What Belongs to You
Garth Greenwell
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Garth Greenwell, thank you very much for agreeing to share with us some of your thoughts and ideas about your work and life in literature as you see it.
Your debut novel, “What Belongs to You” is the 2016 winner of the British Book Award for Debut of the Year. It was longlisted for the National Book Award and a Finalist for The Pen/Faulkner Award among other things. What was your initial reaction to the positive reviews and accolades that you were receiving for your work? Did your perception of self as a writer change as praise kept flowing in from all sides? The initial response to the novel—which I had thought would enter the world like almost all books enter the world: to silence and disregard—was bewildering; it’s still bewildering. I’m grateful that the book found more readers than I imagined it would, and I’m grateful that it was received in a serious way. But I don’t think my perception of myself as a writer has changed in any important respect. |
Photo: Max Freeman |
Being a writer means reconciling yourself to the fact that you can never have any real idea of the value of what you have made. Doubt, uncertainty, self-questioning, moments of despondency: these are central to my practice as a writer. Which makes it somehow reassuring that they remain entirely untouched by the things people have said about the novel.
You’ve indicated that you are also an opera singer and a poet. In fact, you have an MFA in poetry and you were writing poetry before the novel. How has your view of the world through the eyes of an opera singer and poet affected your fiction writing abilities?
Well, I think my fiction writing abilities, such as they are, basically consist of the way of seeing—the way of hearing and feeling language--inculcated by training in opera. I think of structure much less in terms of the cause and consequence of linear plot than in the terms of a harmonic progression, for instance.
WBTY is bound together less in the usual novelistic ways than in poetic ways, through repetition and development of image and motif.
Do you continue to turn to opera and poetry as escape options or inspirations while you continue to focus writing more fiction?
I can’t imagine my life without opera or poetry. They’re central to my experience of art, by which I mean my experience of what is distinctively human.
In “What Belongs to You” you paint the portrait of a daring character who has given up on trying to meet others’ expectations and doesn’t care about their restrictions. Do you see that as a result of a chain of real life events aiming to stay true to yourself with the aim of enjoying more of an emotionally packed life?
I actually think I see the narrator of WBTY a little differently. To me he seems quite restricted, quite bound—maybe not by conventional morality, or conventional measures of accomplishment, but by fear, ambivalence, an unwillingness to be fully present in his life. He says at one point that he has chosen a life of missed chances, and that this restriction has made his life bearable.
I do think we all live by constantly negotiating between what we desire and what we can bear. I don’t think there’s any escape from that.
You’ve indicated that you are also an opera singer and a poet. In fact, you have an MFA in poetry and you were writing poetry before the novel. How has your view of the world through the eyes of an opera singer and poet affected your fiction writing abilities?
Well, I think my fiction writing abilities, such as they are, basically consist of the way of seeing—the way of hearing and feeling language--inculcated by training in opera. I think of structure much less in terms of the cause and consequence of linear plot than in the terms of a harmonic progression, for instance.
WBTY is bound together less in the usual novelistic ways than in poetic ways, through repetition and development of image and motif.
Do you continue to turn to opera and poetry as escape options or inspirations while you continue to focus writing more fiction?
I can’t imagine my life without opera or poetry. They’re central to my experience of art, by which I mean my experience of what is distinctively human.
In “What Belongs to You” you paint the portrait of a daring character who has given up on trying to meet others’ expectations and doesn’t care about their restrictions. Do you see that as a result of a chain of real life events aiming to stay true to yourself with the aim of enjoying more of an emotionally packed life?
I actually think I see the narrator of WBTY a little differently. To me he seems quite restricted, quite bound—maybe not by conventional morality, or conventional measures of accomplishment, but by fear, ambivalence, an unwillingness to be fully present in his life. He says at one point that he has chosen a life of missed chances, and that this restriction has made his life bearable.
I do think we all live by constantly negotiating between what we desire and what we can bear. I don’t think there’s any escape from that.
