Seattlest Interview: Nicola Griffith

I’m not familiar with Atlanta or Oslo, but it seems to me that your descriptions of Seattle are more detailed than either of those locations. Was that a deliberate choice, a reflection of your own familiarity with the city, or do you not notice the differences I do?

You really think so? Interesting. Purely unconscious on my part--though I'll now have fun trying to work out why. Actually, with regard to Oslo, that's easy: I've never been there, except in my imagination (and a lovely time I had, too, roaming about an entire city in my head).

I lived in Atlanta for five years, but that was a dozen years ago. It changes so fast I'm no longer confident that the city I remember still exists.

Though there are conventional whodunit mysteries within them, the biggest mysteries to Aud seem to be her own nature and the inner lives of other people. How comfortable are you with the label “mystery novel” for them?

I have no quarrel with any label a reader feels is appropriate to my work--except, of course, that labels are reductive and I'm not partial to being reduced.

For me, the goal in writing these novels is to explore Aud. Aud was born in a dream eleven years ago. In my dream, a woman sleeps naked on a carpet in her new, unfurnished apartment. It's a very hot night. she has nothing with her but the clothes she arrived in, and an old flashlight. She wakes to find a man pointing a gun at her. Without hesitation, without thinking at all, she unfolds from the floor and breaks his neck with the flashlight. The time from waking to killing: less than two seconds. I woke up wondering what kind of person could do that.

The next day I went to the local library and just happened to find a book about Norwegian architecture, next to a book of Norwegian history featuring a woman called Aud the Deepminded. Aud was born. I've been exploring how she ticks ever since. Always is a major step along that road.

But I wouldn't want readers to get the impression these are novels where Aud and others wander about, literally and figuratively, ruminating on their interior lives. In this books, stuff actually happens; in my opinion, fiction should be larger than life--brilliant, drenched with colour and action and intensity. (I'm particularly fond of explosions .) All good fiction is stuffed with narrative tension and some kind of struggle--whether it's implicit or explicit.

But are the Aud books mysteries? No, not really. They're less interested in asking, Who did it?, or Why? than in What does it mean?, and How does it fit?

So are they noir fiction? No, because they pulse with joy--and noir, the way I understand it, is not joyful. It's all about being trapped by circumstance. It's about ordinary people leading small lives who make one mistake and, phht, that's it, it's all over, because when they try to correct their mistake they just end up digging themselves a deeper hole. At every moment of the novel--or film--they and the reader know that their eventual downfall is inevitable. Noir is the horror fiction of the crime genre.

The Aud books could, conceivably, be called crime fiction. To the extent that Aud is progressing from near-sociopath to almost-hero, she is learning to do good in the world. And crime fiction is concerned with rights and wrongs--you can't have "crime" without law. But the crime is not the point. Just as, although the books could be labelled lesbian fiction because Aud likes girls, exploring lesbian life isn't their point, either--to Aud, being a dyke matters about as much as the colour of her eyes. You could just as easily call this book a "Seattle novel" or a "novel of self-defense." I'm sure some people will...

I've recommended The Blue Place and Stay to a number of people. When I mention that the main character is a lesbian, some people are confused about why a straight man would be reading "lesbian fiction" -- though that's not a phrase I use to describe the books. That, or they assume my interest is partly based on the stereotypical "lesbians are hot" attitude attributed to men. Do you find other people trying to pigeonhole you as a "lesbian writer"? Given that you're not fond of the reductive quality of labels, how do you respond to the habit?

Well, I happen to think lesbians are hot , but I'm biased, and, besides, that's not what the Aud books are about.

When people label a novel "lesbian fiction" what many people expect is emphasis on "lesbian" at the expense of "fiction." That is, they imagine fiction focused on either the eroticism or the struggle of being a dyke: one-handed reading, say, or a coming out story, or the pot boiler lives of an insular subculture. That's not my perspective--or Aud's. To Aud, being a dyke is about as noteworthy as the colour of her eyes. Calling these books "lesbian fiction" makes about as much sense as calling Catcher in the Rye heterosexual fiction.

Aud has a very physical outlook, always looking to biology or physics for explanations about behavior. Does this approach mirror your own outlook?

Aud has inherited my love of understanding how things fit--how they work, where they belong in the overall pattern. Science is a huge part of that. She's a bit more tightly wrapped than I am--she would never just invent explanations, for example--but, yes, we're on the same wavelength when it comes to looking at a tree or musing on Newtonian physics.

Aud's primary motivating factor is joy--she loves the physical world and the way she moves through it. Like me, the more she loves something the deeper she wants to go to understand it.

I’ve gone around corners differently since reading The Blue Place and Aud’s explanation about why it’s wise to take them wide. Always devotes an entire narrative strand to Aud’s teaching self-defense. Are you happy if people feel like they learn self-defense from your books, or would you prefer that the books inspire people to go out and take classes?

