Margaret BauerAmy Hempel, one of the best (and funniest) living short story authors, will be at Washington University next week to speak about writing technique, as well as to read a new story from her upcoming collection.
Q: The characters in most of your stories are in some sort of crisis. What draws you to exploring people who are on the verge of collapse or trying to recover?
A: I’m drawn to these situations in life and on the page because they define us; they are the times we change or remain most true to ourselves. Sometimes it’s as common as “pain teaches.” But crises do spotlight who we are. Plus, I’m endlessly interested in how one gets through inexpressibly difficult trials. Such as this latest election…
Q: Kurt Vonnegut wrote that one of the problems with comedic writers is that they always go straight for the joke. When writing, do you find that your humor determines what happens next in your story?
A: I don’t know which writers Vonnegut is talking about, but if you go straight for the joke, you’ll probably fail. Fiction isn’t stand-up comedy. And it never determines what happens in my own stories. It’s more of a stance a character takes-someone who sees things a certain skewed way.
Q: What were the mistakes you made as a beginning writer?
A: Trying to be “writerly,” instead of just talking it out. Thinking there was a bigger, fancier kind of language required for the page. Also, sometimes, confusing obfuscation for “mystery”-ha! As for advice, I like what Grace Paley once said-and not in a flippant way: keep a low overhead.
Q: Any advice to aspiring writers?
A: My own non-flippant advice is get better friends. I mean that I have often used things my wonderfully witty friends-people such as Mark Richard and Jim Shepard and Ben Taylor-have said in passing.
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Excerpt from “Today Will Be a Quiet Day,” pt.2
This day they were headed for Petaluma-the chicken, egg, and arm-wrestling capital of the nation-for lunch. The father had offered to take them to the men’s arm-wrestling semifinals. But it was said that arm-wrestling wasn’t so interesting since the new safety precautions, that hardly anyone broke an arm or a wrist anymore. The best anyone could hope to see would be dislocation, so they said they would rather go to Pete’s. Pete’s was a gas station turned into a place to eat. The hamburgers there were named after cars, and the gas pumps in front still pumped gas.
“Can I have one?” the boy asked, meaning the Raisinets.
“No,” his sister said.
“Can I have two?”
“Neither of you should be eating candy before lunch,” the father said. He said it with the good sport of a father who enjoys his kids and gets a kick out of saying Dad things.
“You mean dinner,” said the girl. “It will be dinner before we get to Pete’s.”
Only the northbound lanes were stopped. Southbound traffic flashed past at the normal speed.
“Check it out,” the boy said from the back seat. “Did you see the bumper sticker on that Porsche? “If you don’t like the way I drive, stay off the sidewalk.”
He spoke directly to his sister. “I’ve just solved my Christmas shopping.”
“I got the highest score in my class in Driver’s Ed,” she said.
“I thought I would let your sister drive home today,” the father said.
From the back seat came sirens, screams for help, and then a dirge.
The girl spoke to her father in a voice rich with complicity. “Don’t people make you want to give up?’
“Don’t the two of you know any jokes? I haven’t laughed all day,” the father said.
Did I tell you the guillotine joke?” the girl said.
“He hasn’t laughed all day, so you must’ve,” her brother said.
The girl gave her brother a look you could iron clothes with. Then her gaze dropped down. “Oh-oh,” she said, “Johnny’s out of jail.”
Her brother zipped his pants back up. He said, “Tell the joke.”