News of the Spirit
by Lee Smith
List Price: $11.00
Pages: 304
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0449002268
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Lee Smith is the author of two other story collections, Cakewalk
and Me and My Baby View the Eclipse, and nine novels, including
The Christmas Letters, Saving Grace, The Devil's Dream,
Fair and Tender Ladies, Family Linen, Oral History,
and Black Mountain Breakdown. Her stories and articles have appeared
in a diverse array of periodicals and anthologies such as Southern
Review, Redbook, The New York Times, and Atlantic.
She is currently at work on a tenth novel.
Smith, a professor in the English department at North Carolina State, has received numerous awards
and honors including the Lila Wallace/Reader's Digest Award, the Robert
Penn Prize for Fiction, the O Henry Award (twice), and a fellowship at
the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies. She lives in North
Carolina.
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Q: Inevitably, with a collection of stories, reviewers and readers alike cannot resist choosing
their favorite. Do you have a favorite among these stories?
LS: If I had to choose, it would be "The Happy Memories Club," in part, because of the incident
that inspired this story. I love to do writing groups of all kinds--for
literacy programs, for retirement homes, in grade schools. I had gone
to a retirement center in southern North Carolina to visit their writing
group and I was late. When I arrived, the group was assembled and waiting
for me in the cafeteria with their hands folded. "You're late," announced
the leader, a rather severe woman with a lavender beehive, in a terrifyingly
strict voice. One of the members began reading a piece when the door opened.
And in sauntered this wonderful, elderly woman wearing black toreador
pants and gold ballet shoes who was smoking even though smoking was prohibited
in the cafeteria. She made a complete circle around the group as we were
talking, but nobody made room for her. In fact, everyone completely ignored
her! After she circled us in complete silence, defiantly blowing smoke
rings as she went, she dropped her cigarette, stomped it out, and left.
Afterward, I asked about her and learned that she had been kicked out
of the group the week before for writing a piece that everyone in the
group found "disturbing." Nobody would tell me what she wrote; they merely
said that they wanted only happy memories. I never saw her again, but
I made her up and used this incident as the basis for my story. That is
often how I work. I have a glimpse of somebody or overhear a conversation
in a store and I imagine their lives.
For example, I was vacationing
with my husband on a tiny island in the Caribbean, and we went to a restaurant
much like the one in "The Southern Cross." A beautiful woman was there
with three men who looked to me like developers. I thought to myself that
she must be French because she was so elegant and sophisticated. Then
I spoke to her briefly and her accent was pure eastern Kentucky! From
this encounter grew the character of Chanel and her story.
Q: As a writer who has
published novels, novellas, and short stories, how do you decide what
form a given story will take?
LS: I usually know the
form it will take because I do so much pre-writing. I spend a great deal
of time with a pen and yellow legal pads writing pages and pages about
each character--what their childhood was like, who their high school boyfriends
were, where they shop, and so on. The characters have a life both before
and after the moment they appear in the story. They have been walking
around in my head for so long and I know so much about them that it usually
becomes clear to me what form their story will take.
Q: Is there a format you
prefer or are more comfortable writing in?
LS: The older I get,
I find I prefer writing novels more and more. It has become harder for
me to stick to the classic short story format because I am really interested
in the long haul, the whole scope of a life. As Hemingway once said, the
short story represents just the tip of the iceberg, and I am more interested
in the whole iceberg. There is so much I have created in the pre-writing
phase in terms of the character's life that never makes it onto the page
in a short story. The classic short story seems to me to be like a coffin
in which the writer is supposed to fit a whole, complex life. And I find
that as I go along, life seems ever more surprising to me, and it becomes
more difficult to fit my characters' fictional lives in the little box
of the short story.
Q: What is the classic
form of the short story?
LS: "Blue Wedding"
and "The Southern Cross" are the best examples of the classic form in
this collection. By the classic form, I mean a story that covers a very
short period in a character's life--one evening or one day or a single
incident--which is emblematic of an entire life. And in the story, something
happens that illuminates what came before and after. Some of the other
stories like "Live Bottomless," which is really a novella, are more like
collapsed novels that cover a longer period of time.
Q: How did you decide what
to include in this collection and then how to organize it?
LS: It was mostly serendipity,
but as most writers will tell you, any group of stories written over a
span of time will have thematic resonance. I know I have found myself
dealing with the same issues at different periods in my life. This is
the nature of human existence. Storytelling and memory and women searching
for authentic voices are some of the important themes in this collection
drawn from my own experiences.
