Motherest
Page 26
What methods, besides statements of thought, does the author use to immerse the reader in Agnes’s mind? What techniques does she use to bring Agnes’s voice to life, especially given the spare use of dialogue?
“It seems all of civilization is built on this unscientific, emotional idea that we love our children, simply because they’re our children. Do you think that’s enough?” [pg. 159] How would you answer Agnes’s question?
What role do you think Agnes’s missing mother plays in the novel? Do the letters function as a Mother-by-Proxy—Agnes mothering herself by writing—or does the missing woman still have agency over her daughter, despite her absence?
Were any of Agnes’s responses to conflict—her mother’s disappearance, her brother’s suicide, her father’s struggles, the pregnancy—different from what you anticipated? What were your reactions to her choices? What would you have done in Agnes’s position?
Motherest is fundamentally a deep inquiry into the many types of mothers and motherhood that exist in the world, and the forms they take. In what ways does Agnes’s experience as a new mother inform her understanding of her own mother? Do you think Agnes does understand her by the end of the novel?
We are introduced to Agnes as a young woman who has experienced tragedy and trauma but still retains a sense of independence and invulnerability. Her journey through Motherest, however, is not easy, or straightforward, and many of her experiences are as dramatic as what she has gone through when we first meet her. By the end of the book, how do you think Agnes has changed? How has she remained the same?
A Conversation with Kristen Iskandrian
What initially inspired you to write this novel? Why did you choose to use an epistolary narrative form?
I wanted to write a first-person novel to see what it would feel like to eradicate the distance between my subject and me, to fully inhabit a character in the midst of intense emotional turmoil. I chose to include letters because letter writing is an art form very dear to my heart and, in Agnes’s case, the place where she most allowed herself to be herself. In a way, her letters to her mother are love letters, and also earnest attempts to be known, to supply a sort of compensatory intimacy. I thought it would be interesting to punctuate the overarching narrative with deep dives into the psyche of a relatively guarded character.
What was the process of writing this kind of novel?
The process was long, sometimes arduous, always rewarding. I worked on it over the course of more than four years, through many of my own big life changes. I’m a slow writer, and in this case, my relationship with Agnes was allowed to develop and deepen gradually, which helped the story unfold in a way that felt truthful. The entire story revolved around her, so it was necessary for me to get as close to her, as attached to her, as possible. I didn’t really have any kind of formal methodology: no 3x5 index cards, Post-It note collages, Venn diagrams, etc. I just typed and typed into a sprawling Word document, cleaning it up and shaping it as I went. Thank goodness for good editors!
How did you find Agnes’s voice? What do you like about her? Dislike?
That’s a good question. Writing in first person is a bit like what I’d imagine Method acting to be—the lines between you and the person you’re portraying need to blur to an almost total degree. I guess she arose from certain threads of myself that I wanted to tangle with. That being said, I’m really not like Agnes, personality wise. She’s more cynical than I ever was at her age, and more pained, existentially. Much of her life seems halted, understandably, by her profound experiences of sadness and loss, such that even ordinary pleasures are difficult for her to enjoy. Her self-consciousness is so extreme that she frequently cannot move past herself. I won’t say I “dislike” these qualities so much as I feel a kind of tenderness and empathy toward them, mixed with, I think, the frustration you might expect. I love her dark sense of humor, probably, most of all.
Why did you choose the name “Agnes”?
I think it’s a beautifully unique name, heavy and solemn, with religious overtones. Felt right for a spiritually complicated young woman.
How did you come up with Agnes’s story? Did it develop organically as you wrote the novel, or did it come to you earlier?
I knew some of the broad strokes, but really, the story arose with and around and by virtue of Agnes’s character—her losses and responses to loss, her needs, her desires, her confusion. I wanted to try to answer the questions: How does a raw nerve move through the world? Can she survive/how does she survive? What sorts of imprints can a mother leave? What does love look like that’s been pressed to its very outer limits?
Why did you choose the title Motherest? Were there any other contenders?
For years, all throughout its writing, the manuscript was saved simply as “AGNES.doc” on my desktop. Briefly, I thought of it as THE BOOK OF MOTHER, but I started seeing “the book of” as a construction in various places, so I let it go. At some point it became MOTHER, MOTHERER, MOTHEREST, which I loved for its drama, but which we (editor, agent, and I) ultimately decided was a bit of a mouthful. MOTHEREST crystallized as the most essential part of that title, and (I think) an apt descriptor of the book’s central inquiry.
How would you define motherhood? How would Agnes?
Oh, my. I’m not sure I could ever arrive at any kind of stable definition of motherhood. It’s too many things. I’m guessing it’s probably too early for Agnes to hazard a definition, but she might agree that it’s something like an explosive alignment of all of one’s instincts.
Do you think you gravitate toward certain themes as a writer?
I love to write about women, friendships and intimacies between women, difficult love, ethical quandaries, relentless inferiority, thorny spirituality, the quiet violence of loneliness—all things I loosely categorize as the “dark arts.”
Which authors do you admire?
Too many to list here: Marguerite Duras, Virginia Woolf, Maggie Nelson, Lydia Davis, Toni Morrison, Mary Ruefle, Edith Wharton, Zadie Smith, Clarice Lispector, Lucia Berlin, Jean Rhys, Joy Williams, Sylvia Plath, Jenny Offill—and those are just a few of the women!
Why did you write Motherest?
I wanted to write a book about different kinds of pain and different kinds of love. This is how it shook out.
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