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An Interview with Jennifer Haigh about
Baker Towers
Q. Was
Baker
Towers
inspired by your own family history?
A. Yes
and no. The characters themselves are inventions; they don't resemble anybody
in my family. But the details about the town itself, what life was like in the
postwar years, definitely came from my parents and other relatives.
BAKER TOWERS ends in the Vietnam era, right around the time I was born, so I
couldn't rely on my own memories of the period I was writing about. By the time
I came along, the coal mines were already in decline. The era of the company
town was past, and the region was on its way to become something else. But I
grew up hearing about how things used to be, and when I set out to write this
book I had a wonderful time interviewing family members about what life was
like when coal was king.
Q. How did the
characters evolve from the time you began imagining them?
A. The
characters really did develop a generation at a time. When I began writing,
Rose and Stanley were clearest to me. I had a vivid mental picture of what they
looked like - Rose very dark, southern Italian;
Stanley a Slavic type,
big and blond - and I was fascinated by how those two sets of physical traits
would combine and manifest in a large family. As far as developing the
characters, that happens in the process of writing. Each event in the
character's life changes her destiny in some way, and the writer makes these
discoveries over time. One of the pleasures of writing a novel is following the
characters over many years, from infancy to adulthood. When the story opens,
Lucy is two months old; by the end, she is a grown woman. It's important to me
that the reader recognizes the child in the adult, that the character
"turns out" in a way that seems organic and true.
Q. The novel is packed
with details that re-create a vanished world. What were some of your best
research sources?
A. I
do my best research by talking to people. These conversations yield more than
simple facts; they give me a feel for how people talk, what they remember,
which events in their lives hold the greatest significance for them. Beyond
that, I spend a lot of time looking at old newspapers and magazines - not just
the headlines, but the advertisements. I care what people were wearing, what
kinds of cars they drove, what groceries cost, what was playing on the radio.
Some of this information finds its way onto the page, but most of it doesn't.
It's my way of creating a world in my imagination, of making it real and vivid
for myself.
Q. How did the
experience of writing this novel compare to that of your debut? What is life
like now, as a full-time writer?
A. When
I was writing Baker Towers, I felt a real sense of obligation to the region
and the people who live there. It's a part of the world that doesn't get
written about very often, and it was tremendously important to me that I do it
justice, that I get it right. I'd been thinking about this book for many years,
before I even wrote Mrs. Kimble; but I wasn't ready to tackle it. I think I
sensed that I didn't yet have the skills to write it.
Writing full time is monotonous and lonely, but it
works for me. When I'm deep into a novel, the characters are much more real to
me than anybody in my own life, and that's necessary for me as a writer. Years
ago, when I was writing mostly short stories, I could get by writing in the
evenings or on weekends; but when I'm working on a novel, I really benefit from
being able to work in long stretches. I write at home, in a quiet room with the
curtains drawn. It sounds boring, and it is; but I can't write unless the world
in my head is more vivid than my surroundings are. I'm amazed by writers who
can compose on airplanes or in coffee shops. Writing is hard for me, and it
only works in a place where nothing can distract me.
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