Tell us about ‘Only So Much’, and what inspired you to write it?
‘Only So Much’ is, broadly, a memoir written from the perspective of an eighteen-year-old me dressed up or down by hindsight, as well as the POVs of my sibling(s). It aims to stitch together with some coherence the unique, interesting, often tragic lived experiences of my family members. It came about after I hit a wall with writing fiction; there are just so many excellent, excellent examples of tragedy in real life. It’s why I don’t watch Downton Abbey anymore.
It means to me a sort of archival process, and a history and sense-making project too, because without writing these things down I’m worried that entire lives, their lives, will wash or whisper past me. I’m likely trying to reverse the inertia that comes from being one of the children of immigrants — for whom our parents trade their happiness, but then you’re just happy, which is a bit useless.
If I asked a friend of yours what you were good at, what would they say?
Keeping good company, was my guess. I actually asked a couple of friends for sheer lack of a good idea and was told ‘analogies’ and ‘absurdist humour’, the latter of which is my favourite compliment, so that’s a win — or it proves my former point!
What is a constant in your life, even as other things change?
The soy latte I sip every morning before I’ve become self-aware for the day.
What was the last book you had trouble finishing, and why?
The Solid Mandala by Patrick White. It’s a bad habit. I keep a (pretty long) list of books I’ve failed to finish as a running confession, in the hope I snap out of it someday.
What do you think of writing that blurs the lines between fiction and nonfiction? Does the line matter?
It’s definitely ethically significant to avoid making truth claims about things that are not true, and I’m also of the school that some things are truer than others. But fiction is so often informational and informative in so many ways and nonfiction is so often fictive in so many ways and our minds are barely ever reading the words as they were put down or exist on the page anyway. So I don’t know that there is a line — or maybe a zig-zaggy, wiggly sort of thing.
Which nonfiction writer would you most like to have a drink with, and why?
Augusten Burroughs. I used to read him, secretly, as a kid, and decide over and over that dysfunctionality wasn’t a be-all and end-all and that I must do interesting things with my life so I could write books. We met once but I was pimply and anxious and smelt of fear.
Who is guilty of greater crimes against literature: James Franco or James Frey?
I’d like to say ‘yes’ and leave it at that but don’t have enough cool to get away with it. I’ll say Franco.
Which book would be least likely to gain a place on your bookshelf, and why? Diana Rajchel’s Divorcing a Real Witch: for pagans and the people that used to love them, John Howard’s Lazarus Rising, or Linda Sunshine’s Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons — a companion.
John Howard’s Lazarus Rising. Too ironic or not ironic enough?