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BIO
Kathryn Harrison is the author of the novels THE SEAL WIFE, THE BINDING CHAIR, POISON, EXPOSURE, and THICKER THAN WATER. She has also written memoirs, THE KISS and THE MOTHER KNOT, a travel memoir, THE ROAD TO SANTIAGO, a biography, SAINT THERESE OF LISIUEX, and a collection of essays, SEEKING RAPTURE. She lives in New York with her husband, the novelist Colin Harrison, and their children.
PAST INTERVIEW
September 29, 2000
Novelist and author of one of the most controversial memoirs, THE KISS, Kathryn Harrison discusses her new novel THE BINDING CHAIR --- a book that spans continents and cultures --- her interest in taboos, and much more in this interview. Bookreporter.com Writer Jana Siciliano dove into Harrison's work headfirst, reading her memoir, her latest book, and POISON. Don't miss this conversation with a writer who writes with strength and an addictively poisonous pen.
BRC: Your most recent novel, THE BINDING CHAIR, is subtitled A VISIT FROM THE FOOT EMANCIPATION SOCIETY. Would you please tell us a little bit about that and how you came across this idea of the society?
KH: While doing research on footbinding in Chinese history I came across the "Natural Foot Society," founded by western missionaries during the end of the 19th century and dedicated to raising the consciousness of Chinese women --- so that they would resist binding their daughters' feet. My fictional society is very loosely based on the historical one.
BRC: Why is May, who can barely walk because of her tightly bound feet, learning to swim in the beginning of the book? It's a strange and dreamlike sort of way to begin her story. Tell us why you chose to open it up that way.
KH: May is an independent woman who feels compromised by having to rely on other people to transport her. Swimming is the one means of travel that she can accomplish on her own, and thus it becomes very important to her. And, as we see by the end of the book, her swimming lessons are a fated apprenticeship. Themes of water and swimming, and drowning, occur throughout the book --- it's the novel's central image, aside from the bound feet, and connected with the feet.
BRC: The brunt of THE BINDING CHAIR follows May through her first damaging marriage and then her remarriage to Westerner Arthur Cohen --- all the while it also follows the life of her young step-niece, Alice, who is going through troubles of her own. What do you think the two very different women have in common, if anything?
KH: They're both strong willed, and intent on whatever freedom they can find. I wanted to explore a surrogate-mother relationship, how it might unfold, the effects on either character. I think of May as the central character of the novel, and Alice as the supporting role, the person through whom we experience May. Alice is infatuated, then disenchanted, then resigned to a more complicated vision of her aunt; and, through her, the reader is lead on a similar journey.
BRC: Another one of your novels, POISON, has a subplot that centers around the love between a poor girl and a Catholic priest. What led you to write about this taboo relationship?
KH: I'm interested in taboos, who breaks them and how, and what the cost is. On a personal level, the relationship between a girl and a priest was one that allowed me to explore my relationship with my father, a kind of prelude to the material I dealt with in THE KISS.
BRC: Other reviewers note your novels' prevalence for the taboo, erotic, and sometimes gruesome. What inspires you to delve into these themes?
KH: It's not a choice --- like any other writer, I'm driven to examine those things I need to understand.
BRC: What is it about the theme of liberation and freedom that compels you to base story after story around it?
KH: Freedom, exile, entrapment --- all obsess me. If I could tell you why, then their power would have ceased.
BRC: You often write books, like POISON and THE BINDING CHAIR, that require intensive historical research. How do you do it and why does a non-contemporary framework interest you as a storyteller?
KH: Historical novels aren't history any more than novels set in the future are accurate predictions --- it's just a way of projecting contemporary concerns onto another screen. I get sick of my own context and like to explore other ones. I do research in libraries, through interviews, and through travel.
BRC: Do you feel that it is important for writers to explore their own psyches in their work or is it easier and perhaps more commercially viable to just make stuff up?
KH: I think writers write the books they write, the ones that are true to themselves. They're far less calculating than readers might imagine. I can't comment on what's easier or more commercially viable --- I write what I'm invested in writing, psychically invested. I couldn't do it any other way.
BRC: Your husband is the author Colin Harrison. What is the most difficult part about being a writer married to another writer? What is the greatest benefit of sharing a home with another writer?
KH: Colin and I met as writers, so it's always been the status quo, and we've always been more aware of benefits than difficulties --- there's a lot we never have to explain to each other.
BRC: When did you decide to be a writer?
KH: In my early twenties.
BRC: What contemporary writers do you admire? Has any one of them affected the way you write?
KH: I just read DISGRACE, by Coetzee, and admired it greatly. I like Martin Amis, Margaret Atwood, Flannery O'Connor. Faulkner. MADAME BOVARY is my favorite novel. Not exactly contemporary, but I can't think of a book that comes close to its achievement. I don't know what influences me --- everything and nothing.
BRC: How do you see the Internet affecting the future of fiction?
KH: I don't much, at least not the kind of fiction I care about.
BRC: Some authors are willing to publish stories or entire novels online as eBooks. Would you ever consider this?
KH: Ever --- I don't know. Now, no.
BRC: Do you believe that art can change the world, especially the art of literature and the sharing of one's personal history?
KH: I think art is what makes life bearable, both as an audience and as a writer.
BRC: What one sentence of advice would you give to aspiring writers?
KH: Revise.
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