Writer Ayelet Waldman is coming to town. Her two most recent books are the novel, Red Hook Road and the collection of essays, Bad Mother. The essay collection’s title might not have come to be if she hadn’t published an essay professing her love for her husband as greater than that for her children. (Did you hear? Ayelet Waldman’s a Bad Mother!).
Any of us who write about parenthood have to thank Ayelet for helping to create a mosh pit (I mean, forum) where we can roll up our sleeves (literal or virtual or emotional, some sleeves) and get more down and dirty about the actual experience of parenting (active, verb).
**
For this book tour, she asked readers to help her decide where to go read. Thanks to Rachel Keller’s response that the Valley is full of “strong women ready to discuss the ups and downs of motherhood,” she chose Northampton.
Important details: Ayelet is going to read and speak and sign books June 5th (that’s Sunday evening) at 7:30 PM social hall of Congregation B’nai Israel, 253 Prospect St., Northampton. The event is free and open to the public. For information, call Broadside Bookshop at 586-4235.
I’ve never posted an interview on my blog (although I’ve done plenty, including here and here). This is a great way to begin…
I’m curious how you chose which answers to your ‘where should I read’ query drew you to the places you chose to go–were the responses surprising or most like you imagined wanting to get? Have you ever been to Northampton?
Ayelet: I told people via Facebook and Twitter how hard it is to tour, how demoralizing it can be when one night you speak to 150 people, and the next night to 1.5 (.5 being a nursing infant). I asked for suggestions on where to go, and a commitment to bring 50 of your nearest and dearest. Now, of course I know no one can guarantee an audience (that’s my responsibility, after all!) but my idea was that different people would reach out to their various circles — book clubs, school communities etc. — in a way they wouldn’t if they simply read in a bookstore newsletter that I was coming. Then I chose the cities based on the interest and excitement of the volunteer publicity squads!
I was in Northampton years ago, but only for an afternoon. I remember thinking it was incredibly cute, so cute that I told my then boyfriend that we should move there. I guess that plan went the way of that boyfriend!
What kinds of conversations about parenthood do you most enjoy engaging in?
I like it when we can get down and dirty, put aside our competitive selves, stop talking about whose kid got into Princeton or Amherst and talk about what makes us nervous, what makes us feel insecure and alone. I value so much the companionship of other parents experiencing the same things. It’s what makes the tough stuff manageable.
How do you choose whether to write essays or fiction?
If I have a burning desire to pontificate about a topic, I write an essay. An experience can end up as either, but with fiction it takes longer to germinate in your brain. Sometimes I think of my imagination as a vast compost pit. All this crap happens, and then it percolates, bubbles, rots into something totally different, but somehow related.
How do you juggle writing & raising four children? (I ask this entirely selfishly, as a mother to four.)
JUGGLE? BWAHAHAHAHA. I have no damn idea. Sometimes it seems effortless, and sometimes I notice that I haven’t brushed my teeth in six days. I don’t actually think there’s any such thing as “balancing” work and home. There is never balance. There is only the specific imbalance that you can tolerate at any given moment.
Do you think your work would be different–in terms of content or approach–had you not felt so bad-mothered after the love my husband more brouhaha? Was it an unwitting fork in the writing road–or not?
In a way I think I would eventually have written a book of essays about motherhood, though it probably wouldn’t have sold quite so well. 😉 But what the whole hysterical episode really brought home for me is how intently we focus our “bad mother” attention, how much we need to find a scapegoat for our own anxieties and insecurities. Having my 15 minutes in the bad mother hot seat made that VERY clear!
For you, does writing about parenthood/motherhood get harder as kids get older?
I am willing to say less, that’s for sure. As they age the assume control over their own stories. It’s rare, for instance, that my 16 year-old lets me write about her. I guess she’s saving the material for her own memoir.
Do your children consider themselves feminists? Does your family talk politics? Or engage in them in any way?
We are political junkies in my house. We talk about politics, about elections, about wars, etc. all the time, maybe too much. The day after George W. Bush’s second victory my son bid a tearful adieu to his school friends and asked his teachers to please write him in Canada. I’d said it so many times he actually thought we were moving. Oops.
My daughter is a feminist. I don’t think my son has considered it, but he certainly believes that women are every bit as capable as he is. All my kids have a great capacity for outrage in the face of injustice, which is something I admire about them tremendously.
When you talk to mothers with small children, is there one thing you tend to want to tell them?
Give yourself a break! And give the other moms a break. I know it’s trite to say this, but it passes SO FAST. My oldest is 16! 16!!! What happened? I love her teenage self so much, but I miss my baby, too.
What are you working on now?
More than is sensible.
1. A novel about love and time and memory.
2. A musical about superheroes (because apparently the world can’t get enough of those.)
3. A TV pilot for HBO.
