by Kate Gray
And Toni Morrison’s Beloved is still the most important novel in contemporary American literature, I believe. Reading her book over and over, her way of using multiple perspectives on one traumatic experience got inside me, and her way of creating the presence of the horrible collar forced on slaves so much more powerfully by the absence of naming it gave me the idea of not providing Kyle a voice. I’m hoping the presence of his voice is stronger in its absence.
Elizabeth Rosner’s Speed of Light showed me how to tell the story in two tightly-intertwined voices, how to write prose that was poetry.
And I come from a family of writers who can tolerate almost anything besides a lack of humor.
You write about sexual violence and bullying and other overt trauma, but you’re also tackling the more ambiguous and taboo subject of what teachers and students feel for each other, what it means to act on those feelings, what the lines of transgression are—what was it like to put those words down on paper? Is it hard as a writer to free yourself enough to impersonate someone pushing and even violating those boundaries?
The tired adage for writers is “write what you know,” and another piece of that is to extend what you know, push it by taking the other person’s role, to write the stuff that scares you. By putting myself in the heads of people I might despise, I find some measure of their humanity. It’s hard. Sometimes after writing scenes with those transgressions, I biked long distances to figure out how those lines blurred, to make sure those feelings were not stored in my muscles, and to work through the residuals, like disgust and shame and surprise.
It strikes me there is a profound lack of privacy in this prep school setting. Were you consciously evoking that feeling or is it simply a byproduct of writing about that environment?
Boarding school teachers have no privacy and work around the clock, especially if they live in apartments within the dorms. Two of my sisters and their husbands have spent their lives working at boarding schools, and I began my career as a teacher thinking I could do the same thing. In one year I gained so much respect for what boarding school teachers do and enough experience to realize I wanted a different lifestyle.
You are a poet as well as a novelist. How do you think that affected the writing of Carry the Sky?
Since I didn’t know how to write fiction when I started, I may have taken more leaps in language and made more associative connections than most fiction writers. Sound often determined my word choice. As a poet, I had to learn things like plot and dialogue. And luckily for me, Forest Avenue Press is a haven for quiet novels, ones that are character and/or language-driven more than plot-driven.
What’s your hope for the book and its readers?
My hope is that the book makes a difference in one person’s life. I hope that one young gay or lesbian person feels less alone, that one person who has lost someone to suicide or accident or prolonged disease finds comfort in knowing that she can recover, that he can recover in the way that he needs to. I hope readers read plays like Master Harold … and the Boys and Hamlet and Francis Bacon, that readers connect literature with the complexity of who we are and can be. I hope someone flies a kite. I hope someone hugs someone she knows who might be like Kyle. I hope someone talks about feeling lost and someone listens and finds that person. I hope readers ask great questions like yours, Jeb.
Reading Group Questions
Carry the Sky takes an unblinking look at bullying. What’s unblinking about it? Talk about moments where a character makes a bad choice, and the author doesn’t sugarcoat the results.
What are some of the ways “difference” is explored in Carry the Sky? How does the Wyeth mural act as a symbol?
Has the educational system changed since 1983 in terms of accepting or encouraging difference? How has social media changed the way bullies attack weaker peers?
What are the social, religious, and personal forces that made Taylor feel shame about her sexuality? Do you think those forces are as prevalent today for GLBTQ people?
Jack Song is one of the only people of color on staff at St. Timothy’s, although he has an ally in his friend Sam Omura. How are the depictions of race in the book reinforcing and/or resisting stereotypes?
What do you think about the author choosing two teachers as the point-of-view characters? How would the novel change if the headmaster were telling the story? Or Kyle? Does hearing the perspectives of Taylor and Song, as they try to tend these students, change how you think about your educational experience?
Does Taylor’s grief for Sarah affect her ability to teach? How about the conflicted emotions about her sexuality? As a more seasoned teacher, does Song manage his grief and outsider status any better than Taylor? Do you think Song will stay at St. Timothy’s?
Carla is nearly, but not quite, a point-of-view character. How did the author’s use of dialogue and tape recordings, to get her voice on the page, affect your response to Carla’s experiences? Do you wish she had a point of view or were you glad for the distance?
Carry the Sky is about bullying, but it’s also about loneliness, how being different can isolate individuals. What are some of the ways Kyle reached out—or could have reached out—to the people around him? Who tries connecting with him? Are there characters you hold responsible for what happens to Kyle? If so, which ones?
How did it change your perspective on Kyle’s choice to have his fellow dorm mates find him? Where were all the adults?
Honor and shame are two big themes in the book. How does Song act honorably? How does he act dishonorably? What about Taylor? Which characters—adults or students—have positive influences on the other characters?
How does the Cold War backdrop impact the story? Why do you think the author set the book in 1983?
What are some other boarding school books you’ve read? How are they similar to Carry the Sky? How are they different?