Elizabeth Brundage

BIO

Elizabeth Brundage holds an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she received a James Michener Award. Before attending Iowa, she was a screenwriting fellow at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. Her short fiction has been published in the Greensboro Review, Witness magazine, and New Letters. She is currently at work on her third novel and lives with her family in upstate New York.

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AUTHOR TALK

July 11, 2008

In this interview, Elizabeth Brundage --- author of the critically acclaimed THE DOCTOR'S WIFE --- discusses the complex female protagonists in her latest work of fiction, SOMEBODY ELSE'S DAUGHTER, and shares her thoughts on some of the topics covered in the novel, such as society's views on feminism, marriage and sex. She also describes how her interest and education in art and art history surfaces in the text, explains how she was able to effectively capture the voices of her teenage characters, and expresses her desire to mix aspects of psychological drama, thrillers and literary fiction in her work.

Question: Your first novel was THE DOCTOR'S WIFE, and in this book one of your main characters is the headmaster's wife. What draws you to the stories of women whose lives are defined by their husband's careers?

Elizabeth Brundage: In our society, we are evaluated by several things: how we look, what we do, where we live, who we're married to, how much money we make, what kind of home we live in, what kind of car we drive, where we went to college (if we did in fact go to college), what our religion is, and what our politics are. All of these considerations go into creating a character. To some degree, women are defined by their husband's careers. In THE DOCTOR'S WIFE, I was interested in taking a critical look at what it meant for Annie Knowles to be married to a physician who began working at an abortion clinic. In this novel, Maggie Heath, the wife of a headmaster of a private day school, is a member of a prominent social echelon in their town. In both books I wanted to explore how the choices we make not only inform our own lives, but the lives of our family members as well. It is not only who we choose to marry that matters, but also what they do, who they come in contact with, the choices that they make that ultimately affect a family's destiny.

As headmaster, Maggie's husband, Jack, is revered and admired. In the eyes of the Pioneer community, the Heaths seem to be an ideal couple. They have been granted the ultimate form of admiration, trust with the minds of teenagers. On the surface, the school is a seemingly perfect place: both Jack and Maggie have Ivy League pedigrees; both are outstanding teachers; their daughter, Ada, is an excellent student. The Heaths are tirelessly committed to the school, to promoting what appears to be a seamless ideal. Maggie strains to live within the conventional parameters of traditional family values, placing extraordinary importance on proving to herself that staying married and living by the rules is the right thing to do, no matter how difficult it might be for her to endure. Maggie admits that her life has become "an elaborate fabrication," and that what people see on the outside is a very different reality from her true life on the inside, with Jack. I wanted to explore how this tension fuels her growing sense of loss and defeat. Maggie is the worst kind of victim, not only because her husband abuses her and she cannot bring herself to tell anyone, but because her repression, ultimately, is her own doing. The worst betrayal for Maggie is when she comes to the realization that the house of cards she has so carefully constructed has in turn been dismantled, one card at a time, by her very own husband.

Maggie, to me, is someone who desperately wants to be good --- to be a good wife, a good mother, a good teacher --- to put these important aspects of her life first, before she even begins to address her own needs, which, in comparison, are far more complicated. Instead, she adapts to a rigid consensus of what and how women should behave. But in the end it only weakens her position, and she ultimately discovers that the trap she finds herself in with Jack is one that she designed herself.

Q: Claire is a sculptor, and each section opens with a description of one of her works. Why did you decide to make Claire's sculptures such a vital part of the book?

EB: For Claire, her sculptures are symbols of how women are perceived in society. Each sculpture represents a metaphorical aspect of the chapters that follow it. As an artist, Claire makes cultural statements with her work that attempt to inspire reflection in the viewer on a variety of complex social issues that concern women: domesticity, sexuality, power, fertility, femininity, loss.

Q: Have you ever sculpted or worked in the visual arts? Did any particular artist inspire your depiction of Claire's work?

EB: I have studied painting and art history for many years; it is a passionate interest of mine. In my next life, I'd like to come back as a painter. The best thing about being a writer is that you can live vicariously through your characters, whether they are painting a canvas, making a sculpture, or driving a foreign sports car in a high-speed chase. The work that the character of Claire produces was inspired by many incredible and daring artists, including Kiki Smith, George Segal, Louise Bourgeois, Charles Ray, Paul McCarthy and others.

Q: In a discussion about feminism, Joe says "the word's a relic." Later, Claire wonders if feminism is passé. Do you think feminism is obsolete?

