Lydia Millet reads from Fair Ones: A Double Novel, her experimentally-structured story of two women navigating the sudden and unexpected death of their best friend. During our conversation, the Pulitzer- and National Book Award-nominated author reflects on her evolution as a writer and chats with Jon and Cory about:
- How she and her publisher decided on "A Double Novel" (and the many alternatives they considered)
- Her love of dialogue (and how much she hates reading it outloud)
- The increasing influence of pop culture on her writing
- Her obsession with fonts
- Writing exclusively outdoors
Lydia's passage, from Fair Ones:
“Let yourself go,” said Jen. “It’s your turn to be a leaf. Or, like, the plastic bag in that egregiously overrated movie from the nineties. The pedophile fantasy dressed up as cinematic art? With the rose motif? You can just float there, like the bag. Swirling in an updraft. In a super-obvious yet oh-so-gritty metaphor.”
We headed to the men’s room with Jase and Patrice, where, as always, there was no line. Locked ourselves in and consumed.
[...]
Just don’t be rude, I warned myself. [...] But my own potential rudeness sat on my shoulder like a gremlin.
At the same time, I did feel like a floating plastic bag. I was a floating plastic bag, indifferent to the breeze that carried me. The bag was thin, and sometimes full of air, but had the imperviousness of plastic—it would last, it would go on and on, though it tumbled and soared. It might snag on a tree or bush, but there it was.
I was several metaphors at once, and it wasn’t a problem for me.
The gremlin was only a figment.
On Jase’s coke I wasn’t bothered by any of the conversations. When Elise touched on the event, I gave the appearance of listening. Though, in reality, I felt apart from it and supernatural. A superhero. The plastic bag was a miracle! Who had made it? Who had made me?
If Claire had been a bag she’d be floating there too. Or we might be snagged together in a tree. A green tree, I thought, with squirrels and nuts and birds . . . slowly shedding our plastic bodies, shedding and shredding. Filmy tatters we’d be, across the bare winters. But there, perhaps, for all eternity.
Or at least, till someone cut down the tree.
