Sound familiar? In a post-Sex and the City era, much of Bierlein’s literary ground feels well-trod. We’ve come to expect the cheeky sex talk, the blasé infidelity, and – above all – the redemptive power of female friendship. We’re no longer shocked when a woman who seemingly has it all considers throwing it away for a man who doesn’t deserve her. And the remaining storylines are equally predictable: a grieving woman finds solace in a European lover; a wife battles her mother-in-law for her husband’s attention; friends from college gather to celebrate an engagement and marvel at their varying life paths. Although Bierlein’s prose is cleanly delivered and snappily paced, her collection too often tells us stories we’ve heard before.

Which is a shame, because the glimpses we catch of Bierlein’s originality take us beyond the tropes of chick lit to someplace magical. In the opening story, “A Vacation on the Island of Ex-Boyfriends,” two girlfriends head off on a vacation to Nantucket, only to find themselves instead on an island inhabited by every man they’ve ever dated, lined up in chronological order. It’s a fantastic premise, and Bierlein heightens the payoff by juxtaposing the impossible scenario with unassuming, economical prose: “In three days we have played, cried, ran, fought, laughed, danced, and built fires with them all —every man we’ve ever wanted. We’re exhausted.”

Similarly, the final story in the collection, “An Interrogation at the Prison of Ex-Girlfriends,” gives us a roomful of mistresses tied up for questioning by an angry wife and her whip-cracking assistant. Like, “A Vacation…,” there’s a suspension of disbelief required here, and a sense of time-out-of-time. Our narrator ponders

If this had happened when we were together I would have told him, Your biggest problem right now is that I sort of like her. Certainly undertaking a group abduction requires more verve that I had ever imagined from a wife.

In Bierlein’s world, revenge is a dish that tastes even better with a little self-deprecating humor.

With these two stories, Bierlein demonstrates exactly how much verve she’s capable of delivering. Here’s hoping her next collection will serve up even more.

Extras

• Read Bierlein’s writings, including a self-interview, at The Nervous Breakdown.
• Listen to a podcast of Bierlein’s AWP conference panel, in which she offers advice to emerging writers.

In her recent reviewlet of this collection, Alison Espach writes:

Perhaps the collection is best described in my favorite story, “Doctor Vick’s,” when Perillo writes, “You know the only true world is the one you carry inside you.” These stories are compelling journeys because they are so true.

We’re giving away a copy of Happiness is a Chemical in the Brain next week to three of our Twitter followers. To be eligible for this giveaway (and all future ones), simply click over to Twitter and “follow” us (@fictionwriters).

To all of you who are already fans, thank you!

Further Reading

• Read the rest of Espach’s review.
• Read Lucia Perillo’s poem “This Red T-Shirt” – published in The New Yorker, May 10, 2010

As a Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet and MacArthur Fellow, it’s no surprise Perillo’s writing is stunning in its precision and imagery. Perillo takes us on tours of the seaside, the country, and the urban with a never-been-used-before lens. All the while, narrative doesn’t take a backseat to description. Yes, her characters are quite often stuck—in country houses, in addiction, in love, in geriatric homes—but they’re never standing still, and that distinction is what gives this collection an undeniable urgency. Perhaps these stories would not easily sell on premise alone (woman becomes deeply obsessed with her vacuum cleaner) but they are better, more surprising for it.

Perillo’s prose leads us down an unwritten path, as we discover the secret worlds of her characters and their enemies: their obsessions, their boredom, their fantasies of revenge, and their hearts. The prose is so unabashedly honest that you will follow these characters wherever they’re headed: a mother who spies on her son through the woods, a sister whose main goal in life is to stay fourteen forever, a woman recovering from alcohol abuse and seventeen Bad Boys, a wife who fantasizes about the life of the French President while stuck in a cabin (stuck in this marriage, in this life) with her husband.

Perhaps the collection is best described in my favorite story, “Doctor Vick’s,” when Perillo writes, “You know the only true world is the one you carry inside you.” These stories are compelling journeys because they are so true.

Extras

• Get a copy of Happiness Is a Chemical in the Brain at Amazon, IndieBound, or Powell’s.
• Read Lucia Perillo’s poem “This Red T-Shirt” – published in The New Yorker, May 10, 2010.