Excerpt from 'WHAT BELONGS TO YOU'
by Garth Greenwell
...That my first encounter with Mitko B. ended in a betrayal, even a minor one, should have given me greater warning at the time, which should in turn have made my desire for him less, if not done away with it completely. But warning, in places like the bathrooms at the National Palace of Cul- ture, where we met, is like some element coterminous with the air, ubiquitous and inescapable, so that it becomes part of those who inhabit it, and thus part and parcel of the de- sire that draws us there. Even as I descended the stairs I heard his voice, which like the rest of him was too large for those subterranean rooms, spilling out of them as if to climb back into the bright afternoon that, though it was mid- October, had nothing autumnal about it; the grapes that hung ripe from vines throughout the city burst warm still in one’s mouth. I was surprised to hear someone talking so freely in a place where, by unstated code, voices seldom rose above a whisper. At the bottom of the stairs I paid my fifty stotinki to an old woman who looked up at me from her booth, her expression unreadable as she took the coins; with her other hand she clutched a shawl against the chill that was constant here, whatever the season. Only as I neared the end of the corridor did I hear a second voice, not raised like the first, but answering in a low murmur. The voices came from the second of the bathroom’s three chambers, where they might have belonged to men washing their hands had the sound of water accompanied them. I paused in the outermost room, examining myself in the mirrors lining its walls as I lis- tened to their conversation, though I couldn’t understand a word. There was only one reason for men to be standing there, the bathrooms at NDK (as the Palace is called) are well enough hidden and have such a reputation that they’re hardly used for anything else; and yet as I turned into the room this explanation seemed at odds with the demeanor of the man who claimed my attention, which was cordial and brash, en- tirely public in that place of intense privacies.
He was tall, thin but broad-shouldered, with the close- cropped military cut of hair popular among certain young men in Sofia, who affect a hypermasculine style and an air of criminality. I hardly noticed the man he was with, who was shorter, deferential, with bleached blond hair and a denim jacket from the pockets of which he never removed his hands. It was the larger man who turned toward me with apparently friendly interest, free of predation or fear, and though I was taken aback I found myself smiling in response. He greeted me with an elaborate rush of words, at which I could only shake my head in bemusement as I grasped the large hand he held out, offering as broken apology and defense the few phrases I had practiced to numbness. His smile widened when he realized I was a foreigner, revealing a chipped front tooth, the jagged seam of which (I would learn) he worried obsessively with his index finger in moments of abstraction. Even at arm’s length, I could smell the alcohol that emanated not so much from his breath as from his clothes and hair; it explained his freedom in a place that, for all its license, was bound by such inhibition, and explained too the peculiarly innocent quality of his gaze, which was intent but unthreatening. He spoke again, cocking his head to one side, and in a pidgin of Bulgarian, English, and German, we established that I was American, that I had been in his city for a few weeks and would stay at least a year, that I was a teacher at the American College, that my name was more or less unpronounceable in his language.
Throughout our halting conversation, there was no acknowledgment of the strange location of our encounter or of the uses to which it was almost exclusively put, so that speaking to him I felt an anxiety made up of equal parts desire and unease at the mystery of his presence and purpose. There was a third man there as well, who entered and exited the farthest stall several times, looking earnestly at us but never approaching or speaking a word. Finally, after we had reached the end of our introductions and after this third man entered his stall again, closing the door behind him, Mitko (as I knew him now) pointed toward him and gave me a look of great significance, saying Iska, he wants, and then making a lewd gesture the meaning of which was clear. Both he and his companion, whom he referred to as brat mi and who hadn’t spoken since I arrived, laughed at this, looking at me as if to include me in the joke, though of course I was as much an object of their ridicule as the man listening to them from inside his stall. I was so eager to be one of their party that almost without thinking I smiled and wagged my head from side to side, in the gesture that signifies here both agreement or affirmation and a certain wonder at the vagaries of the world. But I saw in the glance they exchanged that this attempt to associate with them only increased the distance between us. Wanting to regain my footing, and after pausing to arrange the necessary syllables in my head (which seldom, despite these efforts, emerge as they should, even now when I’m told that I speak hubavo and pravilno, when I see surprise at my proficiency in a language that hardly anyone bothers to learn who hasn’t learned it already), I asked him what he was doing there, in that chill room with its impression of damp. Above us it felt like summer still, the plaza was full of light and people, some of them, riding skateboards or in- line skates or elaborately tricked-out bicycles, the same age as these men.
Used with permission of Picador. Copyright © 2016 by Garth Greenwell. All rights reserved.
He was tall, thin but broad-shouldered, with the close- cropped military cut of hair popular among certain young men in Sofia, who affect a hypermasculine style and an air of criminality. I hardly noticed the man he was with, who was shorter, deferential, with bleached blond hair and a denim jacket from the pockets of which he never removed his hands. It was the larger man who turned toward me with apparently friendly interest, free of predation or fear, and though I was taken aback I found myself smiling in response. He greeted me with an elaborate rush of words, at which I could only shake my head in bemusement as I grasped the large hand he held out, offering as broken apology and defense the few phrases I had practiced to numbness. His smile widened when he realized I was a foreigner, revealing a chipped front tooth, the jagged seam of which (I would learn) he worried obsessively with his index finger in moments of abstraction. Even at arm’s length, I could smell the alcohol that emanated not so much from his breath as from his clothes and hair; it explained his freedom in a place that, for all its license, was bound by such inhibition, and explained too the peculiarly innocent quality of his gaze, which was intent but unthreatening. He spoke again, cocking his head to one side, and in a pidgin of Bulgarian, English, and German, we established that I was American, that I had been in his city for a few weeks and would stay at least a year, that I was a teacher at the American College, that my name was more or less unpronounceable in his language.
