Novelists From The United States

"In order to purify yourself, you have to understand yourself, Father Trais went on. Everything out in the world is also in you. Good, bad, evil, perfection, death, everything. So we study our souls. (p381)"

"Getting blown up happened in an instant; getting put together took the rest of your life."

"Sorrow eats time. Be patient. Time eats sorrow."

"They start by understanding that feminism is just an idea. It’s a philosophy. It’s about the equality of women in all realms. It’s not about man-hating. It’s not about being humorless. We have to let go of these misconceptions that have plagued feminism for 40, 50 years. It’s ridiculous that we’re still having this conversation. “But I love men!” Who cares! It’s not about men at all."

"Because oftentimes I’m the first or the only – so I cannot be the last."

"It’s used like a weapon. What it means is, ‘I don’t want to think about your concerns. I don’t want to have to extend my empathy.’…We have to think with nuance, and unfortunately public discourse rarely allows for nuance. And see where that has gotten us."

"I would definitely like to tear down this wall I've built around myself, because I don't need it anymore. And I know that intellectually, and on good days, I know that emotionally. I don't want to be thin, I want to be smaller, because I just do. I think it makes so many things easier just on a day-to-day basis, and also I have no small amount of vanity, so I just want to be able to find cuter clothes. Sometimes it's really basic things that I would like for myself."

"I grew up in this world where fat phobia is pervasive…And I just thought, 'Well, boys don't like fat girls, so if I'm fat, they won't want me and they won't hurt me again.' But more than that, I really wanted to just be bigger so that I could fight harder."

"There is a before and an after…In the after I was broken, shattered, and silent."

"In fact, it’s the opposite…As a black woman, as a black queer woman, specificity is incredibly important, because diverse experiences are rarely seen in literature."

"The moment I step outside the safety of my home, I hate how visible I am, how people treat me, how they stare and comment both loudly and under their breath … I do not know how to carry myself with confidence when I go out into the world. Any sense of self I have is often shattered within minutes, and then I am all insecurities and fears, wishing myself into a more socially acceptable form."

"Studying with Anaya was a major awakening to me. I always thank him for his input in my life. He has been a great role model, and he influenced me a lot in my decision to finally become a writer."

"I think the minority cultural groups in this country have to form part of their identity in confrontation with the mainstream culture. We just can't get away from it. The social and political reality, and elements of bigotry, racism and prejudice are there, and we have to deal with them. I think what Bruce-Novoa may have been alluding to is that we, as Chicanos in the 70s creating the artistic Chicano movement, couldn't stay at that place. There were those of us who had to incorporate that dialectic into our work, but then move into all sorts streams. Our literary characters had a lot of other needs, desires, and passion of life to be lived, besides the confrontation with the Anglo-American mainstream culture.”"

"One reason that I wrote Bless Me, Ultima was because, to me, the people I grew up with were so beautiful, I didn’t want them to disappear. I knew a book could be timeless. I knew the characters could be preserved."

"I think that my early novels certainly contained a great deal of autobiographical material, and drawing in of characters from my childhood. I identify in Bless Me Ultima with Antonio, in Heart of Atzlan with Jason, in Tortuga with Tortuga. I had been in a hospital like Tortuga. I had been in the body cast, I had become the Turtleman and I had to work my way back to being a man. All of that material is autobiographical. By the time I write Alburquerque, I am identifying with Ben Chávez, the writer and narrator of the story. But even in my current work, I identify with Sonny Baca, the private investigator in Zia Summer. It's a profession that l've never been in, that I know very little about, but he's still...Let me put it this way, writing is a way for a writer to give his personal "joumey through life" to the character. And so the character reflects the author."

"I felt something behind me and I turned and there is this old woman dressed in black and she asked me what I am doing. ‘Well, I’m trying to write about my childhood, you know, growing up in that small town.’ And she said, ‘Well, you never will get it right until you put me in it.’ I said, ‘Well, who are you?’ and she said, ‘Ultima.'"