Jon McGregor, Britain’s second best short story writer (his website proclaims), has published three novels – two on the Booker long list – but this is his first story collection. Each section, and each story, bears the name of a different town in Lincolnshire (I looked them up), an agricultural county on England’s Eastern coast filled with fens, salt marshes, and earthworks built up against the sea. It’s a strangely blank landscape, not quite dreary, but overcast, obscure. You could say McGregor knows that landscape like the back of his hand, only it’s doubtful we’d know our hands so well.

The stories begin and end in medias res. Horrible events occur offstage and the reader scrabbles over hard ground, looking for rise, rock, or weir to gain a vantage point. Ironic, since Lincolnshire is noted for its flatness. The word “suspense” springs to mind. McGregor holds a black belt in misdirection. In “The Chicken and The Egg” a man fears cracking an egg to find an embryonic chicken – a study in dread. “The Last Ditch” gives a detailed plan for surviving an anticipated crisis, which has obviously fallen into the “authority’s” redacting, footnoting hands. Even at half a page, “Dig a Hole” ignites terror as a mob chants, “Dig a hole and fucking bury him.” Many narrators remain unnamed, a canny choice in a collection that forces so many decisions – which characters to trust, what Prisoner J. Disputed – on the reader.

McGregor’s surprises feel honest. You settle into the story you think he’s telling, only to discover near the end that isn’t the story you’d signed up for at all. The real magic occurs – and often – when he lets the reader fill in all the dark, dread drama. The great horror auteurs know this – anticipation is all.  Cut away from the moment of violence at the last minute and you scar your viewer forever. The quick mind rabbits ahead to the worst.

In “Wires,” a sugar beet flies through a young woman’s windshield, demanding attention. We should know better. In this story, McGregor seamlessly includes technology: the girl tracks her mood in status-updates. We all – or at least 845 million of us – know exactly what she’s on about. It’s just there, as culturally universal and blasé as a toaster, no fanfare required. There has been much ham-fisted deployment of Brave New Technology in fiction; seeing it treated merely as a mental tic is refreshing.

Status update: Emily Wilkinson regrets not having signed up for breakdown insurance.

Meanwhile the reader frets: you should be worried about a hell of a lot more than that.

The stories, united by geography, cover a wild range of form and subject, but one mood prevails: loneliness. I pity the character who finds himself in McGregor’s hands, for isolation will plague him, and disaster will visit like an unwelcome guest. But it’s delicious reading. There are scenes of domestic unease and wide-scale societal breakdown, but McGregor refrains so fully from judgment that it’s never clear if the police state paranoia is madness, or a rational assessment of the situation. “If It Keeps On Raining” describes a modern-day Noah, building a tree house to escape a flood, untrustworthy – possibly insane – but impossible to dismiss. Besides, floods and rain recur throughout the collection – one can’t be too sure. One of the most inventive stories in the collection, “Supplementary Notes To The Testimony Of Appellants B & E,” give an appendix to a legal proceeding which reads like straining to hear the audio track of a horror movie from the next room.

“We Wave and Call” opens thus:

And sometimes it happens like this: a young man lying face down in the ocean, his limbs hanging loosely beneath him, a motorboat droning slowly across the bay, his body moving in long, slow ripples with each passing shallow wave, the water moving softly across his skin, muffled shouts carrying out across the water …

I wouldn’t trust anyone who thinks that boy is alive … and yet he is. McGregor embeds the shard of dread, then immediately turns to playfulness, but he makes his point: we survive by assumptions, but they also undo us. We’re never sure where the text ends and imagination begins. That’s the brilliance of any successful collection, and this one in particular: it’s all on the page. McGregor employs the alchemy between word and reader to great effect.

The collection that kept coming to mind was Dubliners, that restless unease that pulsed beneath Joyce’s epiphanic stories – people casting about for a revelation, a grand purpose, one that soon arrived in the blood-washed trenches of Europe. Even neutral Ireland felt the effects. What comes next in McGregor’s salt-blasted flatlands may be boogieman or apocalypse, but you can be sure it’s big and bad. As one character says of his friend, “Thing with Ray is he’s one of those people who can drink as much as they want without causing any problems. It’s when the drink runs out is when you want to watch him.” In this world, it’s no surprise that sobriety trumps drunkenness in misery. When Ray launches into an unhappy tale, his friend laments, “Later he told me how the story had ended. Like I’d been hanging on waiting for the final installment.” The thing is, we have.