EB: I'm not sure people understand what feminism means anymore. It may be harder for women who are under forty to fully embrace what their mothers, aunts and grandmothers went through to assure the protection of their rights and liberties. And with so many other urgent issues existing in our world, it's sometimes difficult to think of our rights as taking precedence, but they do, they must. It always amazes me to reflect on our history as a country, the idea that women were granted the right to vote just eighty years ago, and the reality that in countries like Saudi Arabia, women's lives are completely dictated by men. Although women have achieved a great deal over the course of the last century, it sometimes feels like four steps forward, five steps back, and certain political disruptions undermine our progress. I think it's useful to look at the facts and numbers when trying to answer questions about equality and human rights, because, in general, the numbers speak for themselves. These are confusing times for women and men. It is always important to evaluate the strength of our rights and to elect people who are as equally determined to protect them.

Q: The novel delves into the psyche of both adult and teens characters. Was it difficult to write from the perspective of a teenager?

EB: As the mother of two teenaged girls and a young son, I relive my own anxious youth on a daily basis. When writing the character of Willa, I drew on my own memories of being seventeen and curious about my biological roots. For Willa, the mystery of her roots is her birthmark, as it was mine. The mystery inspires you, in a sense, to open doors, to keep searching for something --- the truth. As Nate Gallagher says to Candace Golding, "It's been my experience, Mrs. Golding, that teenagers seem to yearn for the truth in the same way that adults yearn to ignore it. If nothing else, it's always liberating." When you're a teenager, you are trying to understand the world and your place in it. You are formulating your persona, your identity. I wanted to explore all of those disorienting and often disturbing feelings. With Teddy, I was interested in seeing the world from his perspective, how he thought about things like the war in Iraq, or Luther Grimm's doomed Pit Bull. Or how he felt in school, fumbling through his classes without understanding why he wasn't a good student, or what he could do about it. It interested me to explore how being academically disabled casts a sense of doubt over his entire life. Writing in the voice of a teenager allows a certain freedom to explore a variety of emotions and confusions, and I tried to do that with the teenaged characters in this book.

Q: The beautiful but isolated landscape of the Berkshires forms the backdrop to your story. What about the region inspired you?

EB: I've lived in and around the Berkshires for many years and it's my favorite place to be, not only for its spectacular beauty, but because it attracts interesting people. Some of my favorite writers lived and worked here --- Edith Wharton, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, among others. The Berkshires has good energy for writers and artists. It's a beautiful place to be, an ideal environment, a culturally sophisticated place. It's a place where people come to reinvent themselves; people have "Utopian longings," as Greer Harding says in the book, describing the school's clientele. This intrigues me, the idea that people imagine they can leave behind one life and begin another one --- that kind of freedom is particularly American. In writing about Joe and Candace Golding, I was able to explore this phenomenon, the sense that, with the right amount of money, you can machinate your happiness, even if it's built on a foundation of lies. For the Goldings, when the truth finally creeps in, it disrupts their dream. I'm interested in writing about people who seem to be living ideal lives, who are abruptly faced with certain difficulties that irrevocably change them, for better or worse --- this is the meat and potatoes of my work as a writer.

Q: Nearly every character in the book is transformed by sex, either redeemed or corrupted. What were you getting at here?

EB: I like to write about sex because I think it's an important subject. Sex matters to people, but not always for the reasons that the media suggests. I think if people were more relaxed about the subject, we'd have fewer problems. I think that, to some degree, people worry about sex. Monogamy is challenging for some people. Some can't seem to commit, others fear that they will be betrayed. The idea of betrayal interests me because it is something people fear desperately and because it happens quite a lot. We are an "all or nothing" culture and the punishment for betrayal is usually divorce, which may not be the best choice, depending on the circumstances. I think that betrayal is about so much more than sex. It's about longing. Loss. It's a reflection on both partners, not just the one who does the philandering. When people go outside of a marriage or relationship, it is an independent act, a decision that is, for the moment, free of the obligations to one's mate, a suspended period of time when one steps out of his or her life and is momentarily removed from its pressures. There is a heady sense of freedom in that, and, like the effects of a drug, it briefly masks the inevitable pain one causes because of it. In Joe's case, his adultery comes out of a kind of fear that he's not worthy somehow --- because he sees his life as something of a compromise. His work, his marriage. I think his affair with Claire bumps him off track and makes him reevaluate his situation for the better. I wanted to show that, although damage has been done to his marriage and his relationship with his wife, they can still go on; they can still move forward. Marriage, like anything else in life, is a process and all too often we make judgments that cause us to sever the relationships with the people we love most.

Q: Why did you decide to connect Joe to the pornography industry? Aside from the sharp contrast his job makes with Claire's feminist art, what else drew you to the idea?