"For me it's always been the visitation of characters. Since I was very young l've thought there is a natural creative spirit, a very romantic spirit, that we have within. That spirit seeks expression. It exists in those of us who want to be writers, or think that we are going to be writers; who want to write poetry, to write stories, to jump into novels. But that spirit, that energy, has to be channeled. I think a great deal of channeling for me has to do with the very strong characters that come to me and demand that their stories be told."

"Dreams are important. They are messengers…Characters have appeared to me. They say, ‘Here I am. Tell my story.'"

"The heart of New Mexico is, for me, the people, la gente—los compadres, las comadres, los tíos, las tías, los vecinos…It’s the connection and the understanding between my Indo-Hispano cultures. If people don’t make that connection, they don’t understand New Mexico."

"I remember the birds and the animals and going down to the river with my dog to play…My grandparents and uncles who farmed in Puerto de Luna were so beautiful, I wanted to keep them around, to contain them."

"My parents, uncles, aunts, they always talked about what they were doing, where they were working, what happened that day. Sooner or later, they’d be telling a story from the old days,” he recalls. “We were very poor, but proud of the hard work that provided what we had."

"Love Medicine has received all kinds of acclaim. Like many others, Ursula Le Guin is unrestrained in her praise of Love Medicine which she calls "a work of really startling beauty and power" and of you, Louise, whom she refers to as "a true artist and probably a major one" [SAIL, Winter 1985]."

"I read Louise Erdrich’s “Love Medicine,” with its strong multiple voices. The stories were bound by community and mutual loss. That later became a model for the structure of “The Joy Luck Club.”"

"Like two of her favorite contemporary writers, Marilynne Robinson and Joan Chase, Erdrich is committed to evoking the spirit of place."

"Louise Erdrich, who recently won the Nelson Algren short fiction award, writes of survival in a tone that has quiet strength. Roles reverse. The hunted and the hunter merge, become one. The poems contain a mystery and depth that charge them with meaning and intensity."

"Louise Edrich's book Love Medicine gave me a new way of understanding how fiction could work with values and commercial values - I think her book is really important in that respect, because it's a new direction for Indian writers. I think also how radical writers have tried very hard to do what she did - intending, for herself, just to write fiction - that is, telling the plain stories of people and their lives without pity, judgment, opinion, or romanticization."

"Philip Roth has declared her "greatly gifted" and found in her work "originality, authority, tenderness, and a pitiless and wild wit," and Toni Morrison has written that "the beauty of Love Medicine saves us from being devastated by its power.""

"A further measure of the importance of the feminism of women of color was the tremendous efflorescence in their fiction. The writings of Toni Morrison, Sandra Cisneros, Amy Tan, and Louise Erdrich, among others, played a major role in bringing the feminist message and perspective to the masses of American women."

"Anishinaabe Louise Erdrich’s novel Future Home of the Living God (2017) is a really interesting take on decolonizing the Anthropocene."

"Louise Erdrich, Barbara Kingsolver. They write, as you say, from the margins: a subversive novel, with an anti-WASP tone that I love."

"Today, great writers from minority groups in the U.S. are finding their voice in the wonderful, rich imagery of magic realism. Writers such as Louise Erdrich, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Amy Tan all have a unique, rich way of writing that can be described as magic realism. These women are among those who have broken away from the style of writing that defines most of the fiction coming from industrialized countries: that pragmatic, minimalist style and way of facing reality in which the only things one dares talk about are those things one can control."

