Friday Q&A + links

We're talking to novelist Carlene Bauer, and in the links, we're learning about polyamory

I love this super-honest, insightful interview with the author of probably the best book I read in the past year or so.

Your most recent novel, Girls They Write Songs About, was read—and raved about—by so many people I know. What is it about that book that you think resonates?

I wanted to quit working on it way more than once, because I started to think writing about two women and their idiot “choices” was not a very important or interesting thing to do, so I am incredibly, incredibly grateful that it has resonated with people. Including you and Jenn! I can’t thank you enough for the attention you’ve paid this book.

One of the reasons—at least this is what I’m getting from what people have told me—might be that I was able to replicate the intensity that characterizes the friendships we form in our 20s. Maybe I was able to plunge readers right back into that very particular moment in life when nearly everything you see, hear, taste, and touch emanates a mystical radiance that will sear itself into your memory for decades to come. I wanted to celebrate and commemorate that time, and those feelings, and maybe readers felt their own lives celebrated and commemorated, too, and appreciated the effort. Because not everyone is sitting around waiting to be raptured up in to the Lucas film or Marvel franchise of their choice. I tried to make every sentence count, and maybe that paid off.

People may also be responding to the fact that I wrote about what it’s like to lose those kinds of friends as you age, and maybe there’s not enough material out there in the world describing this loss and the profound disorientation it can bring. Friends are one of the main ways our lives are lent enchantment, and when you lose the ones you a) respect enough to give your loyalty and enthusiasm to, and b) respect enough to trust that the loyalty and enthusiasm they’re handing right back to you is probably not delusional, you don’t just lose a relationship, you lose your sense of self. You can forget how to enjoy who you are because the person who helped you to do that is gone.