Further Links & Resources

• Ever wonder what successful writers were doing a decade earlier? A Guardian profile of McGregor gives you a glimpse of the author as a young(er) man in 2002.
• Get a copy of This Isn’t The Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You on Amazon, Indiebound, or Powell’s.

In his recent reviewlet of this collection, Ben Pfeiffer writes:

This Will Be Difficult to Explain is a slim, lime-colored book with a picture of a lackadaisical girl on the cover. It holds nine stories in just one hundred and sixty-nine pages, but although the book feels light in the hand, the stories pack a concentrated, emotional punch.

We’re giving away a copy of This Will Be Difficult to Explain next week to three of our Twitter followers. To be eligible for this giveaway (and all future ones), simply click over to Twitter and “follow” us (@fictionwriters).

To all of you who are already fans, thank you!

Further Reading

• Read the rest of Pfeiffer’s review.
• Read an interview with Johanna Skibsrud on Maison Neuve.

Congrats! To claim your free copy, please email us at the following address:

winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com

If you’d like to be eligible for future giveaways, please visit our Twitter Page and “follow” us!

Thanks to all of you who are fans. We appreciate your support. Let us know your favorite new books out there!

In addition to surviving a plate of “seasoned-for-natives” kung pao chicken during his year in Wisconsin, Lysley Tenorio is also distinguished as having earned perhaps the most fellowships for emerging writers in the country. He has served as a Bennett Fellow at Phillips Exeter Academy, a McCreight Fellow at the University of Wisconsin, a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, a John Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University, and a resident at Yaddo and MacDowell colonies. In addition to receiving the Whiting Writers Award and the National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, Lysley’s work has appeared in such publications as The Atlantic, Ploughshares, The Chicago Times, and Manoa. His long-awaited debut collection, Monstress, has just been released by Ecco.

A reviewer at the Los Angeles Times writes: “Tenorio’s stories, set amid mingling nationalities and generations, prompt comparisons to the works of Junot Díaz and Jhumpa Lahiri… but the refreshingly wry stories in Monstress are rangier and less concerned with documenting the specific experience of emigrating. Instead they’re focused on uncanny moments when a character realizes that something essential to his or her life might be as false and frightening as [a] bucket of blood.”

Over the course of several online conversations, Lysley and I spoke about some of his favorite celebrity alter egos (Peter Cetera, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), the super powers we longed for, and occasionally, fiction.

Interview

Quan Barry: Okay, let’s get the boring stuff out of the way, i.e.: identity politics and their influence or lack thereof on your writing. As Mike Myers’s character Linda Richman might say, “You are neither white nor straight. Discuss.”

Lysley Tenorio: What about SECRET identity politics? What are the political implications of a caped crusader posing as a millionaire playboy anyway?  We’ll get Christian Bale on the case. Or better yet, Adam West. As for my identity politics? I’d say my first attempt at writing short stories—way back during my senior year in college–was very much politically inspired, full of agendas meant to educate any potential reader on my own views on the American identity in the context of the immigrant experience. As a result, everything came out like an Immigrant-Movie-of-the-Week on the Lifetime network. Flat. Didactic. Labored. That said, I never wrote about my own life, and I think the attempt to imagine the lives of people from different ethnic backgrounds was essential in my committing to writing fiction. While Monstress is full of Filipino and Filipino-American characters, I see them first as individuals caught up in weird, sometimes ridiculous, and always (I hope) emotionally complex circumstances that have nothing to do with my own experience as a Filipino American. That’s the fun of fiction, getting into someone else’s business. So in that sense, I think I’ve set aside identity politics, and instead become more concerned with simply telling a compelling story full of characters with whom readers can hopefully empathize.

I hear what you’re saying, but we live in America where we like us some qualifiers. Ever worry that you’ll be pigeon-holed as “that Filipino writer?”

I do think about that, sure. On one hand, it could be a lucky thing to be known as “that Filipino writer”; it probably beats being completely unknown. At the same time, I would hope my stories—which I think are ultimately about individuals simply trying to make their way through the world—would allow me to simply be viewed as a writer. Or, perhaps more importantly (for reasons personal, political, psychological, etc.) an American writer. My stories, to me, feel quintessentially American. I write American fiction. So in that sense, I don’t want to be pigeon-holed at all.