"there's such a sense of humor and irony in Native American life, in tribal life. I mean, that's one of the things that does not get portrayed often enough-that there's such an irony and humor. (1986)"

"The recent abundance of Native American writers follows the course of Native American fortunes in general. Things got better for Native Americans in education, in health, in many areas. I'm one who has benefited from Bureau of Indian Affairs money and education. The program at Dartmouth really stresses the importance of keeping your heritage. All of these things really work together. If things continue as they are now under the Reagan administration, we can expect to see a corresponding absence of younger Native American writers as well as Native American doctors, lawyers, everything-who don't have the educational advantages. These things are linked to a national governmental attitude toward keeping those promises of providing education and tribal assistance. (1986)"

"when you love someone you try to listen to them. Their voice then comes through. (1987)"

"(Wasn't it Pete Seeger who once said that any time you assemble a group of people, for whatever purpose, you have the body politic?) LE: That's what people on reservations say. You know, everything's political. Getting your teeth fixed is political. There's no way around it. I just don't want to become polemical. That's the big difference. (1991)"

"(Q: Are you concerned that being labelled a "Native American writer" or a "woman writer" might result in your being marginalized? Do you object to those labels?) Erdrich: I think they originate in course descriptions and that there is some use in them. If the work survives, perhaps they'll fall away. If not, there isn't much I can do about it. After all, I don't think we read George Eliot, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, or Flannery O'Connor as "women writers" anymore, but as vital voices of their time. I know that, for instance, Toni Morrison will be read in this fashion. She is already. The point we're striving for is one at which the criteria for the work is its worth to readers, its excellence, the qualities that shine out and endure. (1993)"

"(Q: Who are the writers who influenced your work or served as models?) A: Michael Dorris, of course: believer, critic, beloved, and the person I most admire. Other than Michael, it is hard to pick out lasting influences. I'm a browser, prey to temporary enthusiasms. In my reading life, I usually have a number of books "going" at once. Last year I read nature essays. This year, women's politics and Henry James. My favorites over the years include Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, Angela Carter, Gabrel Garcia Marquez, Marguerite Duras, Robert Stone, Jane Smiley, Robb Forman Dew, Jean Rhys, Adrienne Rich, Toni Morrison, Rene Char, Larry Woiwode, Christina Stead, Katherine Anne Porter, Willa Cather, Jim Harrison, the poets Louise Gluck, Mary Oliver, Sharon Olds and Donald Hall. I read Madame Bovary and Jane Austen and George Eliot over and over. (1993 interview)"

"(Q: Were there any established writers whom you knew and were important to your writing career during or after your apprenticeship period?) A: Mark Vinz, Cynthia MacDonald, Richard Howard, Charles Newman, Edmund White, M. L. Rosenthal, and then, although Love Medicine went out with absolutely no expectations or any prepublication notes or hype, none at all, Toni Morrison, Kay Boyle, Philip Roth, Peter Matthiessen, Anne Tyler, and Rosellen Brown read an unknown manuscript and responded with those quotes and marks of approval that appear on book jackets. These were completely unsolicited and I still find it remarkable that these writers, overwhelmed with pleas and manuscripts, picked up Love Medicine and responded. There were a great number of people kind along the way. One hears much more about the egomania and posturing of writers than one does about the devotion that writers have for one another's work. (1993)"

"(BM: do you have an assured faith now?) LE: I go through a continual questioning. And I think that is my assurance that if I was to let go of my doubt, that I would somehow have surrendered my faith. My job is to address the mystery. My job is to doubt. My job is to keep searching, keep looking. When I think about my version of what a God is and I keep changing it, right now I think of this creator as a great artist, we don’t understand works of art when we see them. They’re—the greatest works of art are—we see them through a glass darkly. We don’t understand them. They’re very difficult for us to understand. So with this great work of art in which we’re all participating, this great artist has made beauty and terror and death and cruelty and humor and mystery part of who we are and commerce. And health care reform. Everything is part of this mystery."

"a mother is a frayed net, you know. We stretch ourselves over everything we can. But there’s holes all over the place where things get through and we do everything we can and fathers and—you know, as parents, we try so hard. But we can’t do it all. We can’t completely protect. I think in a very odd sense, I want things to be in ordinary for my children, routine. I want things to be simple, you know, for them to cope with. But that’s not what the world is like. And that’s not even what they want. They want to grow. They want to grow in every way that they possibly can and that’s going to involve pain."

