Interview with Jillian Weise

WG: Jillian, most people who are familiar with your writing probably think of you as a poet. What prompted you to write The Colony?

JW: I got one of those magical phone calls from an agent after he'd seen work of mine in A Public Space. I thought those kinds of calls only happened to other people. He asked if I had a novel and I lied and said yes, of course, and told him I would send the first fifty pages by the end of the week. That gave me five days. All along I had been writing The Colony but I just didn't know it until those five days. I had all this research on the American eugenics movement, and I had a copy of The Red Notebook by Charles Darwin, and I had a short story that always wanted to be long. By the end of the week, I had the first chapters and the agent wanted to sign me up. But by then I was feeling pretty good about the pages so I shopped around a little. Julia Kenny at the Markson Thoma Literary Agency was enthusiastic and our ethos matched the most. She's been incredibly supportive and fun to work with.

WG: It is interesting that The Colony began as a short story? Did that cause you any difficulty in taking on the novel, which is obviously quite a different fish? How did you move conceptually and structurally from the original short story to the completed form of the novel?

JW: It didn't feel like a conscious decision. At least it wasn't as clear-cut as:  Now I'm going to make this story into a novel.  When the agent called, I was in the middle of a break-up. Mostly I was thinking: Should I call the ex tonight? What about tomorrow night? The original short story was titled "So Long, I Loved You Dearly" so you can see where that came from. The only thing that survived from the story to the novel was this impulse to address the beloved. It remains as the novel's dedication. John Steinbeck has this incredible dedication in East of Eden. It's probably too long to quote, but this is my favorite part: "Here's your box. Nearly everything I have is in it and it is not full. Pain and excitement are in it, and feeling good or bad … And on top of these are all the gratitude and love I have for you. And still the box is not full." I like this idea of the novel-as-box to put things in for the people you love.

WG: The Colony lampoons quite an array of people and ideas. When you began writing it, were there particular issues you were trying to address or stereotypes that you were trying to counter?

JW: Absolutely. I had all kinds of private rants toward public figures. Your readers will be familiar with Peter S inger's endorsement of infanticide for  defective newborns.  And James Watson, the Nobel prize winner, profanes humanity with his remarks. So both became minor characters in the novel. While I was writing, the  Pillow Angel  case was in the news. The idea that a group of ethicists and doctors could, behind closed doors, break the law and sterilize a child was shocking to me. It was the first time I realized that eugenics continues today and just g oes by another name. I was troubled by the confluence of the sterilization case and the stereotype of the disabled as asexual. I've always been completely baffled by that stereotype. When my agent was selling the novel, one editor wanted me to  tone down  the sex. Another editor wanted me to re-write the novel in third-person. And I thought: Yes, that would make it easier for the able reader. If only the first-person narrator wasn't so close to the reader, and so disabled.

WG: It is surprising to me that an editor would want your novel in the third person rather than the first for the very reason that you mention, it would lesson the emotional impact. And that leads me to ask a question that I'm sure you are tired of answering, to what extent does the novel reflect your own experiences? Are there scenes in the book that border on autobiographical?

JW: You mention that you're sure I'm tired of answering this particular question and you're right! It does get tiresome. But why? Maybe because I don't know how to answer it. I spent some of my childhood in and out of hospitals for corrective procedures. When I was nine or ten, doctors wanted to perform an experimental procedure on me and I said no. So I've always been rebellious toward the medical establishment, or really any establishment that presumes to know what 's best for me. On an artistic level, sometimes I feel frustrated as a reader of books where the disabled characters are unlike any disabled person I've met. I can't relate to them. So I end up reading as able, dressing up in able drag, just to get through the book. I guess I wrote the kind of book I've always wanted to read, where I didn't have to pretend that I fit into such easy categories as pitiful or prophetic, friend or freak. To answer your question more directly: Yes.

WG: Jillian, what is your position on a writer without a disability writing first person fiction from the viewpoint of a main character like Ann Hatley, who does have one? I've heard both sides: you can't write it if you haven't lived it versus fiction writing is all about imagination.

