Q and A with Victoria Patterson - THE SECRET HABIT OF SORROW
1. You’re very good at writing about characters in the grip of self-destructive behaviors, substance abuse and eating disorders, in particular. What is it about characters on the verge that inspires you as a fiction writer.
People who struggle with self-destructive behaviours can be heartbreaking, complex, deep, maddening, and lovely. I’m drawn to that combination (whether I want to be or not) both in life and in fiction.
2. A number of your stories, both from the male and female POVs, are written in first-person. Do you find yourself hearing a character’s voice before anything else when you begin a story? Or do you start with a subject or an idea for a scene?
The voice (character) has to be strong for me to plunge into a first person POV. It develops as I sit with the work over time, so that the point of view and the character are alive for me.
3. I love the dark comedy in “DC” which features two women, both from marriages that have ended, or nearly ended, living in a southern Californian apartment complex, one that Serena, the main character Elaine’s neighbor, calls a “divorce Shangi-La.” I can’t resist asking how this story started - is either Elaine or Serena based on a real person? Serena especially is hilarious and memorable.
Elaine and Serena’s apartments are divided by a locked gate. They keep the gate door parted with a brick, so that they can move easily between their apartments without having to use a key.
I had a friend who moved into an apartment complex. My young sons and I would come over to swim. She’d leave a brick in the front gate so that we could enter the apartment complex without her having to open the gate for us.
That whole story developed because of that brick. I couldn’t stop thinking about it–and then, long after my friend moved, I’d see the image of that brick wedging the gate open.
4. You write so skillfully about children and adolescents throughout the varied and various stories in The Secret Habit of Sorrow. “Johnny Hitman” is an especially arresting story about desire and violence as experienced by two girls in their early teens, but it’s also a frame tale told from the POV of one of the girls as an adult. Did this structure evolve through various drafts?
Yes! Many, many drafts. Sometimes I have to put a story down for a couple of years, let it marinate. I come back, fiddle, only to put it down again.
5. And related to the above, I’m wondering what inspired “Johnny Hitman” too - slasher movies like the girls watch in the story? An attractively dangerous older brother?
“Johnny Hitman” was inspired by a girlhood friendship of mine–-though I took many liberties.
6. You’ve published both novels and short story collections. Do you approach the writing of a novel differently when you do a short story, i.e. do you write an outline for a novel but simply start writing a short story and see where it takes you?
I’ve never outlined. Before attempting words on the page, I take lots of notes–-both for stories and novels. The biggest difference is that for novels, the notetaking is more extensive.
7. Who are some of your main influences - writers, filmmakers, and/or artists? The collection’s title comes from a line from Henry James--is he one of your desert island authors?
I’m a promiscuous reader. I just read everything I could by and about Paula Fox, which followed Sylvia Townsend Warner, which followed Tom Drury and Rachel Cusk. My mainstays are William Trevor, Edith Wharton, and Richard Yates.
8. What are you working on now?
God help me: I’m writing a sequel novel to my first story collection, Drift .
People who struggle with self-destructive behaviours can be heartbreaking, complex, deep, maddening, and lovely. I’m drawn to that combination (whether I want to be or not) both in life and in fiction.
2. A number of your stories, both from the male and female POVs, are written in first-person. Do you find yourself hearing a character’s voice before anything else when you begin a story? Or do you start with a subject or an idea for a scene?
The voice (character) has to be strong for me to plunge into a first person POV. It develops as I sit with the work over time, so that the point of view and the character are alive for me.
3. I love the dark comedy in “DC” which features two women, both from marriages that have ended, or nearly ended, living in a southern Californian apartment complex, one that Serena, the main character Elaine’s neighbor, calls a “divorce Shangi-La.” I can’t resist asking how this story started - is either Elaine or Serena based on a real person? Serena especially is hilarious and memorable.
Elaine and Serena’s apartments are divided by a locked gate. They keep the gate door parted with a brick, so that they can move easily between their apartments without having to use a key.
I had a friend who moved into an apartment complex. My young sons and I would come over to swim. She’d leave a brick in the front gate so that we could enter the apartment complex without her having to open the gate for us.
That whole story developed because of that brick. I couldn’t stop thinking about it–and then, long after my friend moved, I’d see the image of that brick wedging the gate open.
4. You write so skillfully about children and adolescents throughout the varied and various stories in The Secret Habit of Sorrow. “Johnny Hitman” is an especially arresting story about desire and violence as experienced by two girls in their early teens, but it’s also a frame tale told from the POV of one of the girls as an adult. Did this structure evolve through various drafts?
Yes! Many, many drafts. Sometimes I have to put a story down for a couple of years, let it marinate. I come back, fiddle, only to put it down again.
5. And related to the above, I’m wondering what inspired “Johnny Hitman” too - slasher movies like the girls watch in the story? An attractively dangerous older brother?
“Johnny Hitman” was inspired by a girlhood friendship of mine–-though I took many liberties.
6. You’ve published both novels and short story collections. Do you approach the writing of a novel differently when you do a short story, i.e. do you write an outline for a novel but simply start writing a short story and see where it takes you?
I’ve never outlined. Before attempting words on the page, I take lots of notes–-both for stories and novels. The biggest difference is that for novels, the notetaking is more extensive.
7. Who are some of your main influences - writers, filmmakers, and/or artists? The collection’s title comes from a line from Henry James--is he one of your desert island authors?
I’m a promiscuous reader. I just read everything I could by and about Paula Fox, which followed Sylvia Townsend Warner, which followed Tom Drury and Rachel Cusk. My mainstays are William Trevor, Edith Wharton, and Richard Yates.
8. What are you working on now?
God help me: I’m writing a sequel novel to my first story collection, Drift .
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