Four Spirits
by Sena Jeter Naslund
List Price: $14.95
Pages: 560
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 006093669X
Publisher: Perennial
Winner of the Harper Lee Award, Sena Jeter Naslund is the author of four novels and two collections of short stories, including the critically acclaimed national bestseller Ahab's Wife. She is a Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Louisville, program director of the Spalding University brief-residency MFA in writing in Louisville and 2003 Vacca Professor at the University of Montevallo, Alabama. She is a native of Birmingham, Alabama, educated in the public schools, Birmingham-Southern College, and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.
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Q: How did you reconcile historical facts with fictive imagination while writing Four Spirits?
SJN: In both Ahab's Wife and Sherlock in Love, I have had practice interweaving fact and imagination. When I present a historical figure, such as Martin Luther King, Jr. I depend heavily on research materials -- especially interviews. When I depict King or an historic event, such as the May 1963 demonstrations in Birmingham or the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, my perspective is that of various fictional characters. I try to make the response of the viewer true to his or her nature. The novel as a whole represents an artistic vision/interpretation of history. Robert Penn Warren wrote this kind of novel in All the King's Men, which was based on the assassination of Governor Huey P. Long of Louisiana. War and Peace is Tolstoy's vision of the French invasion of Russia; he's not trying to be a reporter.
Q: Many of the characters in Four Spirits have single or surrogate parents. Was this an intentional theme on your part, or did the characters simply emerge with that trait in common?
SJN: Two of my favorite novels, David Copperfield and Jane Eyre have orphans as protagonists. From my childhood reading, both Anne of Green Gables and Heidi were orphans with surrogate parents. To me, the orphan child represents an existential human -- someone who must create his or her own values and a sense of self. Orphan figures also suggest human vulnerability and the need for kindness that goes beyond the concept of the traditional family.
Q: How would you compare Stella of Four Spirits with Una of Ahab's Wife?
SJN: While Una is sent away from home at age 12 due to conflict with her father's beliefs, Stella loses her father in an accident at age 5. The two girls start life (in their novels) from different places. Both are bright and unconventional; both have spiritual questions, but Stella's sense of self is more confused and uncertain than that of Una. While both characters struggle successfully with the challenges in their lives, at the end of Four Spirits, Stella has still not settled questions about her life's vocation, and she is just beginning to explore sexuality, while Una has had three husbands and two children.
Q: You grew up in Birmingham. It was surely painful to recall what you and your friends witnessed during that explosive time. How do you feel about these memories now that Four Spirits is published?
SJN: Four Spirits was certainly a painful book to write. The research was painful in itself because I discovered a number of atrocities that I had not been aware of when I was young -- the castration of Judge Aaron, for example. I did participate to some extent in the civil rights struggle, but looking back, of course I wish I had done more. In a way, writing this book is an attempt "to do more." It also fulfills the promise I made to myself almost forty years ago -- that if I ever did become a writer, I would write about those times. Ultimately the civil rights movement is a triumphant story: though the transformation is not complete, I feel we live in a more just society now. Some of the pain of that time is partially mitigated by writing, also, about the courage, kindness, and love that existed then.
Q: Though much was accomplished by Civil Rights leaders during the 1960s, non-white Americans still face discrimination and violence throughout the country. What advice would you offer to lawmakers and community leaders in putting an end to hate crimes and integrating society further?
SJN: I think education of the heart and mind is a powerful force against discrimination and violence. Community leaders can encourage their cities to read together such books as Ernest J. Gaines' A Lesson Before Dying and Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. Some communities have done just that. Through imaginative literature, readers experience the lives of others from the inside. It's much less likely that a person will be cruel to someone if he or she can imagine what it's like to walk in the other person's shoes. I hope discussions of Four Spirits will bring people closer together.
I believe imagination is a great moral and spiritual force.
The lesson "love one another" is found in all great religions and in humanist ethics. That lesson needs to be taught to children from early childhood as another kind of pledge of allegiance -- to promote good will and understanding.
Q: What have your students taught you about writing?
SJN: I've spent a good portion of my life teaching literature and creative writing, in traditional settings such as the University of Louisville and in innovative settings such as the brief-residency MFA in Writing at Spalding University. I continually learn from my students and am inspired by their choices in subject matter, aesthetic structures, and stylistic techniques. I've learned how to benefit both from inspiration and from discipline in my own life as a writer. I've learned to regard rigorous revision as a joy and a privilege.
Excerpted from Four Spirits © Copyright 2008 by Sena Jeter Naslund. Reprinted with permission by Perennial. All rights reserved.
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