JW: I think it's important for young writers to have role models who write from an authentic disabled perspective. I remember reading Nancy Mairs for the first time. Hot damn! It was so exciting. I felt like I could do anything because she paved the way. And then I read Lucy Grealy, Paul Longmore, Petra Kuppers, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Lucia Perillo, Lennard Davis, Susan Schweik, Hal Sirowitz, Karen Fiser, Paul Guest, Kara Levy and on and on. Now I don't agree with every disabled writer's approach, or theory, or aesthetic, but who's asking me to? I love the kinship we have as writers. So can able writers work with first-person disabled POVs? Sure. They've been doing it for years. Will it be any good? Indeterminate.

WG: You mention Nancy Mairs and I agree Mairs is a must-read. What other writers have influenced you as a writer? Are there any in particularly that you think influenced your style or structure in your work on The Colony?

JW: As I wrote the first draft, I didn't read any novels. Somebody would say, "Oh, you've gotta read this " and I was thrilled to not have to read it. Any other time, I would've felt obliged. But I was neck-deep in Cold Spring Harbor, and I could not truck with any distractions. That said, I have my favorite writers, such as Michel Houellebecq and Elfriede Jelinek and Julio Cortazar. And I love the Southern Gothic.

WG: As someone who teaches literature yourself at the university level, have you ever used the work of Mairs or other writers whose work is informed by their disability? What were there reactions? Did any of them surprise you? Do you think you will ever teach The Colony or your own poetry in a class?

JW: I'll never teach my own work. That would seem rather audacious and narcissistic. I don't have to look far for depictions of disability in American Literature. One of the most anthologized stories, that is often taught as if it's a provocative commentary on disability, is Raymond Carver's  Cathedral.  This has got to stop. The story may be fine for many pedagogical purposes, but it is not the way to teach disability. In response to "Cathedral," I wrote this story called, "Cathedral by Raymond Carver," because I figured Borges did it with Quixote, so why not? My story gives the transcripts of the audiotapes between Robert, "the blind man," and the wife. So it's clear they're banging. It's clear in the story, but I don't know if it was clear to Carver. Certainly, nobody wants to say it. Best to keep "the blind guy" impotent, with a dead wife, and an anesthetized sexuality. Anyway, nobody will publish this story of mine. It would rock the boat too much. I just taught Tom Andrews' Codeine Diary. Students loved it.

WG: It's encouraging to hear that Andrew's Codeine Diary went over well with students. I think his work definitely deserves a wider audience. Borges, as you noted in reference to your own work was blind at the end of his career. In fact, Steve Kuusisto, as you probably know, has recently written a whole series of political poems from the perspective of someone who is blind called Letters to Borges. I think the interplay between Carver' story, Borges and your rebuttal story is really interesting – one probably worthy of a much longer dialogue – but what it makes me want to ask you immediately is what other writing projects you have going on now. Are you thinking of another work of fiction or are you returning to poetry?

JW: I'm grateful to Beauty is a Verb for introducing me to Steve's Letters to Borges. Those poems are fantastic. I like the way, in his Iowa City poem, he articulates silence as a method of preservation or defiance or I'm not sure what, but I recognize it. The line is: "'Tic-toc train wreck,' I said to myself, feeling my tongue dent the soft palate. That was my method for keeping silent." This reminds me of another line from Oscar Wilde: "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."

As for my current projects, I have a book of poems that I just finished. One of the poems, "Cafe Loop," appeared in the June 2011 issue of Wordgathering. And fiction, always. I know it's fiction when the people talk too much and for too long and with lots of furniture around.

WG: I like that line, "I know it's fiction when the people talk too much and for too long and with lots of furniture around." Are there any other ways you distinguish poetry from fiction or do you think it's a valid distinction?

JW: Fiction requires flat sentences sometimes. A door has to be opened. A window shut. The problem is that people have to get from one place to another, and in fiction, the sentences that get people places are often dull. Poetry has no obligation to plot. So it does not face the terror of flatness. My advice for a poet, writing a novel, would be: Don't worry about the sentence that dilly-dallies or the sentence that flops. Just write 10,000 more of them. Surely, half of those will pucker. And maybe ten of them will punch.

WG: Jillian, I really want to thank you for your time and for allowing us to interview you about your work. Is there anything else you would like to add to what we've said that perhaps we've skimmed over or left out?

JW: Thank you for starting this conversation. I just found out last week that my manuscript of poems, The Book of Goodbyes, won the Isabella Gardner Award from BOA. Peter Connors, the editor at BOA, called me on the phone. I could hardly believe it. I'm thrilled it has a home.

WG: What a wonderful surprise. Congratulations.