Throughout our halting conversation, there was no acknowledgment of the strange location of our encounter or of the uses to which it was almost exclusively put, so that speaking to him I felt an anxiety made up of equal parts desire and unease at the mystery of his presence and purpose. There was a third man there as well, who entered and exited the farthest stall several times, looking earnestly at us but never approaching or speaking a word. Finally, after we had reached the end of our introductions and after this third man entered his stall again, closing the door behind him, Mitko (as I knew him now) pointed toward him and gave me a look of great significance, saying Iska, he wants, and then making a lewd gesture the meaning of which was clear. Both he and his companion, whom he referred to as brat mi and who hadn’t spoken since I arrived, laughed at this, looking at me as if to include me in the joke, though of course I was as much an object of their ridicule as the man listening to them from inside his stall. I was so eager to be one of their party that almost without thinking I smiled and wagged my head from side to side, in the gesture that signifies here both agreement or affirmation and a certain wonder at the vagaries of the world. But I saw in the glance they exchanged that this attempt to associate with them only increased the distance between us. Wanting to regain my footing, and after pausing to arrange the necessary syllables in my head (which seldom, despite these efforts, emerge as they should, even now when I’m told that I speak hubavo and pravilno, when I see surprise at my proficiency in a language that hardly anyone bothers to learn who hasn’t learned it already), I asked him what he was doing there, in that chill room with its impression of damp. Above us it felt like summer still, the plaza was full of light and people, some of them, riding skateboards or in- line skates or elaborately tricked-out bicycles, the same age as these men.
Used with permission of Picador. Copyright © 2016 by Garth Greenwell. All rights reserved.
* * *
You started life in Kentucky. But you spent years studying at the Washington University in St. Louis and then moved to Sofia. Now your home is in Iowa City. The geography of your travels, work and writing related journeys is pretty interesting and not quite predictable. Is it fair to say that you never allow yourself to truly immerse in the realities of locals but you have the talent to see and obtain the most memorable movements and events some of which you can later use in your writing? Or has your itinerary been accidental and unforeseen up to a point?
It has definitely been accidental and unforeseen! I fled Louisville when I was 16, and from then until I was 30 I moved basically every two years. I moved for school, for work; all of the leaps were fortuitous, nothing was planned.
I think it’s true that writing depends upon shocking us out of our usual ways of seeing. There are lots of ways to do this, and travel has been one of the most important ways for me.
On a different note, what made you pick Sofia as the city for your teaching abroad experience? Did you set out to move to Sofia to teach and start on a clean slate after years on the academic treadmill here in the US? Did you go with the intention of writing your first novel while there or did that just happen on its own?
I wasn’t a novelist when I moved to Sofia—I hadn’t written a line of fiction. In some way I don’t understand, the place made me a novelist. I moved there because I was offered a job.
The real decision I made was to leave a PhD program—stepping off that academic treadmill you mention—to take a job teaching high school in Ann Arbor. That was the turning point: away from a life of scholarship toward a life of greater engagement with the world around me. It seemed like a crazy decision to almost everyone in my life. I still think it was among the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Advising new writers, you’ve said, “…writing is what’s important, and the real life of literature is what happens between you and the page.” How long did it take you to come to this conclusion? What was the breaking point that finally pushed you to put everything else aside and completely dedicate yourself to writing?
Oh, I’m not sure I remember the context for that quote—but I think I was probably talking about the private work of literature and the public work of putting books into the world. I do think that the real life of literature has nothing to do with the initial response to a book, the flurry of publicity that happens or doesn’t’ when a book is published.
It’s what happens between a writer and the page, and also between the reader and the page. The real life of literature, I think, happens when a 14-year-old kid in Kentucky pulls Giovanni’s Room from a shelf and feels like it saves his life. That can’t be predicted or engineered.
You’ve compared being a writer to “Flying a kite in a storm in a field full of people flying kites in a storm.” Before the success of your debut novel, has that storm been big enough for you to make you consider quitting at some point? What got you back on track? How has the storm changed now that you have published a critically acclaimed debut novel?
In that public work of putting a book into the world—getting an agent, selling a book, having the book reach a certain number of readers—I think chance plays the greatest role. I wanted that image of kites and storms to convey something about the unfairness of that, of the fact that this luck—selling a book, getting attention—has no relation whatsoever with merit. Great novels remain in drawers all the time, or are published to what seems like no attention whatsoever. They are still great novels.