EB: Pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry. Many of the people I interviewed who are in the business like to keep how they earn a living a secret. Although we are comfortable as a society looking at images of pubescent girls in designer clothing, we still like to pretend that we're not turned on by salacious imagery, and that good and honorable people don't have roving eyes. In the novel Joe asserts that since porn "exists in our culture," it must have a meaningful purpose. However, pornography is a means to an end. It is alarmingly superficial. It is not intimate or sensual. Yet, its very existence seems to say something about who we are. Joe argues, "Men need sex more than women." This is a cultural stereotype that has been ingrained in us from the beginning of time --- when poor Adam couldn't resist Eve's naughty apple --- of course it was all Eve's fault and women have been paying for it ever since. I wanted to make comparisons in this novel between pornography, teenaged sexuality, and Claire's art. The use of the school uniform, which has long been a source of titillation in porn magazines, was an image that I felt tied all three of these aspects together.

We are accustomed to seeing the female body either in art, or in film, or on the pages of magazines. Seeing a woman naked is routine, yet seeing a man's penis is still somewhat taboo. Although there have been films and even plays that show men naked, it is still less ubiquitous than seeing women naked. In the novel, Claire's sculptures represent the ways in which society objectifies women, while Joe, as a manufacturer of pornography, is a promoter of the objectification of women. Meanwhile, their children, Willa and Teddy, are unwittingly indoctrinated into a system of courtship that sends mixed messages, resulting in feelings of confusion and doubt.

Q: The book ends with Claire and Nate's wedding and the sense that the characters, even Maggie, are moving in a positive direction. Was it important to you to have a happy ending?

EB: It was important to me that each character felt resolved in some way by the end of the novel, and I do think that happens. I felt that Claire had been on her own for a long time, as had Nate, and that, somehow, they belonged together. So it wasn't that I wanted a "happy" ending --- but I felt that their relationship had reached a point where they were each ready, perhaps for the first time in their lives, to make a firm commitment to one another. For some reason, witnessing the union of two fine people makes us all incredibly happy. It fills us with a sense of promise. I think that speaks to our belief in the strength of love and the profound value of loyalty. It seems to assure us that, even in times like this, where daunting statistics claim that fifty percent of marriages end in divorce, there are still couples out there who are willing to take the chance

Q: What attracts you to the genre of psychological drama? What are you working on next?

EB: I love a fast-paced thriller. Ever since I was about ten years old, when I happened to see Double Indemnity on the late show, I was hooked on thrillers. But I also love good literature, books where language is equally as important as the story they tell. My goal as a writer is to combine the two. In high school, I was obsessed with Russian literature. In college I studied film and became intrigued with film noir. I read everything ever written by James Cain and John Fante and Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammet. In graduate school, I read books like Dostoevsky's CRIME AND PUNISHMENT and Dickens's GREAT EXPECTATIONS and Steinbeck's EAST OF EDEN --- which were really the first great psychological dramas. Even MADAME BOVARY can be seen as a psychological drama. I'm not interested in writing stories about people who live blissful, easy lives. Trouble interests me. I like stories about people who get pushed to their limits and are forced to make a decision, for better or worse, that significantly changes their lives.

© Copyright 2008, Elizabeth Brundage. All rights reserved.

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INTERVIEW

June 24, 2004

Bookreporter.com Co-Founder Carol Fitzgerald recently interviewed Elizabeth Brundage about her debut novel, THE DOCTOR'S WIFE. Brundage explains how her real life experience as a doctor's wife influenced the characters and themes of the book. She also describes her love of painting and other forms of art, and shares how her past employment as a teacher has helped her give back to the community and ultimately become a better writer.

BRC: The obvious first question is this: Knowing that you are a doctor's wife, how much of Annie is based on your own life?

EB: Everybody always wants to know if the book is autobiographical, because there are similarities between Annie and me. And I think most writers do write about aspects of their lives. Your own life experience is the clay so to speak, which gets molded in the writer's hands within the context of the story. But Annie is her own character. She happens to be married to a doctor, like I am, and we both share the difficulties of being married to men in medicine, which is a profession unlike any other, but she is a completely fictional character.

BRC: As a doctor, Michael is always taking care of problems, helping others to heal. Is there any point when he realizes that there are situations and people that can't be saved or fixed?

EB: I don't think Michael comes to this realization until he's down in Lydia's father's cellar and he realizes that he's at the mercy of a completely insane woman. Feeling as though there is no way out, he reckons with his life and the decisions he made that led him to this point. I think he comes to terms with the mistakes he has made, always putting other people --- strangers --- first, because that's a requirement of the profession, and the fact that, almost out of necessity, he took Annie for granted.

BRC: Annie is a teacher of writing. Have you ever taught? Did the experience of teaching help you in writing this book?