Speaking of quintessentially American stories, there’s something almost pulp-fiction-esque about your work. I.e.: if your subjects were “ripped from the headlines,” they’d be ripped from the back pages of stuff you find in comic book shops, books with titles like Weird Tales and I Was A Teenage Werewolf. To be specific, you have characters making B-movies, suffering from leprosy, performing psychic surgery, to name just a few. Having said all this, your treatment of these subjects isn’t sensational in the tabloid sense, but fairly realistic. What draws you to these characters, and how do you find the human in the fantastic?

I like the challenge these characters present. How, for example, can you build an emotionally and psychologically complex story around a Filipino psychic surgeon who travels abroad to dupe other Filipinos into falling for his scam? More importantly, how can you render his story with empathy, in ways that might simultaneously indict and redeem him? It’s fun imagining my way into the heads of people in these weird, sometimes ridiculous situations. The key is for me to remember that, as narrow-minded as some of these characters might seem, they’re ultimately full of good intentions, even if they only serve themselves. Selfish as that might be, there’s still something important in that. Maybe it’s self-preservation. Maybe that’s all human beings are really about. If so, that’s what makes the case for these characters, what brings to the surface their humanity, even in the midst of the seemingly unbelievable.

Peter Cetera "Solitude/Solitaire"

You and I have long running jokes on everything from Peter Cetera (I just realized he’s an ET away from etc) to reproductive organs to salads made entirely of hard boiled eggs. Plus, you performed improv when you were an undergraduate. Most people who know you say you’re the funniest person they know. And yet, most of your stories tend more toward heartbreak than they do toward humor. Is it a conscious decision on your part to check your sense of humor at the door when you sit down to write?

Funniest? I’ve gotten hottest, leggiest, bustiest. But funniest? Not so sure. But I appreciate that you’re reading the heartbreak in these stories, because I’m sometimes paranoid that my stories are too (seemingly) whimsical—the making of a horror movie, a group of guys who want to kick the shit out of the Beatles, etc. Certainly, I’m aware of the “lightness” of these scenarios, but I’m interested in contrasting that with their inherent darkness.  So, while I don’t check my sense of humor at the door, I try not to make it a priority, or manipulate plot for the sake of a joke.  Humor, in fiction, isn’t a joke; it’s merely another aspect of the truth. If I can get at that while at the same time exploring some of the darker tones of the piece, then that’s great. And by the way, I contacted Peter (ET)Cetera for a blurb, and the bastard wouldn’t take my call. “Man who will fight for your honor,” my ass.

You should’ve asked. I would’ve legally changed my name to Peter Cetera and written you a blurb (“The next time you fall in love, it’ll be with this book!”), then paid the $220 processing fee assessed in the state of Wisconsin to change my name back.

Now you tell me.

I know Buffy the Vampire Slayer used to be an important part of your life. What do you think TV and movies can teach fiction writers about their craft?

On more obvious levels, they can serve as decent models for structure—linear, non-linear, modular, etc. But I think they can also teach the writer the value of what I call “going for broke.” In other words, those seemingly melodramatic, high-action moments on TV and in the movies that often get the slo-mo treatment, and are scored with blaring trumpets or sorrowful violins, or given the extreme close-up of the emotionally wrenched facial expression. When you’re drafting a piece, it can be helpful to indulge those big moments in the story, so long as you know you’ll (usually) have to reel it in a little more for the next draft, and the draft after.

Because a lot of TV and movies are over the top, it can inspire “overwriting,” which in the earlier stages can be a good thing, because it can provide a sense of dramatic, emotional, or tonal destination: where do you want the reader to arrive in a particular scene or chapter? How can you locate them in just the right emotional plane of response?  I can think of specific moments from Buffy, for example, that had some of these moments (the episodes “Becoming” and “The Gift” are full of them), and while one might say they were overdone, they provided a huge dramatic payoff. In terms of narrative and drama, there’s a lot to be learned from that. Plus, I now know how to protect myself from the forces of darkness, so bonus for me!

And since we’re in Buffy mode, I know you used to claim that if you could have any super power, you would want the power to always be able to choose the shortest line. Like at the bank or on the highway at a toll booth or at the grocery store. If you could instantly master any aspect of writing, what would it be and why?

Right now, I’d be interested in mastering the kind of omniscient POV that can shift character perspectives seamlessly within the same paragraph, seemingly in the same moment. I imagine that’s old hat to many writers, but the ability to access a story from these multiple consciousnesses within such a relatively small narrative frame (I’m thinking short story here) seems to be quite a feat. Now, would I prefer that over the superpower to always choose the shortest line? I can’t really say.

