Back in October of 2011, Dusty Cooper, our associate editor, Lorraine, our fiction editor, and I sat down with Susan Straight for lunch. We had every intention to ask her some questions concerning her craft, but ended up chatting the whole time. We (Dusty, Lorraine, and I) weren’t too upset with not getting to ask her our questions. Ms. Straight is very personable and pleasant to talk to. She regaled us with many stories from her own life, as well as, tips for writing. Instead of asking her in person, we decided it would be best to just send her our questions. Here are her responses.
Manchac Review: In your story, “El Ojo de Agua,” who was the inspiration for Gustave?
Susan Straight: Gustave was based on a man whose sons I grew up with here in California, Mr. Gainer. Mr. Gainer is from Florida, and his own father died in a turpentine accident while his mother was pregnant with him. Mr. Gainer, a roofer, told me stories on my porch many times after I wrote letters to the Veterans Administration for him. One of his stories was about a time when he was seven years old, starving, and said he wanted meat. He walked three miles with a hammer to a neighboring farm, killed a pig, dragged it home, and told his mother to cook it.
MR: I like the way you incorporate the two story lines. How many times did you have to rewrite it before they were cohesive and not confusing?
SS: Oh, I rewrote that story about twelve times! I began with the image of the 1927 flood, and the pig, and the two boys. Then I knew Glorette had been killed because of a story I’d written about Victor, her son – that was the very first story in this series, and I wrote it in 2000. I took two years total to write El Ojo de Agua… I kept going back and forth, and it was really dreamlike to write about the flood, and more real to write about the journey to the apartment.
MR: Are Rio Seco and Sarrat based off of places in California near you?
SS: I live in a hundred year old house, three blocks from the hospital where I was born, in Riverside, which is my fictional Rio Seco. But I grew up in a neighborhood at the edge of orange groves and foothills, and my childhood was a wild one in the trees. We stole a lot of oranges, used them for weapons, ate them every day. And Sarrat is based on the kind of small grove where we knew better than to go in unannounced – there were family places like that.
MR: You use Rio Seco in another story, “Mines.” Do you incorporate like details into all of your stories? Also, these to stories have transplants to California from Louisiana. That may be a reason why some classes are reading “El Ojo de Agua,” bud do you find people in Louisiana interesting, and is that why you have them in your stories?
SS: My new novel is based on these stories, all centered around the death of Glorette, and the lifelong relationship between Enrique and Gustave, and the survival of Glorette’s son Victor. I just finished the last story, which is Enrique’s, last month. The book comes out in September 2012 from McSweeney’s. All of my novels are set in Rio Seco except A Million Nightingales, which is set during slavery in Louisiana. Stories I heard from people who grew up in Louisiana and migrated to California, people whose kids I grew up with, were the inspiration for many of the characters in these novels.
MR: Both “El Ojo de Agua” and “Mines” are about adults reflecting on the youth around them, in ways. Do you try to put a message in your stories? If so, who are you aiming them at?
SS: No messages – just stories to make people think, or cry, or laugh.
MR: Your novel Highwire Moon is the common read this semester, what inspired you to write the novel?
SS: I began Highwire Moon when I was 19, after hearing about a group of women deported from a linen plant, sent back to Mexico, and I imagined what might happen to the children left behind. I had foster siblings for many years, and I used the memory of one sister, as well as the idea of “real” mother and foster mother, for Elvia and her mother, Serafina.
But I couldn’t finish the novel until I was 34, with three daughters of my own. I travelled to Mexico, to Tijuana and Oaxaca, and to the southern California deserts near my house, to write the book.
MR: Do you prefer to write stories that incorporate more than one plot line, such as, “El Ojo de Agua” and Highwire Moon.
SS: That’s difficult to say – every story, and every novel, feels completely different. The characters dictate.
MR: Where do you like to write?
SS: I like to write at home, but I often end up writing in my car! That’s because I have three kids, and so many nieces and nephews, that my house is often full of hungry young people, and also because in the car it’s quiet, and I can look out all those windows. Maybe it’s a southern California thing.
MR: What is your general source of inspiration, that one thing that sets off your creativity?
SS: The astonishing stories told to me by perfect strangers as well as family.
MR: Do you prefer novels or short stories?
SS: Love them both. Read both all the time.
MR: Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
SS: Learn to listen, look people in the eyes when they’re telling you stories, and say, What happened then? How did you feel? That way, they tell you things they might never tell anyone else.
And pay attention to voice, dialogue, and the way people talk. Last, the best advice I ever got from James Baldwin, one of my teachers – secondary characters are so much more important than you might think!
Justin Greer-Executive Editor