Q: Where did the title
of this collection come from?
LS: About thirty years
ago I was a student in a fiction-writing seminar led by the wonderful
writer George Garrett. A student in the class read a piece that was an
action story and very plot-driven. Technically, it was very good, but
Garrett did not like the story. When asked why, he replied, "I don't read
any news of the spirit here." I wrote it down in my notebook thirty years
ago and that phrase has been with me ever since. I have been waiting to
use it because that is what storytelling means to me. Whether it is in
writing fiction or talking to a friend over coffee, this is how we learn
something about the human condition, and how we find our authentic selves
over the course of our lives. Each of us has important stories that need
to be told and shared.
Q: In what ways are these
pieces autobiographical or not?
LS: I take parts of
my own life and use them in my stories. "The Bubba Stories" is very autobiographical.
How Charlene thinks about being a writer is how I thought about it as
a college student. Charlene's experience in the creative writing class
with the melodramatic story about the family killed in a Christmas Eve
fire is true to my own experience as an aspiring writer. Her struggle
to find an authentic voice is very autobiographical. There is a lot of
an earlier me in "The Bubba Stories" that I remember fondly. Much in the
story is drawn from my imagination, including Charlene's family and her
creation of Bubba and the affair with the teacher. Everyday life is seldom
as dramatic as this. "Live Bottomless" is a story it took me thirty years
to write. I did take a trip to Key West with my parents. I was a demonic
little child. I was fascinated with the strippers. We did stay at that
hotel with the cast and crew of "Operation Petticoat," and we were in
the movie. But my parents were not on the verge of divorce, and the interlude
with cousin Glenda is my own creation. As a writer I spin stories from
a moment here and a moment there. Interestingly, I recently received a
note from Tony Curtis who read "Live Bottomless." He wanted to tell me
that he really enjoyed the story and was glad that he came off so well
in it. I was really pleased to receive his note.
Q: What would you tell
your readers about your relationship to the characters of Charlene, Jenny,
and Alice, who are all aspiring writers?
LS: They are all me
at various ages and stages of my life. But what readers may not always
realize is that all the characters are always you and not you. Some characters
such as the aspiring writers in these stories may seem more so, but many
express parts of my personality that are people I would like to be, but
am not. When asked about why she writes, Anne Tyler once said, "I write
because I want to have more than one life." I do, too. Writing allows
me to try out other possibilities and other parts of my personality that
I can't express in my circumscribed, daily life. I loved writing the character
of Chanel because she allowed me to be someone I am not. The very repressed
character of Sarah in "The Blue Wedding" expresses my love of counting
the silver and creating a beautiful table setting, but this is not something
the reader would necessarily know about me. Cousin Glenda is in some ways
the most real character in "Live Bottomless," though she is also a completely
imagined character. Yet she expresses my own desire for people to "get
a grip." Writing allows me to explore many aspects of my own personality,
even the not-so-nice side. In this way, writing is very therapeutic for
me.
Q: Since your work is so
rooted in your personal experiences, and memoirs are very much in vogue
these days, would you consider writing a memoir?
LS: No, I wouldn't.
It's so much more fun to make stuff up. And I would get bored with my
own self very fast.
Q: You have been quoted
as saying, "For me, stories are as necessary as breathing." What do you
mean by this?
LS: I have been writing
since I was eight, and I have written fiction my whole life. For me, it
allows me to take stock of myself. It is a way of registering the world.
I write fiction like other women write in their journals as a way of living
an examined life. I write whatever I have on my mind.
Q: Since your work is so
personal, is it difficult to read reviews?
LS: No, I read all
my reviews. I like to read them because they are often instructive if
the reviewer is addressing, for example, a point of technique. If lots
of reviewers address the same points, it helps me to think about my work
and catch errors. Of course, there is no accounting for taste. For some
reviewers, my work is just not their kind of thing and that is fine.
Q: You are most often identified
as a Southern writer, among other things. How do you feel about these
various labels that are applied to you and your work?
LS: I don't care what
I'm called.
Q: What would you like
to be called?
LS: Nothing. No, that's
not true. I have never lived anywhere but the South. My settings and themes
are Southern because that is what I know. I also write specifically about
the Appalachian South and have attempted, not so much in this collection
but in other works, to record the history, dialect, and folklore of Appalachia.
It is important, I think, to record these regional distinctions because
of the homogenization that is going on in American culture. One place
is becoming much like every other place. I am proud of my work in recording
these regional distinctions and in creating a record of the values, mores,
and manners of the Appalachian South. I am happy to be called a regional
writer. Everybody's got to be from somewhere, which is reflected in their
work. But I do think that my work can be read by people everywhere. I
hope my stories have an appeal that transcends region.