It would delight me beyond words if this book persuaded readers to at least ponder their own socialisation--their programming, if you like--with regard to power and self-defense. In a perfect world, I imagine book groups talking about self-defense, perhaps jumping off the couch to try out a move or two, maybe even going to far as to set up a special session where they invite a local self-defense teacher in to take them through a couple of scenaries on the book.

I think many people simply don't realise how...ordinary self-defense is. It's looking both ways before crossing the road. Knowing where the nearest exit is. How to breathe, how to not panic, how to say no. It's not Bruce Lee movie moves. Trust me, if you have the brains and physical coordination to bake a cake, you can learn to defend yourself.

But if all you do after reading this book is what-if one single situation, I'm content.

What’s your relationship to Aud? How does her personality relate to your own? Is she the character in these books who’s most similar to you?

Who is the Mary Sue character? Aud, with her martial arts, foreigness, and self-defense? Yes. Kick, with her size and shape, her MS, her love of food? Yes. Dornan, with his optimistic entrepreneurship, hypothetical questions and love of philosophy? Yes. Else, with her need to change the world and adherence to simple design principle? Yes. Eric, with his cheerful love of wine and fast cars and pop culture? Yes. Corning with her hope she can get away with bending the rules and getting what she wants? Yes. Rusen, with his need to make something good even though he doesn't really know everything he needs to? Yes.

They're all me. The more minor the character, the more minor the facet of my own character I've chosen and sharpened and polished. I love them all, even the not-so-nice ones.

Aud is a path-not-taken character. I'm not American. I do understand self-defense. I do care about justice. I am practical. I have studie martial arts. I can imagine a universe where I might have ended up a bit like her if I hadn't fallen in love when I was fifteen, if I were six feet tall and rich and Norwegian and physically able. Kick has MS and small hands; so do I. But she's American and an ex-stunt actor. And she didn't run a mile when she met Aud. I think I would have done.

On your web site, you bemoan the ending of Xena. You’ve also said that you love Buffy; were you satisfied with the end of that series?

I disliked the last season of Buffy, overall, but thought the ending rocked. How very, very cool to see all those young women suddenly feeling their own power. I shouted in glee. Kelley and I drank beer and chortled and grinned. What a blast.

Have any pop-culture heroines come along since Buffy that you find as inspiring or satisfying?

Now isn't that an interesting question? I've spent ten minutes pondering and come up with nothing. Not one single female hero. Oh, there are lots of "strong women" characters, such as Starbuck (from Battlestar Galactica), but they're not heroes. Then there's the TV series, Heroes, whose main female characters either exist to get rescued (the cheerleader) or to have their good vs. evil sides wrestle. It feels like a step backwards. Where are Buffy, Xena, Nikita (even the Powerpuff Girls)? Having said all that, there's still Hothead Paisan--though she's been around a while. Perhaps there are many other characters in anime and comix that I'm not aware of.

One character often described as "the new Buffy" is Veronica Mars. I'm a fan, though I admit she didn't immediately spring to mind when I asked you the question. Have you seen the show? If so, do you find her inspiring or heroic, or are you unsatisfied with her as a female pop-culture hero?

I haven't seen Veronica Mars, no. Why? It's never really appealed to me, perhaps because realistic girls--as opposed to those living with the fantastical powers of Xena or Buffy--live under such constraints that I can't imagine how one could be a hero. But perhaps my imagination is deficient.

Do you have a grand plan for Aud – more novels, and a narrative arc? Or does Always complete her story?

I'd always imagine Aud as a sequence of five novels. I had another two after this one all mapped out. But Always took a turn I hadn't expected and now I'm not sure how to proceed. I think I'll have to sit with Aud a while and try to work out what she'll do in light of my deeper understanding. But I'm definitely not done with her. There's at least one book to come.

Meanwhile I'll have a bash at turning The Blue Place into a screenplay. I have a memoir/commonplace book/juvenilia collection coming out shortly from a new local art press (Payseur and Schmidt), called And Now We Are Going to Have a Party. It's difficult to describe: essays and anecdotes about my bad-self days in England before I met Kelley and settled down; there's old poems, crayon drawings, a CD of songs, photos, even a scratch 'n' sniff panel. Dorothy Allison wrote the preface. Also, there are several short stories I want to finish. And, waiting for me in a few months, the biggest project of all, the novel I've been training to write all my life: a huge book set in seventh century England. I can hardly sit still when I think about it.

Always makes clear your affection for Seattle. What are your favorite local places and institutions that didn’t show up in the novel?

I love this city. I've taken unconscionable liberties with it for fictional purposes. I wrote so much that I ended up having to chop for the sake of a tight narrative arc: canoeing through the Arboretum; drinking Guinness while listening to Seattleites sing rockaraoke; Aud coming this close to attacking the Fremont troll with a pickaxe... I wish there had been room for the Harvest Vine, for Carkeek Park, for the Triple Door. Perhaps in the next book.

Author photo by Kelley Eskridge.