Who are you writing for?
I was asked this question recently by a poet friend from Brooklyn and it caught me by surprise: I mumbled something about the odd predicament of being an American writer published in the UK and France. And about belonging nowhere, which actually is not true. I feel quite solidly at this point that I belong in France where I’ve been for twenty-two years; but I do feel that writing in two languages and being published primarily in a country where I have never lived does put me in an unusual place as a writer and I think this is why the poet posed the question.
The most obvious answer is that I write for anyone willing to read my books. Like most writers on this front, I am not discriminatory. Yet readers are, and I should probably add the caveat that an openness to linguistic play, fancy, sly subversions and eccentric characters might well be necessary to enjoy my books à leur juste mesure. I don’t serve up the usual literary fare; it is probably more accurate to say I’ve cooked up antidotes (or might we call them “remedies”) to the more dyspeptic genres on offer – chick lit à la bonne femme or mom lit façon bonne maman. The culinary associations may seem weird (or over baked?) but I’ll stick to them. Reading involves a psychic effort similar to the stomach’s after all.
Much of today’s fiction holds up a mirror to contemporary life and most of us like to look at ourselves: the equation works. But fiction can also take its readers through the looking glass, the way Lewis Carroll (and many others before and after him) did, by shifting perspectives and setting up “improbable,” often sound-motivated associations, like in dreams. When we reach the other side of the mirror, the world is other yet bears similarities to our own; the familiar gets irreverently turned on its head and while we might still be able to identify with an Alice who shrinks, we sense, at some level, that this is not the point, that the enjoyment requires a different investment. In fact, here, on the other side, we are no longer quite who we thought we were either and maybe it’s best to welcome the experience like goodly Gonzalo did in the wake Prospero’s Tempest; after all, we might just discover something we didn’t know. If I could whisper one thing into my reader’s ear, just as she is beginning the book, it would be “Trust me.” That might sound silly, but it’s what I would say if I could. Trust me!
Not to beleaguer the point but here is a little story – a true one – whose humour hinges on the word fancy. It happened to the cousin of a friend of a friend.
Caroline (let’s imagine this is her name) is at her cousin’s place visiting. As she has an appointment at the gynecologist’s, she goes into the bathroom to freshen up. Looking hurriedly – she is running late — in her cousin’s cupboard she grabs a can of FemFresh and applies it.
Now she is at with the doctor and he is having a look.
“Oh! Fancy!” he says, with a rye smile.
Caroline laughs nervously. She is mystified and made uncomfortable by his exclamation. Oh my God! What has happened to me down there?
She goes back to her cousin’s and relates, worryingly, what the doctor uttered at the sight of her privates. Her cousin says, “But I don’t have any FemFresh. I never buy that stuff. What on earth did you use?”
Caroline goes back into the bathroom and gets the can she used earlier. She reads the label carefully this time.
It is a can of spray-on glitter.
Fancy, indeed.