I know you’re in the first stages of writing a novel. What is the most daunting part of it? What have you been surprised by so far?

The most daunting part of writing a novel is the thing that was also—initially—the most liberating: the seemingly endless amount of space in which to work. Obviously, as I revise, I’ll cut and condense and compress, but for a year, as I worked on the first draft, I found myself not needing to worry about the number of pages I’d written, and the publishability (in magazines) of a longer story. The other daunting thing is the idea of commitment, of living with these characters for such a long haul.

If there’s a question you want to be asked, what would it be?

“Do you come from the land down under?” If not that, then how about one of these:

“Why fiction?”

“What do you think is the best sentence in your book?”

“What does your mom think of the book?”

Okay. I’ll give you two out of three. Why fiction? What do you think is the best sentence in your book and why?

Why fiction? Because it lets me immerse myself in the outlandish, daring, foolish, dangerous, mysterious, cruel, and impossible dramas that I wouldn’t have the guts to live out in real life.

Best sentence: Can I pick two? The first: “Even when I was gone, I was here.” That’s my character’s struggle, in a nutshell. Once I got to that line in “L’amour, CA,” I finally understood it. The second: “First my enemies underestimate me, then I smash them.” I love the words “enemies” and “smash,” and if they can exist in the same sentence, then I’m a happy man.

What’s the worst sentence? If you can’t answer that, then what kinds of sentences do you generally hate in fiction and why?

“Get me off this goddamn island!”

I don’t get it. What is that? Gilligan? Survivor?

It’s from my story, “The View From Culion.” One of the more (melo)dramatic lines, at least, out of context. Hopefully, within context, it’s not so bad.

So you didn’t answer the second part of that question. What kind of sentences don’t you like and why?

I have problems with sentences that use the word “gingerly.” I only experience that word when reading, not in real life, so it always feels overtly literary to me. I’m not a fan of sentences that include footnotes. I see the writer at work in those kinds of sentences, and I’m more concerned with narrative than I am with authorial process. Also not a fan of long, long, long, long run-on sentences, for the same aforementioned reasons.

Any final thoughts, theories, comments?

My most immediate final thought right now is that I had way too much Thai food tonight.

My second most immediate final thought/theory/comment is that everything I’ve said here, anything I’ve claimed to understand about my writing, material, and process is subject to change which, when it comes to writing fiction (or any act of creating), is most definitely a good thing.

Interviewer

Quan Barry is the author of the poetry collections Asylum, Controvertibles, and Water Puppets. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Missouri Review, Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize (for Asylum).

Further Links and Resources

• Listen to Lysley Tenorio read from his short story “Monstress” for KQED public radio.
• Lysley’s top three book recommendations.
• Read his story, “L’amour, CA,” online at The Atlantic.

In our upcoming interview with Tenorio, the author speaks with Quan Barry about identity politics:

While Monstress is full of Filipino and Filipino-American characters, I see them first as individuals caught up in weird, sometimes ridiculous, and always (I hope) emotionally complex circumstances that have nothing to do with my own experience as a Filipino American. That’s the fun of fiction, getting into someone else’s business.

We’re giving away a copy of Monstress next week to three of our Twitter followers. To be eligible for this giveaway (and all future ones), simply click over to Twitter and “follow” us (@fictionwriters).

To all of you who are already fans, thank you!

Further Reading

• Read Aria Beth Sloss’s interview with Tenorio on The Paris Review’s Website.
• Read “Monstress,” the title story to Tenorio’s collection, originally published in The Atlantic.

Little Star of Bela Lua is Luana Monteiro’s debut short story collection. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin, where she completed her MFA at the University of Wisconsin, and she is currently at work on a novel. We corresponded via email about writing, nirvana and the evil eye.

Interview

Melissa Scholes Young: I lived in Brasilia for years, and I rarely came across Brazilian literature in English. You root Little Star of Bela Lua firmly in Brazilian culture. Why write in English, and not Portuguese?

Luana Monteiro: My literary awakening happened in my late teens and early twenties when I was already living in the U.S. I mostly read books written in or translated into English. It was the language of my surroundings, and it was the one that offered itself when I sat down to write my first short story. The English I use, however, is not divorced completely from the influence of Portuguese; my mother tongue asserts itself in the rhythms, the intonations, and the mistakes I repeatedly make.

