Interview: Lauren Groff
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It’s still early in 2012, but it’s reasonable to say that Lauren Groff’s ambitious new novel Arcadia is one of the most important books of the year. Groff, a New Yorker fiction contributor and the New York Times bestselling author of The Monsters of Templeton, tackles the concept of utopia and all its strengths and failings. It’s a big-idea book, but it’s also an intimate relationship drama, following the life of a young boy named Bit who grows up on a commune in upstate New York during the 1970s. The book is gorgeous: Groff is incapable of writing a bad sentence, and she has a genuine sympathy for her characters. It is, in fact, a deeply felt book, but, more than that, an excellent guide for how to be in this life.
Days before her book launched, Groff talked with eMusic about her feelings on the legalization of marijuana, which musicians inspire her writing, and her go-to karaoke song.
The characters in Arcadia attempt to make a living off growing and selling marijuana. I am still amazed at how you have written this truly beautiful family drama that also makes a pretty logical case for the legalization of marijuana. So what exactly are your opinions that topic?
I think it’s somewhere between silly and stupid to criminalize marijuana. As far as I know, nobody has died from a pot overdose, and the medical benefits of the drug far outweigh the potential negatives. This is not to say that I want my sons to start up with the bongs in high school. I would hope they would wait until they’re adults to make their own decisions about marijuana, that they even get the chance to make their own decisions.
I loved those moments in the book where we got glimpses of the hippie music scene. Did you have any bands you were listening to when you were writing it?
Yes, yes, yes. The first part of the book is haunted by Pete Seeger, the second by Led Zeppelin, the third by Sigur Ros, and the fourth by Leonard Cohen. If you play their albums as you listen, you’ll catch the emotional tones I’m going for in each section.
Do you have any other eras you’d be interested in writing about? Any moments in history that particularly captivate you?
This is complex, but the short answer is: I don’t know. My greatest allegiance is to the story that surfaces in my brain, whether it ends up being situated in 16th-century France or Japan in the 22nd century, when we are all bionic and 12 feet tall. The time and setting of a story are, like characters, developed slowly and according to the story being told.
Have you heard your audiobook yet? Do you listen to audiobooks at all?
I love audiobooks when I’m traveling, but really only books that I’ve already read in tree-format first. I find a second audial reading changes and deepens any book because the actors are very smart and read toward their own interpretations, which are almost always different from mine.
That said, I’ve never listened to my own audiobooks. The voice in my head when I read my work is this incredibly skeptical Grace Paley-ish wise woman and I’m afraid of breaking her if I hear someone else read her words. I have nothing to do with the audiobook process, sadly. My audiobooks show up one day, and make me happy, and then I give them to my parents-in-law, and they listen to them.
There is such a musicality to your writing. Do you have any history with music or writing poetry?
I played the flute for 12 years. What a bizarro instrument to hand to a little girl — about as embarrassingly obvious as a unicorn fixation!
Nowadays, whenever I get the chance, I sing karaoke with extreme dedication. But I did think I was a poet for the first five years of my writing career, though my poetry obviously didn’t agree. That said, I have read and do read a wheelbarrow full of poetry every week and think that every fiction writer on the planet should, also. It teaches us rhythm, formal architecture, the perfection of a single well-placed word.
What’s your go-to karaoke song?
I like Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.”
Do you read your work out loud at all when you’re writing?
I do! I once read that Charles Dickens used to read out loud to a mirror and make faces corresponding to his characters, and I do that, mostly to make myself laugh. But I think at a certain point, at least with a semi-final draft, you have to hear your words out loud to make sure there aren’t unintentional repetitions or rhythms and that the dialogue seems plausible.
Do you enjoy giving readings, and engaging with audiences? Have you ever seen any other authors read that have really impressed you?
I love giving readings and engaging with audiences, primarily because the work I do is so solitary and I’m hungry for interactions with smart people who read a lot. I can count a hundred writers whose work astounds anew when they read it aloud, but I’m fascinated to watch the superstars of writing, the people who can fill an auditorium of two thousand attendees — who pay to be there! I’m thinking of people like Chuck Palahniuk or David Sedaris. You watch them perform and feel briefly glad that writers can be rock stars, and then it’s time to file out into the rainy streets and the dark little writing-hovel and the gaping blank page again.
You’re about to head out on a big book tour. What are you most looking forward to? Is there anything you dread?
I have two children under the age of four, so I’m most looking forward to clean white hotel sheets and room service. I dread, always, walking into a reading to find one kindly relative, one pained-looking bookseller, a snoozing homeless person, and a high-school couple who wanted to find a quiet place to make out.
