Q: The chronology of the book is almost year by year. Why did you choose to write the story this way?
A: I wanted to create a portrait of the regular rhythms of life, of time passing.
Q: You’ve done some incredible work for the Moth. How did you get your start with storytelling for an audience?
A: One of the wonderful things about the Moth is that you don’t need any kind of storytelling experience or credentials; anyone can put his or her name in the hat, and if it gets called, you go up on stage and tell a story in front of hundreds of people. As a shy person who’s terrified of public speaking it seemed like a masochistic thing do to, but one day I took a chance and put in my name. When people describe the adrenalin rush of skydiving, that’s what it felt like the first time I was called to the stage. Live storytelling is a wonderful antidote to the loneliness of writing a novel. Your audience is right before you, and you can experience them laugh and gasp or shake their heads in sympathy. I was instantly hooked.
Q: What was the title of the first piece of fiction you ever wrote and what was it about?
A: In third grade we were instructed to write our autobiographies. Mine wasn’t straight-up fiction, but I’d say I took some artistic liberties. I remember my teacher criticizing it for being too scene-based. The chapters were supposed to feature significant life milestones (lost a tooth, acquired a sibling), but I was more interested in capturing the essence of everyday life.
Q: New York City plays a huge role in the setting of Laura & Emma. How long have you lived in New York, and what are the changes you’ve seen that you think are good?
A: I was born in New York City and have lived here for most of my adult life. As someone who pines for the past and hates change, that’s a difficult question. To focus on the positive changes: I admire our current mayor, Bill de Blasio. I’m too scared to ride them, but I like the bike thing. I’ve heard that New York Harbor is a lot cleaner than it used to be and that oysters are making a comeback—that makes me happy.
Q: The theme of privilege surfaces over and over in Laura & Emma. How intentional was this on your part, and how did you do research to write those sections?
A: Does therapy count as research? A therapist once told me that people are more uncomfortable discussing money than they are sex. Growing up on the Upper East Side, my childhood notion of privilege was skewed. We lived in the building depicted in Laura & Emma, on Ninety-sixth Street, which was a very different street back then. Compared to my classmates, who lived in doorman buildings on Park Avenue, I thought we were poor. This was something I took great pride in. I fancied myself the heroine of a Frances Hodgson Burnett novel—a fantasy that was shattered when I was cast as one of the privileged subjects in Michael Apted’s Age 7 in America, a documentary series that profiles the lives of a group of kids from different parts of America. The thrill of being followed by a film crew was eclipsed by the shame of seeing my life set against other first-graders from much humbler backgrounds. That awareness, at a young age, of my privilege was something that tormented me. It still does. While I didn’t inherit any money, I was born into a life that came with certain advantages, and there’s no denying the role this has played in everything I’ve ever done or achieved—that I have benefited from an unfair system. I wanted to put this psychic “burden” on Laura, and show the ways in which she struggles to reconcile her progressive ideals and the reality of her circumstances.
Q: This is your first novel. How does it feel now that it’s out in the world? Do you think you’ll return to the characters in this book for another novel or short stories?
A: Writing a novel is a lonely, solitary endeavor, so it’s thrilling and surreal to have it materialize into a book that exists in the world. In the immediate future I’m going to try to work on something else, but I can see myself returning to these characters in the future. I imagine Laura and Emma having a complicated adult relationship that would be interesting to explore.
Q: Which character do you most relate to in the story and why?
A: I think it’s often the case that writers are inspired to create characters who embody their virtues. For me, I think it’s the opposite; I’m interested in exploring the more unattractive parts of myself. I relate to Laura’s feeling of outsiderness, her timidity, her self-protective judgment of others. I relate to Emma’s neediness and shameless ploys for attention. For years, I was kind of a late-blooming, aimless wanderer, like Martin, a minor character who appears at the end of the book.
Q: What were the hardest parts of writing this story? What parts made you laugh out loud?
A: I wanted readers to like Laura, but in order to portray her in an honest light, there were scenes where I had to depict her in a way that I suspect would disappoint, irritate, and alienate some readers. The ending was also hard to write. I had my reasons for wanting to leave Laura in the circumstances that I do, but I still felt a little bad about it. Martin made me laugh. He’s on a completely different wavelength from Laura, and his attempts at humor don’t always translate, but this doesn’t stop him from trying to engage with her on his level—an interpersonal dynamic that’s always amused me, on the page and in life.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
© PETE PIN
KATE GREATHEAD is a graduate of Wesleyan University and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times, and Vanity Fair, and NPR’s Moth Radio Hour. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, writer Teddy Wayne. Laura & Emma is her first novel.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Kate Greathead
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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition March 2018
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Greathead, Kate, author.
Title: Laura & Emma / Kate Greathead.
Other titles: Laura and Emma
Description: First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. | New York
: Simon & Schuster, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017027550 | ISBN 9781501156601 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Self-realization in women—Fiction. | Mothers and
daughters—Fiction. | Single mothers—Fiction. | Families—Fiction. |
Domestic fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Literary. | FICTION / Contemporary
Women. | FICTION / General.
Classification: LCC PS3607.R42865 L38 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017027550
ISBN 978-1-5011-5660-1
ISBN 978-1-5011-5663-2 (ebook)
Laura & Emma Page 26