Interview: Author Gail Graham

NotNessie: Today I have the great honor of welcoming author Gail Graham to Today's Adventure. Gail is the author of seven books, including her most recent novel, Sea Changes. You can read my review here. Thanks very much Gail, for agreeing to this Q&A.

Gail Graham: And thank you for inviting me.

N: Sea Changes is an interesting blend of genres. What inspired you to write this novel?

GG: I have always been fascinated by the idea that what we call sanity is contingent, different in different times and different cultures. Years ago, people who heard voices were considered sages, or prophets. Now, we say they’re crazy and medicate them until they don’t hear the voices anymore. So I wanted to write a novel about sanity, and reality – which is also contingent, as particle physics teaches us. I’d been thinking about this for a couple of years when I saw a BBC documentary about people who believed they’d been abducted by aliens and taken to a spaceship and experimented upon. This sounds really crazy, but these people were so ordinary, so unprepossessing. They certainly weren’t publicity seekers. Some of them were almost inarticulate. But they believed in themselves, and in what they’d experienced. And I wondered what that would be like, to live with the dichotomy, simultaneously knowing what happened to you was impossible, and knowing that it had happened. Sea Changes came out of those ideas.

N: You have experienced grief in your life, much like Sarah. How much has your life experience influenced the character?

GG: Very much. One writes out of one’s life experiences and absolutely nothing in my life prepared me for the experience of widowhood. It was as if I’d disappeared. One minute I was somebody, and the next minute I was invisible. And this didn’t have anything to do with my own self perception or self esteem. This has to do with the way other people saw me. And people in our culture simply don’t see widows. The man who loses his wife still has his identity, but the woman who loses her husband has to reinvent herself. You have to force people to see you. The grief is awful, but when the worst of the grief has passed, discovering that you no longer exist – in the sense that you used to exist – is absolutely devastating.

N: Sarah is extremely critical of Australia and Australians. Did you enjoy your own time living in that country?

GG: I lived in Australia for 32 years, and – like de Toqueville – only learned to appreciate my own country through the experience of living someplace else. America is far from perfect, but I often think that we just don’t realize how lucky we are. Australians have no work ethic, and despise education. That’s very different from the United States, where we value our work and take pride in it, and are continually trying to improve ourselves. I didn’t fit in. Sarah didn’t fit in, either. Not fitting in is bad enough, but at some point, you decide that you don’t even want to fit in, you don’t want to be like them. Much of Sea Changes came from the very real anomie I felt in Australia, especially during the 13 years after my husband died.

N: When I was reading your website, I noticed that you have written a biography of Mao Zedong which is used as a textbook in Singapore schools. You have also written two books about your son’s struggles with a severe injury. Is there a particular one of your writings (or other accomplishments) that you are most proud of?

GG: I guess my proudest moment was when my second book about my son, A Long Season In Hell, was launched at Parliament House in Canberra by Senator Brian Harridine. My son was there, too. And he was so proud! It didn’t make up for all that had happened – and unfortunately, it didn’t change anything insofar as how the head-injured are treated in Australia – but it was a wonderful moment and one that I will always cherish.

N: Tell me a bit about your writing process.

GG: I usually start with a character. I put him or her in a situation, and just start writing. The story grows out of the situation, and the character develops as she (or he) copes with the situation. Although I have a plot in mind, I very rarely end up following it. I let the characters take control, and go with the flow. But I rewrite endlessly, and compulsively. There is one page in Sea Changes that was rewritten 104 times! I often don’t know exactly where I’m going, but I always know when I get there. I call it the ah! moment.

N: I know a lot of readers are also writers. Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?

GG: Write – and if you’re lucky enough to be able to afford it, write what you want to write rather than what the “market” wants. Write a book that you’d love to read, and other people will love it, too. And have the courage of your convictions. Don’t change major things just because an agent or an editor says that it will make your book more marketable. Write the very best book that you can write, and people will read it.

N: What books are you reading right now? Or, what are some favourite books of yours?

GG: I’m reading The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and The Ominvore’s Dilemma. And I’m also reading a Chinese novel (in Chinese) Cold Nights by Ba Jin. It’s a very visual, claustrophobic novel, and I’m going to try to adapt it into a play.

N: What’s next for you?

GG: Right now I’m working on another novel, Straw Sandals. It’s about a woman in Tang China (about the 7th century) who goes through life disguised as her dead, twin brother. And I’m also working on a book of non-fiction, Driving Chairman Bao. It’s about driving from Los Angles to Miami and rediscovering America after 32 years in Australia.

N: I know you’re busy so I’m trying to keep this short and sweet, so in summary: What question do interviewers never ask that you wish they would? And, what’s the answer?

GG: What an absolutely wonderful question! I always wish people would ask me, Why do you write? Not, Why did you write this book? But Why do you write?
I write because writing lets me invent entire worlds where I can live happily for months, sometimes years. I write because of the joy and excitement of getting to know people who only exist inside my head, and introducing them to other people, so that in a sense, they live. I write because writing is like a message in a bottle – you put your book out in the world, and you have no idea where it will go, how far it will go, who it will influence, who it may bring into your life, and how long it will last after you are gone. The books you write are, in a sense, your children. The poet Edna St Vincent Millay put it beautifully in her poem, The Poet and His Book:

Stranger, pause and look;
From the dust of ages
Lift this little book,
Turn the tattered pages,
Read me, do not let me die!
Search the fading letters, finding
Steadfast in the broken binding
All that once was I!

I think writing is the closest we get to immortality. And that’s why I write, because like all of us, I want to be immortal.

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to do this interview.

Many thanks to Gail for granting this interview, my first interview with an author. It's been fantastic and I hope to do it again. Thank you for reading and be sure to comment here and then check out my giveaway of Sea Changes!