The Feminist world of Vicki Matthews: Interview and Review of The Goddess Letters
Hi everyone,
It’s rare that I will run an interview with an author and a review of their book at the same time however Vicki Matthews has tapped into something that resonates deeply with me in her award winning book The Goddess Letters and I feel that it it would be simply rude not to!
INTERVIEW WITH VICKI MATTHEWS
Hi Vicki, lovely to meet you! Your book was the winner at the 2013 New York Book Festival and a finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, you must be overjoyed! Is writing your full time career?
No, I actually have a full time job and a part time natural health practice. But I’ve always wanted to write, so finally took a sabbatical a few years ago to write The Goddess Letters. I hope to make writing my full time career eventually.
Yes, I can “see” you in natural health, it kind of fits! What is the worst job that you have ever done, and why?
Actually, I’ve really liked most of the jobs I’ve had. Probably my least favorite was working in the complaint department of a newspaper while in high school. It’s amazing how upset people get over not receiving their newspaper!
I worked in the complaints department for an insurance company many moons ago and I literally went home every night with a headache…If you could have written any other book by any other author, what would it be, and why?
Hmmm. Probably The Di Vinci Code. Not because it was such a huge seller, although that would be nice. Mostly because Dan Brown did a great job of introducing factual information in a compelling manner. That’s what I tried to do with The Goddess Letters.
There is indeed a lot of fact woven into your book! What Genre is your work – Do you have any plans to work outside of it?
On the surface, The Goddess Letters is a romance, but I think of it as Visionary Fiction and am really proud to have been named a FINALIST in the Indie National Excellence Awards for Visionary Fiction (I placed for New Age Fiction, too). I suspect I will be in Visionary Fiction for some time because I really enjoy writing fiction with a message. But Romance is nice, too. I did win the New York Book Festival for Romance, so it’s been good to me as a category.
I don’t actually think the romance element is the over-arching theme of your book. It’s there, certainly and there’s plenty of angst, but for me, it’s the deeper themes which really stand out, but more of that later!! What inspired you to write your first book?
This is my first book and I was inspired by a desire to help shift the patterns in our world that concern me, like a lack of environmental sustainability , cultural inequality, and a blind acceptance of patriarchal values. I wanted to point out that we are missing a crucial balance in our world; the balance between head and heart (head usually wins). To do that, I decided to offer my thoughts in a balanced way, so wrote a romance full of ideas so as to engage both the heart and the head.
Do you ever get ideas at random moments, and if so how do you hang onto them?
Yes, I get ideas at any moment, and have become a passionate note-taker. I jot notes down all the time, especially in the middle of the night or on napkins at restaurants!
Do you have an opinion on life after death, and if so what?
I absolutely believe in the continuance of the soul after transition. I believe in reincarnations, too; it seems like an awful waste to have only one time to learn about an Earth existence. I believe we come here to learn and to help others. So it’s great to have lots of chances to do that.
Yes, I could tell that by your book! London, Paris or New York and why?
New York: short flight from Chicago, great theatre and cultural activities, and good friends to visit.
The Goddess Letters is set primarily in Chicago, isn’t it? What do you have in the pipeline?
Two books. One is a nonfiction discussion of using an ancient model to understand and work with relationships. The other is fiction about a
parallel world that helps guide our culture toward balance.
I am looking forward to reading them! What inspired you to be a writer?
A n overwhelming passion for communication and sharing ideas.
Do you write poetry or short stories as well? If so what?
Yes, both. I actually had my first poem published when I was 11 years old. I have a collection of short stories partially completed and on the back-burner at the moment.
If you only had 60 seconds remaining on this planet, what would you say, and who would you say it to?
I would say how much I love my family and friends and what a joy it has been to walk the planet with them this time around.
Well, on that note I think it’s time for my review of The Goddess Letters…
THE GODDESS LETTERS BY VICKI MATTHEWS
Written in first person and somewhat surprisingly told through the eyes of “Rob” The Goddess Letters is a love story spanning several decades and would have worked perfectly well had it simply been a love story…
First up, those of you who have read many of my reviews will know that I have a leaning and preference towards stories that are written in first person as opposed to third because I feel that first person narrative is the best way to get into a character’s head. So I was excited when I first started reading this book and intrigued that it was also being told from the male point of view. That excitement if I am totally honest, soon gave way to frustration as I couldn’t, in the beginning connect with Rob. It seemed (initially at least) that it was blatantly a female writer attempting to get into a male head and not quite succeeding. I was also ranting to myself that surely this would have been SO much better had it been told through the eyes of Selina, seeing as Selina was the one having all of the dreams and the visions and I found myself mentally berating the author for wasting such a golden opportunity!
HOWEVER and thankfully there is a however, by the time I got mid-way through the book, I started to realise that what the author had done was actually quite clever. Selina WOULD have been the logical choice, however by writing through the eyes of Rob, Vicki Matthews was fully able to explore the issues which define this book to spectacular effect.
Let me back track a little…Selina who by the end of the novel is a world famous Hollywood actress has been having these dreams, these nightmares since her college days with Rob. Without giving too much away they involve a sinister Atlantean (ish) character called Jacobi who is hell bent on preserving the Patriarchal society which he has created and which Selina, an ardent feminist has been railing against and attempting to change. I loved her interactions with Danu, the Celtic Goddess and also liked Rob’s strong non-religious beliefs as they were the perfect vehicle for the author to explore the controversial issues around why the bible was “really” written, something that I have touched briefly upon in my own novel. I also thought that his marriage to Becca whilst seriously flawed and passionless was realistically portrayed.
I did feel that there was at times a distance in the writing that I wish hadn’t been there and Selena’s dreams whilst clearly described were a little too clinical and just weren’t interactive enough for me. I wanted to be “there” at “that” stoning. I wanted to see it, watch it, feel the emotion and break my heart over it.
Overall, this is a well told story, dealing with the struggles and injustices that women have been experiencing since the beginning of time. We do, like it or not still live in a patriarchal society and I would recommend that people read the book and reflect upon whether or not there are changes that they can make…
