Nature Lessons
A Novel
by Lynette Brasfield

List Price: $23.95
Pages: 288
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 031231034X
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Born in Durban, South Africa in the fifties, and now an American citizen, Lynette Brasfield is the author of Nature Lessons, a novel that evolved out of her short story "Suits, Spines and Spikes" and is rooted in her experiences as the daughter of a mentally ill woman. Nature Lessons reflects also the volatile climate of apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, the beauty of its land, and the diversity of its people. She is now at work on her second novel, Anyhow in a Corner, which is set in Zimbabwe in part during the War of Liberation.

In 1985, Lynette Brasfield left her home in Johannesburg to live in the States, settling in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, where parts of Nature Lessons are set, until she relocated to California in 1988. A former corporate communications consultant, she has also been a high school teacher, toy salesperson, journalist, and library assistant at the University of Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia). She enjoys books, cats, wine, conversation, independent movies, travel, and good food, especially Indian cuisine.

Lynette earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at Rhodes University in the Cape and a graduate degree in English Literature at Natal University, South Africa. She now lives in Orange County, California with her husband Bill. She has two sons. A member of PEN West and NAMI, Brasfield's literary influences include Penelope Lively, Jean Rhys, Margaret Atwood, James Thurber, Patrick McGrath, Julian Barnes, and Jane Austen.

A portion of Lynette's advance and five percent of her future American royalties from sales of Nature Lessons funds an annual Get Involved for Mental Health Scholarship (GI4MH), a nonprofit 501 (c) 3 organization, to benefit a child with a mentally ill parent or sibling. Five percent of her foreign royalties will go to the Centenary Fund of Rhodes University, her South African alma mater.

More information about Lynette Brasfield can be found at http://www.literati.net/Brasfield.

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Q: Your novel is based on experiences you had with your mother's mental illness. How much of Nature Lessons is truth? What compelled you to write such a story?

LB: Nature Lessons tells the emotional truth of my relationship with my mother and the impact of mental illness on her life and mine. But most events didn't occur in the way they are presented, and others have been transformed in one way or another with the application of research and imagination. The mother and daughter are based on real people, and my father died of a sudden heart attack when I was even younger than Kate, but other characters are entirely invented. Historical references are accurate.

Primarily the novel was inspired by guilt, I think. When I was a child I fought my mother's illness; when I was older I ignored it—and her. I wish now I'd been more understanding. My alter ego, Kate, could go back home and perhaps make a kind of peace with her mother, and come to terms with her schizophrenia.

I also felt guilt just by virtue of being white in a country where blacks were so terribly oppressed—I voted against apartheid and took part in torchlight vigils like a good white liberal, but feel I should have done more. LP Hartley says that novels are born of "a kind of murmur…what authors' thoughts turn to when they're by themselves." Writing the novel allowed me to explore the "what ifs" of my life.

Q: Nature Lessons reveals the nature of relationships between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, blacks and whites. Which relationship do you feel is the most critical aspect of your book?

LB: The relationship between mother and daughter is at the heart of the novel, definitely. I think there are a lot of daughters—and not only those with mentally ill parents—who have experienced similar emotions to Kate's, and the book seems to strike a chord with anyone who has felt distanced from a parent the way she does. But relationships don't exist in isolation, and that's also what I wanted to show: that Kate's upbringing had a major impact on her romantic and other adult relationships.

Her situation means she can identify to some extent with others who are alienated, like Joshua—though of course as a white person, no matter how poor, and no matter how well-intended, she will never quite be able to imagine what it must be like to be black, especially in apartheid South Africa. But she tries her best, and that's all anyone can do.

Q: You have a lot to say about the blurry line between imagination and irrational behavior. Could you expand on your illustration of this uncertain territory?

LB: Shortly after I began writing the novel, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released horrifying testimony about atrocities during the apartheid era. Around the same time, in my research, I came across a passage in a book called "Surviving Schizophrenia" by E. Fuller Torrey, which talks about the diagnosis of paranoia needing to take place in a cultural context. I realized that if my mother had been black, her belief that the government was spying on us would've seemed quite logical. Family members often tell me that their relatives' delusions started with a reality which over time transformed into non-reality—and it's not uncommon for family members to find themselves struggling to figure out what is true and what isn't. So that dilemma is at the heart of the novel.

Along those same lines, I've always been fascinated by the different way each of us simultaneously sees the world, depending on factors such as ethnicity, history, geography, and culture—unfortunately this is not a benign difference when it comes to mental illness.

Q: Kate often enables—if that's the right word—her mother's illness with her own actions towards Oom Piet's family and her behavior at school. Could you comment on your characterization of Kate?

LB: It's not that Kate enables her mother's illness—actually I don't think it's possible to enable paranoid schizophrenia, because it's not chosen behavior. Schizophrenia is a medical condition as real as Parkinson's or diabetes: it's a brain dysfunction. But, as for why she doesn't tell the authorities about her mother's delusions…well, Kate's very young and unsure whom the real enemy is, if anyone. In addition, when Oom Piet takes her to the farm, she feels intense loyalty toward her mother, and guilt at not "protecting" her as she had promised. So she takes out her hostility on her uncle, aunt, and cousins (and besides, Kate is just too obstinate to ask for help). Also, despite Violet's illness, to Kate, she is still her mother—someone she is born to trust and love, whom she knows intimately and to whom she owes loyalty. Kate is a child captured between reality and delusion. Her mother is her primary caregiver—better the devil she knows. And on a practical level, Kate is also afraid she'll be ostracized (as happened with Hettie) or disbelieved by adults. So she figures out a modus operandi for living with her mother—by adopting emotional defense mechanisms—until she reaches breaking point.

