Andrea answers “What is the significance of the spider legs?”

Connie Schneider asked this question about There There:

What is the significance of the spider legs?

Andrea I found an article where Tommy Orange addresses this question: https://www.kqed.org/arts/13835114/to...

QUESTION FROM INTERVIEWER: "You've done somethi…moreI found an article where Tommy Orange addresses this question: https://www.kqed.org/arts/13835114/to...

QUESTION FROM INTERVIEWER: "You've done something gorgeous with the structure of this novel. At times I want to call it a braid, but other times it feels like a spider's web, each strand resonating with and sending mild disturbances to what came before. In the book you write of a mother not allowing her children to kill spiders: "Spiders carry miles of web in their bodies, miles of story, miles of potential home and trap. She said that's what we are. Home and trap." I am so taken with this passage. I've thought about it on and off since reading it. Could you tell me about how you came about the structure of the book, and maybe talk a little about spiders?"

ANSWER FROM TOMMY: "I thought of the structure for this novel from the very outset, before I even started writing it. It came to me in a single moment. It was the strangest thing: I could see the whole thing at once. I was convinced of it enough to write into it for the next six years.

Of course, making it work and successfully braiding, or webbing, the thing was difficult. I knew I wanted it to be a novel and not a collection of stories calling itself a novel. I didn’t think of a web while writing it. That sort of came about of its own accord. Maybe like making an accidentally cohesive mosaic. Not that I wasn’t putting in the work to make it cohesive. When you work with complexity and chaos that you do your best to wield, sometimes unintended patterns emerge.

Regarding spiders, well, when I was researching, I came across this idea of miles of web in a spider’s body. There was just so much potential for metaphor there. And then, like one of the characters in the novel, I too pulled spider legs out of my own leg. It was crazy. There’s no explanation for it. I did a ton of research. Like my characters, I scoured the internet. When I asked my dad he told me it sounded like I got witched. I don’t know about any of that. What I did end up feeling was like I couldn’t not use it in the novel."(less)

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