In the subtitle of your collection — “Stories from Brazil” — I was struck by the “from.” These stories have traveled to get to their audience. Did you consider audience while writing? Did you see the readers as mostly American?

Yes, I did see them as mostly American; well, they were mostly American because many of those stories were written while I was in college, and were read in creative writing classes. The book has been translated into Portuguese and French. So when I visited Brazil in 2011, I was surprised and a little dismayed when my half-sister asked me, “Is that character in that story named Carolina supposed to be me?” [I thought] Uh… no, Carolina, of course not.

Many of your female characters struggle against cultural norms. Valquira, the rhymester, enters an entirely male-dominated music scene and holds her own against the machismo. Cloé wrestles with sexual desires that women are expected to suppress, especially as Christians. What interests you about these struggles?

The influence of religion on a character’s search for authenticity and transcendence is a recurring theme in my writing. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to escape Christianity while growing up in Brazil; it penetrates every aspect of society, from public observances to one’s intimate life. The Christian ideology of the feminine ends up affecting the sexual attitudes of the country, particularly women’s sexuality: on one hand there is the image of the virgin, pure, modest, delicate, on the other, the sexual goddess, carefree and licentious, created by the consumer market. The relationships between the spiritual and the commercial, Sunday Mass and carnaval, prudishness and sensuality; those interest me very much.

This is a more traditional Brazil than I experienced. When most people think of Brazil, a glamorous Carnaval image is evoked, yet Carnaval isn’t even explored until the second half of the book. I taught at the Escola Americana de Brasilia, and Carnaval seemed to dominate more than half of each school year for my students and most conversations. Yet your portrait of Carnaval on the streets of Pernambuco isn’t flattering. You mention the underbelly of the celebration: the excess, the stink, and the vomit. You describe in detail men and women passed out on the streets “like dead cattle.” What led to your decision to write Carnaval so raw?

Well, the glamor of carnaval works better in marketing pamphlets than stories. Yes, carnaval can be glamorous, but it’s not only glamorous.  I could write an entire book on unflattering carnaval images! I love the idea of carnaval: four days of abandon, music, jubilance and friendship, where strict class and gender divides melt and the hierarchies of society are turned upside down. But there is also the underbelly, the grime and violence, the turning away from all that is ugly and sad, a denial of those who are so marginalized that they can’t even participate.

Elizabeth Bishop, who lived in Brazil for fifteen years, beautifully (and painfully) illustrates this intolerance for the destitute in her poem “Pink Dog.”

Ah, “Dress up! Dress up and dance at Carnival!” That poem communicates so much about the dual nature of the celebration. Did you find yourself wrestling with how to write about those marginalized?

You’ve lived in Brazil, I’m sure you’re familiar with the ways domestic maids, for instance, are treated. They raise their employers’ children, cook their meals, clean their houses, wash their clothes, but aren’t welcome at the table with the family, and in many households they’re not even allowed to use the same set of dishes and silverware as their employers.  In light of these hierarchical relationships, it’s tempting to write characters one-dimensionally on both ends of the social spectrum, but I try not to fall into that trap.

I appreciate what you said about the possible melting of gender divides, at least temporarily. In “The Whirling Dove” Mãe Joana tells Cloé “This is a man’s world, my girl. They run the nations and the corporations—but in their shadows, almost always stands a strong woman.” Is that a commentary on Brazilian society in particular, or the status quo more broadly?

The commentary has more to do with how they are recognized in relation to how men’s accomplishments are celebrated. Brazil has particularly rigid expectations tied to gender, despite choosing a woman as president.  This gets highlighted in the media these days. Peruse Brazilian periodicals and you’ll come across an inordinate number of articles devoted not to [President Dilma Vana Rousseff’s] policies and initiatives, but her clothing, the shaping of her eyebrows, her make-up, her weight. By the way, the general opinion is that she will never belong in the ranks of the world’s best-dressed. If only I’d known that before I voted for her.

Exactly! You make political statements throughout the stories. You mock the PT [Lula’s Worker’s Party] in “Antonio de Juvita.” His speeches, which the people applaud, are almost nonsensical. Do you think literature can be an effective path for political change or is it just good fodder for humor?