Q: Your characterization of the men in Kate's life is particularly ambivalent. What was your rationale for creating men who leave Kate conflicted?

LB: Any man would leave Kate conflicted…! Because of her childhood, she has great difficulty understanding what love is supposed to look like, and how people behave when they're in love; when to trust, when to be cautious. So she can't quite figure out her relationships. Her first reaction to her mother's admonitions never to trust anyone is to do the reverse, to believe Terry loves her despite evidence to the contrary. Subsequently she goes in the opposite direction, running away from men to protect herself from emotional extremes, and also because her childhood has taught her that people you love are the ones with the most power to hurt you. As Kate ultimately realizes, It was as if the moon had disappeared, and the tides, not noticing, continued to ebb and flow.

Q: In the chapters written in the adult Kate's voice, as well as those written in the child Kate's voice, you include glimpses of African lore. Is this lore a real influence on white South Africans? How have you continued to carry this cultural influence with you today?

LB: Depends on the white South African… Unlike Kate, I did not have a black mentor like Prudence, or Winston. But I think that being born in Africa, and hearing and/or reading about magical folklore gives you a sense of wonder, especially if you have a strong imagination to begin with. And black South Africans, of course, have a wide range of belief systems and wonderful, diverse literature and lore as part of their heritage and ethnicity.

Q: You make a point of illustrating the lasting conflict in South Africa. What impact do you feel the publication of your book will have on public awareness of South Africa's continued racial and political turmoil?

LB: J.M. Coetzee, Andre Brink, Breyten Breytenbach, and Nadine Gordimer are masterful in writing about South African politics and culture and they're much more knowledgeable about current conditions than I am. (I've lived in the United States since 1985.) I hope my book does provide some insights into the history of my country, and the complexity of the issues, but I don't think of it as a political novel. If it reminds people how a country in conflict can mimic the dichotomies of madness, and of the need to be sensitive to the perspectives of others, that's wonderful. I didn't write Nature Lessons for altruistic reasons initially, but have been very happy to find out that the story seems to be helping other family members of mentally ill individuals.

Q: You will undoubtedly have an impact on readers who encounter those with mental illness. What advice would you give people who have family members with mental illness?

LB: You are not alone. The emotions you are feeling are perfectly understandable and nothing to be ashamed of. There are people out there who can help. The best thing is to contact an organization such as NAMI (www.nami.org). You can talk to someone confidentially about your situation and get help for yourself and your family member, or just talk. This can be an extremely complex situation, because often it's not only the ill person who lacks insight into his/her illness or is in denial about his/her disorder, but other family members too. My heart goes out to anyone in this situation.

Another excellent resource to learn about mental illness and the consequences of lack of treatment in the United States can be found at www.psychlaws.org.

Q: You have made Southern California your home. How do you view your identity, both politically and personally?

LB: I became an American citizen a few years ago when I realized I was tearing up whenever I heard the national anthem at a baseball game—I felt so grateful to be here, and I love the freedoms, and the expansiveness of the people and the land. Philosophically I'm more of an internationalist, if there's such a thing. I believe patriotism has value, but extreme patriotism, aka nationalism, is very dangerous, because it can restrict one's ability to appreciate the value, and values, of other cultures and countries and religions and systems of government. As a former South African, I question the sentiment, "My country right or wrong." I never felt that about apartheid-era South Africa, and I'm glad I didn't.

Personally? I think identity is a fluid concept. Heraclitus said that you can't step into the same river twice – similarly, I believe that every day you're a new composite, formed of consistent factors such as personal and cultural history, genetic inheritance, parenting, and place, combined with present circumstances and new insights. I think that's a very hopeful way of looking at oneself and the world—that there is always the possibility of change and new roles and beginnings, as represented by the "fresh moons" which Winston tells Kate will always bounce into the sky.

Right now I'm thrilled to think of myself as the author of a novel, wife of a wonderful man, mother of two terrific sons, sister of a caring woman, and friend of some astonishing people—someone fortunate enough to live in a remarkable part of a remarkable country.

Q: Could you tell me about your next novel, Anyhow in a Corner?

LB: Anyhow in a Corner is about three very different people whose lives are linked in ways they could never have imagined (but I could!). It's set in Zimbabwe during the War of Liberation and the present. I lived in Zimbabwe for two years in the seventies. The novel is still in its early stages.

Anyhow in a Corner is a phrase from the W.H. Auden poem Musee des Beaux Arts. I'm fascinated by the way great hardship and sadness co-exist with the activities of everyday life—how in one part of the world, thousands may be dying from war or famine, while somewhere else, there are people worrying about what to wear to a wedding…How do you find the balance between your responsibility toward world problems, your country's problems, your family's problems, and enjoying what Camus called the "implacable grandeur of this life"? I suppose that balance is what fascinates me.
Excerpted from Nature Lessons © Copyright 2012 by Lynette Brasfield. Reprinted with permission by St. Martin's Press. All rights reserved.

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