"…we rationalize ourselves out of shame. We can rationalize anything away as we get older and older, but a child hasn’t that capacity yet. And so when the shame hits, it’s being knocked over. And it’s the truth of shame. And it’s what comes back to us. Sometimes when we are—and it—this is what happens to everybody. There’s going to be a time, no matter who we are, that we participate in the very oldest of human sorrows. We are at one with other people in our loss, in our shame, and we come to the very limit of who we are as people. We face that part of ourselves that we never wanted to look at. And then we experience shame the way a child experiences it…It’s pure. It’s pure and that moment and other moments like it link us with other human beings, I think."

"(BM: Your cultures, plural, keep competing within your imagination, don’t they?...Where do your ideas come from, if you have this constant interplay between these many cultures?) LE: You know, I live on the margin of just about everything. I’m a marginal person, and I think that is where I’ve become comfortable. I’m marginally there in my native life. I can do as much as I can, but I’m always German too, you know, and I’m always a mother. That’s my first identity, but I’m always a writer too. I have to write. I have to be an artist. You know, I have a very fractured inner life, I think."

"When I moved to Minnesota, I found there was a thriving and determined movement, a grassroots movement, to revitalize the Ojibwe language. And I’ve never come to be a competent speaker, I have to say that right now. But even learning the amount of Ojibwe that one can at my age is a life-altering experience. (BM: How so?) LE: You see the world in a different way. And to be told that you’re working in a language in which there is a spirit behind this language. I think it has to do with this being one of the indigenous languages of this continent. In which, as you look around, you see the forms of things that were named long, long ago. And you see the forms of things that have been named relatively recently. You know, this is…"

"(Is writing a lonely life for you?) LE: Strangely, I think it is. I am surrounded by an abundance of family and friends, and yet I am alone with the writing. And that is perfect."

"There’s something very wrong in our country—and not just in the book business. We now see what barely fettered capitalism looks like. We are killing the small and the intimate. We all feel it and we don’t know quite why everything is beginning to look the same. The central cores of large cities can still sustain interesting places. But all across our country we are intent on developing chain after chain with no character and employees who work for barely livable wages. We are losing our individuality. Killing the soul of our landscape. Yet we’re supposed to be the most individualistic of countries. I feel the sadness of it every time I go through cities like Fargo and Minneapolis and walk the wonderful old Main Streets and then go out to the edges and wander through acres of concrete boxes. Our country is starting to look like Legoland."

"People need bookstores and need other readers. We need the intimate communication with others who love books. We don’t really think we do, because of the ease that the Internet has introduced, but we still need the physical world more than we know."

"Any good business is about its people."

"If I am writing a novel, it casts an aura around me and I get ideas for it, descriptions, words, phrases, at all times. I’m always jotting in notebooks I keep with me. That delight of immersion in a book is as good as a trance. For a while, the book is so powerful that I can follow the thread even through my chaotic daily existence, with children at all hours, school, dinner, long calls to my daughters, my ever-demanding house, barking dogs, and the bookstore."

"(A journalist once asked you what advice you would give someone trying to write a novel. You said, “Don’t take the project too seriously.” Is that what you would say today?) LE: I think I meant that grand ideas kill first efforts. Begin with something in your range. Then write it as a secret. I’d be paralyzed if I thought I had to write a great novel, and no matter how good I think a book is on one day, I know now that a time will come when I will look upon it as a failure. The gratification has to come from the effort itself. I try not to look back. I approach the work as though, in truth, I’m nothing and the words are everything. Then I write to save my life. If you are a writer, that will be true. Writing has saved my life...I needed a way to go at life. I needed meaning. I might have chosen something more self-destructive had I not found writing."

"It started as a process of writing what I know to be true and it became a process of revelation. I was able to make some realisations about myself that previously I hadn’t made and it really forced me to confront my relationship not only with my body, but with food. I mostly saw how unkind I had been to myself when my body has actually gotten me through quite a lot in life. And recognising that, in many ways, I was holding on to the weight for the wrong reasons and the only one that was really hurting was myself."