Writers tend to be fairly introverted types—it’s a job that requires spending vast amounts of time alone. After nearly two years of traveling and talking about my novel, I do feel desperate for time alone, time when I can dive deep into fiction writing again.
When is your second work of fiction come out? Are you planning another book tour and promotional events so maybe some of our community members get the opportunity to meet you in person?
I’m trying to finish a collection of stories now, which I hope will be in the world sometime in the next couple of years. And I hope I’ll have the chance to do some travel in support of it.
Why Iowa City and not New York City? We’d love to have you in Brooklyn. Is that in the stars?
My partner is a professor at the University of Iowa, which is why I’ve stuck around after graduating from the workshop here.
Tell us what is the most beautiful experience you’ve enjoyed recently and is that connected in any shape or form to your artistic identity?
I’ve been totally mesmerized by Shamir’s new album, Revelations, which NPR has been streaming this weekend. I love his earlier albums, and this one seems even better: earnest, fierce, unabashedly queer, strangely joyful.
I feel grateful to be alive at a time when so much excellent queer art is being made.
It has definitely been accidental and unforeseen! I fled Louisville when I was 16, and from then until I was 30 I moved basically every two years. I moved for school, for work; all of the leaps were fortuitous, nothing was planned.
I think it’s true that writing depends upon shocking us out of our usual ways of seeing. There are lots of ways to do this, and travel has been one of the most important ways for me.
On a different note, what made you pick Sofia as the city for your teaching abroad experience? Did you set out to move to Sofia to teach and start on a clean slate after years on the academic treadmill here in the US? Did you go with the intention of writing your first novel while there or did that just happen on its own?
I wasn’t a novelist when I moved to Sofia—I hadn’t written a line of fiction. In some way I don’t understand, the place made me a novelist. I moved there because I was offered a job.
The real decision I made was to leave a PhD program—stepping off that academic treadmill you mention—to take a job teaching high school in Ann Arbor. That was the turning point: away from a life of scholarship toward a life of greater engagement with the world around me. It seemed like a crazy decision to almost everyone in my life. I still think it was among the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Advising new writers, you’ve said, “…writing is what’s important, and the real life of literature is what happens between you and the page.” How long did it take you to come to this conclusion? What was the breaking point that finally pushed you to put everything else aside and completely dedicate yourself to writing?
Oh, I’m not sure I remember the context for that quote—but I think I was probably talking about the private work of literature and the public work of putting books into the world. I do think that the real life of literature has nothing to do with the initial response to a book, the flurry of publicity that happens or doesn’t’ when a book is published.
It’s what happens between a writer and the page, and also between the reader and the page. The real life of literature, I think, happens when a 14-year-old kid in Kentucky pulls Giovanni’s Room from a shelf and feels like it saves his life. That can’t be predicted or engineered.
You’ve compared being a writer to “Flying a kite in a storm in a field full of people flying kites in a storm.” Before the success of your debut novel, has that storm been big enough for you to make you consider quitting at some point? What got you back on track? How has the storm changed now that you have published a critically acclaimed debut novel?
In that public work of putting a book into the world—getting an agent, selling a book, having the book reach a certain number of readers—I think chance plays the greatest role. I wanted that image of kites and storms to convey something about the unfairness of that, of the fact that this luck—selling a book, getting attention—has no relation whatsoever with merit. Great novels remain in drawers all the time, or are published to what seems like no attention whatsoever. They are still great novels.
Writers tend to be fairly introverted types—it’s a job that requires spending vast amounts of time alone. After nearly two years of traveling and talking about my novel, I do feel desperate for time alone, time when I can dive deep into fiction writing again.
When is your second work of fiction come out? Are you planning another book tour and promotional events so maybe some of our community members get the opportunity to meet you in person?
I’m trying to finish a collection of stories now, which I hope will be in the world sometime in the next couple of years. And I hope I’ll have the chance to do some travel in support of it.
Why Iowa City and not New York City? We’d love to have you in Brooklyn. Is that in the stars?
My partner is a professor at the University of Iowa, which is why I’ve stuck around after graduating from the workshop here.
Tell us what is the most beautiful experience you’ve enjoyed recently and is that connected in any shape or form to your artistic identity?
I’ve been totally mesmerized by Shamir’s new album, Revelations, which NPR has been streaming this weekend. I love his earlier albums, and this one seems even better: earnest, fierce, unabashedly queer, strangely joyful.
I feel grateful to be alive at a time when so much excellent queer art is being made.