I didn’t set out to mock the PT. Antonio de Juvita is almost a mythical character in the Brazilian Northeast, the bohemian, unemployed, coddled bon-vivant who takes a shot at local politics out of boredom and a desire for popularity. All he knows about political discourse is to employ the words “honesty” and “work,” and to do it often. The self-aggrandizing in small town politics is the subject of thousands of poems and songs; people have learned to see the humor in it, and to regard the words “work” and “honesty” from the mouth of any politician with suspicion. It was in that spirit that I wrote the character of Antonio de Juvita.

As for political change, yes, I am an optimist and still believe that works of prose and poetry can be an effective path for political change, insofar as it changes the predisposed reader. But I’d say music is a better medium for affecting change, because it’s immediately accessible and can carry a distilled message.

Like Caetano Veloso? Who else?

Chico Buarque. (Did you know he is my real father? I grew up wishing he were.) Milton Nascimento, Gilberto Gil. I love the traditional music of Pernambuco; maracatu, frevo, côco, ciranda. Lately I’ve been enjoying a lot of the younger female singers, Céu, Cibelle, Renata Rosa, Ana Paula da Silva.

Let’s chat more about Antonio. The story foreshadows Brazil’s evolution into a first world economy. Does the past have to be discarded in the name of progress? During his campaign, Antonio cheers “Out with the old!” Ironically, his family’s fortune comes from liquor recipes from the “Old World.” His mother disapproves of his lack of respect for his elders. How do you see the struggle between growth and tradition?

This is a very complicated issue, but two things stand out to me: economic growth has eased the suffering of many in Brazil, and that has to be applauded. At the same time, the commercialization of a culture brings its own set of problems, including the loss of authenticity of traditions and serious threats to the country’s environmental health.  Traffic in Recife, a byproduct of growth, is an absolute nightmare!

Change seems inevitable. Your stories preserve the culture, while the humor makes the struggle more digestible and accessible. What other writers influence your work?

Lately, I’ve been enjoying the work of J.M. Coetzee. He is fearless in his explorations of the dark, even monstrous, chambers of the self, the “rictus of the imagination,” to borrow one of his phrases from The Master of Petersburg. I admire him immensely for that, even though that very courage causes me to cringe my way through many of his passages.

I loved Coetzee’s Disgrace. His portrait of misery in post-apartheid South Africa was painful and important.

It’s so true. Also, [when I was] an impressionable young writer, Paul Bowles inspired me for many of the same reasons. I love Juan Rulfo’s stories, Clarice Lispector’s. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s stories were a big influence early on. So was the poetry of Octavio Paz, Florbela Espanca, Elisa Lucinda.

The collection has magic, too. One can see the influence of Marquez. The surreal isn’t even questioned. Of course a fish can miraculously appear in your toilet and then change the course of most of the town. Of course a priest can become smitten with a river spirit.  Was it a leap to write the bizarre in such a real way? Or has the mystery and superstitions of Brazil always infused your stories?

It wasn’t a leap at all. For a huge segment of society, the supernatural is commonly employed in the interpretation of daily occurrences.  Christianity, with its focus on faith and miracles, has played a significant role in this familiarity with the surreal. The nightwatchman of the building in which I lived as a child often told me biblical stories. He was a subversive proselytizer, no doubt, but I didn’t even realize they were biblical stories until much later. It didn’t matter, the man was a natural storyteller, and his unwavering belief in the stories he told, coupled with the deadpan delivery style that did not distinguish the supernatural from the mundane, left little room for doubt or questioning. The stories stuck. His tales of the apocalypse terrified me then.

A lot of what would be considered bizarre in the U.S. is simply accepted by the Brazilian majority. Many routinely blame illnesses on evil looks from a stranger. Here’s a little anecdotal evidence of this phenomenon: recently a close friend, a musician, a college graduate — and I add this because there are those who insist these “superstitions” only exist among the uneducated masses – came down with a cold after a performance. Without hesitation, she blamed it on a particular member of the audience, specifically, his or her olho gordo, fat eye, also known as the evil eye. Fortunately, she knew how to prevent future attacks and was able to purchase the correct amulet (a figa) at any one of a dozen stands in the market that very day.

That reminds me of my students who gave me crystals for every holiday. They were terrified of my vulnerability.

Yes, you need a crystal figa. I’ll get you one next time I visit Recife’s Mercado de São José.

Perfect! We all need protection from the evil eye.