EB: Yes, I have taught on the college level for over ten years, at various colleges and universities as an adjunct or visiting writer. I think teaching is an amazing experience for a writer. It brings you out of your own work, into the hearts and minds of other writers. You actually learn a lot about the way people see the world. I like teaching because I feel like I'm giving back what so many other wonderful teachers gave to me. Also, when you teach, it's not just about the writing. It's about breaking down a life --- examining the various complex elements that make a person who he is. Looking at what motivates people, what motivates certain behavior. You become an intimate observer of life.

BRC: Simon Haas is a painter. You seem to know a lot about art. Do you paint?

EB: I have always loved to make art and look at art. When I was a little girl, my mother used to take me on her art tours in New York, with all of her women friends. It was always an adventure. Her friends were terribly sophisticated, always dressed impeccably and smelling of mystery with their leather bags and Hermes scarves and perfumes. We'd wander through the museums and my mother would teach me about the painters. Seurat paints in dots I remember her saying. I have painted over the years, but I'm not very good at it. In my next life I'd like to be a painter.

BRC: Who are your favorite painters?

EB: I absolutely love Lucien Freud and I imagine that Simon Haas paints like him. I love so many painters. I love Alice Neel. I love Pearlstein and Fischl and I love Julian Schnabel and I think he's a good film director, too. There are so many incredibly gifted painters out there. Van Gogh is my favorite. And I love Mary Cassat, how she captured the beauty of mothering in her paintings.

BRC: In the book, Michael begins working at an abortion clinic. Was this a conscious decision on your part, to write about this political issue?

EB: No, not really. I wanted to write about a doctor, and I began this book after the birth of my second daughter. My husband was a resident at the time, and I was incredibly frustrated with my life. I had two small children and a husband who was never ever home and when he WAS home he was absolutely useless. We were living in Rochester, New York, where he was training, and there was a very strong group of anti-abortion protestors up there and it made an impression on me. The story just kind of evolved from there. It took a long time for me to figure out what I was writing about.

BRC: How do you think people will react to the subject when they read this book?

EB: Basically, I want people to understand that this is the story of a doctor who gets involved, for a variety of personal reasons, in working at an abortion clinic. This is a book about four separate characters who come together in a dangerous way. It's a character-driven novel where the reader gets to witness the outcomes of the decisions the characters make. Michael gets caught up in something he believes in and everything in his life changes because of it. People make decisions that open doors to experiences they never anticipated. This happens to every character in this book. It happens to Annie, when she gets involved with Simon Haas. It happens with Lydia, when she gets swept up in the right-to-life rhetoric of Reverend Tim. And it happened to Simon Haas on the day when he saw his wife for the very first time, and then again, when he falls in love with Annie. We make our own decisions. The decisions we make change in our lives, for better or worse.

BRC: Why doesn't Simon turn Lydia into the police earlier?

EB: Two reasons. Simon's guilt prevents him from turning Lydia in. Guilt is the prison we create for ourselves that keeps us from moving forward in life. He feels as though he "created" her, that she is the embodiment of his own madness, in a sense, and he takes the blame for what's happened to her. Also, I believe that he still loves her on some very deep pathological level.

BRC: Lydia seems to be the ultimate victim. Was this a conscious choice on your part?

EB: For me, I don't really know why I'm writing the characters one way or another. They speak to me in a sense, and I write the stories they tell. It's kind of like living with a multiple personality disorder. But I do see Lydia as a victim. On the one hand, she's allowed herself to be controlled by others, first her father, then Simon Haas. This is her weakness and it comes from several things in her past. Her mother's death, for example, I don't think she ever got over it. Lydia sort of represents to me how women have been repressed throughout the centuries --- and they're still repressed, although more subtly these days. So subtle in fact that it is often misinterpreted as something else. As fashion, for instance. The contradictory ways in which society promotes and sells our role as women. But this is a huge subject.

BRC: Do you see this book as a feminist novel?

EB: I see it as a book that considers feminist ideas. In Annie's case, it's a story about a woman who is trying to relearn her own language. To get back to the essential meaning of life. When Annie married Michael, she let go of certain aspects of herself that at one time were important to her. I think people do this when they get into a serious relationship. You have to acquiesce in a sense to the other person, and they to you, and in doing that you have to let go of little pieces of yourself. The characters are each struggling to feel in control of their lives. Annie is unhappy in her marriage and goes outside of it not out of malice or anger, specifically, but because she's trying to find herself again --- she feels lost. Simon Haas helps her to do that. I remember talking with my editor about the paradigm that we live by in our society --- the notion of the nuclear family living a civilized, symmetrical existence, abiding to religious and moral covenants that were established zillions of years ago --- and I wanted to show how this paradigm has become a precarious model to which few of us can actually adhere. I think it's impossible for one person to fulfill all of your needs and desires --- and that imagery has been stuffed down our throats forever. It gets complicated when you have kids. The truth is that out of fear, people close themselves off to new opportunities, to new growth.

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