim, I read. I try to practice my French. I go out with my friends. I babysit my nephews. I go to the Russian baths with my husband. I see movies. I walk in Prospect Park.
TCJWW: What do you enjoy the most about writing?
Steinke: I love being alone at my desk. I also like nailing down an image or an idea. That feels good to me. It's line-by-line I get the most pleasure. Working with the words.
TCJWW: Who are some of your favorite authors?
Steinke: I have so many. I love Joy Williams and also Flannary O'Connor and also Carson McCullers. I love all the Transcendentalist writers. I adore the theologian Simon Weil.
Photo credits:
Author photo courtesy of www.cleavermagazine.com