Can we chat about structure? Almost every story is revealed in the first few paragraphs. You seem to subscribe to Vonnegut’s theory that a story should begin as close to the ending as possible. We’re told the fish will change Otalia’s life immediately in “Bela Lua”; Valquira says she’ll never leave music for a man; Padre claims you can’t tempt fate; Antonio will join the National Armed Forces. Yet we don’t know how the conflicts will actually be resolved. And the conflicts still seem fresh as they twist and turn. How do you see the structure of the story contributing to the storytelling?

Many of my stories are structured that way because often all I know at first is the beginning circumstance of a character, the ending circumstance, and how the character is ultimately affected by whatever happens. The path that takes me from one point to another is usually a mystery that reveals itself incrementally in the act of the writing. It takes time to know a character, to separate him or her from the writer. That promise of intimacy through time is what attracts me to the novel form.  But to answer your question, structure allows for an organized telling of a story. Sometimes I think I have the best structure and it’s not until the end that I realize the story would be better told if I move things around.

I’m wondering about process. How far into the writing of each story do you [figure out] what it’s about?

At the outset, I’m aware of at least one dimension of what a story is about, even if it’s the most superficial one – say, a relationship between a mother and daughter. The deeper layers tend to reveal themselves much later, as the characters develop.

Did these stories come out whole or was revision a major factor?

Revision is always a major factor for me. There are infinite ways to write the same story; I would consider myself very fortunate to choose the best one first. Are there writers out there whose stories come out whole?  Who are these creatures?

I don’t know them either. Only rumors. I definitely wouldn’t want to interview them.

It may be awkward and a bit spooky; you may need to employ the services of an exorcist when you’re finished.

I’ll have my crystal figa to keep me safe. And speaking of safety, many of your stories begin with a detailed introduction of the setting. The reader is firmly planted on comfortable ground before the plot begins. Not just the name of the town but the region, its history, its role in modern development, its pride, etc. What role does setting have in the story telling itself?

Immediacy.  If I’m going to write about a place, real or imagined, I have to make it as inhabitable as possible and, for my own sake, do it as early on as possible. Firmness in place helps me find my way through the intricate pathways of a story. The characters demand it; if the setting is not detailed enough, they cross their arms and roll their eyes at me as if to say, “Are you kidding? What are we supposed to do with this?”

You are a hard woman to find on the Internet. Is that intentional? It seems such a race in the literary world these days to “market” and “brand” an author. Are you avoiding the limelight or just focused on the writing?

I find marketing my own writing embarrassing. My natural inclination is to avoid it. For me, ultimate success means having the ability to decline any interviews, readings, public signings, without a second thought to its impact on book sales or career. I’m not intentionally hiding, but I am not making an effort to be found either.

What are you writing now?

I’m working on a novel that explores the enormous universe of the religious and the ritualistic in Brazil. In a sense, it’s a coming-of-age story, where the protagonist is forced to negotiate the influences of Christianity and Candomblé, personified in her paternal and maternal grandmothers.

I can’t wait to read it. I saw a Candomblé ceremony in Salvador and it was intoxicating. Touristy and probably inauthentic but intoxicating nonetheless.

I, too, had the good fortune of witnessing a ceremony in Recife. Luckily for me, I was the closest thing to a tourist in the place. It was beautiful, complex, edifying. I grew up with so many prejudices against Candomblé and its practitioners; it’s been an immense joy to dispel these prejudices and learn about a culture that is so essential to Brazilian identity.

Candomblé ceremony, photo credit Luana Monteiro

A writer balances many roles — you happen to be a mother, too. In the interview at the back of Bela Lua, you said you meditate and write every morning. How do you find your process evolving now?

Funny you should ask! As I’m sure you can imagine, I’ve been too sleep-deprived to keep up my meditation routine. I tend to fall asleep the minute I sit up and close my eyes. My daughter is almost two; it took a year to work out a sustainable writing routine. Meditation will come next.

Um passo de cada vez, sim? [One step at a time, yes?] Muito obrigada, Luana.

Yes, um passo de cada vez. Maybe nirvana will visit me while I sleep, like a thief in the night. Is it too much to ask?

Further Links and Resources

• Watch a video of “Writers in the Round: Latino Voices,” an event featuring three Wisconsin Latino writers including Luana Monteiro.
• Read about Granta’s selection of “The Best Young Brazilian Novelists” and the issues to be published in Portuguese in July 2012 and in English in Fall 2012.

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