Q: What writers or works
have influenced you?
LS
:
William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, and Virginia Woolf
are some of my favorite writers. Welty and O'Connor have had the most
influence in terms of subject matter. Like them, I focus on lives that
are not extraordinary and characters who live in small towns. The action
in my stories comes from within. Woolf and Faulkner have influenced my
work in terms of creating a distinctive style. You're given your material
by birth--mine is Southern material--and the way to make it new and fresh
is to approach it from a new perspective stylistically.
Q: How do you work? Is
it a difficult process for you?
LS: For me, it is mostly
pleasure. The really exciting part--the most exciting thing I can think
to do really--is making it all up in an incredible rush in the first few
drafts. I have already done so much work in the pre-writing stage in terms
of creating a complete biographical sketch (there is so much that never
makes it onto the page) that once I let a character such as Chanel start
speaking, there is no shutting her up. My problem is that I think I write
too much. For people who write fiction with ease, the real problem is
making sure what you are writing is worth saying. What is very important
is the quality of the idea. The final stage of revising and fine-tuning
is more difficult for me. Putting in transitions and dealing with all
of the piddly little details is like building a house. This is where writing
becomes more like an everyday job.
While fiction is a joy for
me to write, writing nonfiction is like pulling teeth. When I worked as
a journalist, I would often get in trouble for making up the news and
writing opinion and not fact. I find it much more difficult to be bound
to a set of facts, to not have the freedom of fiction and imagination.
Q: Class tensions and pretensions
run throughout every work in this collection. Why is this so?
LS: A great taboo subject
in America is class. We pretend it does not exist here, but of course
it does. I have lived in every class and think it is critical to talk
about the different manners, mores, and values. Class is a worthy topic
of observance. I loved reading Jane Austen and the Bršntes. And much of
what these English women novelists talk about is class. That's what they
write about. And we need to think about the cost of upward mobility in
this country. So often to achieve upward mobility, you have to cut your
roots. But then you are adrift.
Q: What do you most want
your readers to take away with them from these stories?
LS: This collection
is all about storytelling, time, memory, and women trying to live authentic
lives, stories about finding your true voice and telling and sharing your
stories, because everybody's stories are valuable. The stories in our
own lives give meaning and shape to our lives. I would like readers to
understand how important they are and how important their stories are.
It is so crucial for us to listen to each other and open ourselves to
the healing experience of stories. It has always been a great pleasure
for me to write and to read. To read is to have new worlds open up to
us and remove us from our own context. I hope I can do this for my readers.
But beyond the pleasure writing
gives me, I try to create characters who are somehow different from the
norm. The illiterate, the mentally ill, the very old, and the very young--all
these are voices that are not normally heard or understood. The real value
of fiction is in giving voice to people who are not always heard. I have
become very interested in Hispanic families throughout the South--Southerners
whose voices, by and large, are not being heard yet. The character of
Johnny in "News of the Spirit" may be writing a story on the walls of
the barn that is very different, but it is a story that is valuable and
needs to be heard. By the end of the story, Paula comes to accept her
brother and recognize the value of his story. Her boyfriend, Drew, was
a very interesting character for me because he was able to accept Paula
and value the parts of her story that she did not. In doing so, he helped
her to accept her family and her past and hold onto the things that made
her unique.
Q: Will we be hearing from any of these characters again?
LS: No, probably not.
I never want to go back. I understand the desire on the part of readers
to check back in with certain, favorite characters, and I love to hear
that readers have gotten so engaged. But, for me, there is always someone
else clamoring to be heard and given voice to.
Q: What is your next project?
LS: Right now, I am collaborating on a feminist, country music musical directed by Paul Ferguson.
Jill McCorkle and I are creating monologues and dialogue that will be
interspersed with music written by Marshall Chapman, an old friend, and
Matraca Berg. It will be performed by an all-female cast next year in
North Carolina, and then we will see what happens. I am very excited about
this project.
Also, I am getting ready to start a novel called The Last Girls. This is another project I
have waited thirty years to write. While in college, I took a raft trip
down the Mississippi River with my American Lit class after we read Huckleberry
Finn. This trip has inspired the novel. And I want to explore what we
thought our lives would be like and what they have actually become.
© Copyright 2009 by Lee Smith. Reprinted with permission by Ballantine Books. All rights reserved.
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