Rebecca's Interview with Pat Murphy

Author of
Wild Angel, There and Back Again & The Falling Woman

Rebecca :
My dear Pat,
I was scrolling through TOR Books' site hunting up the place where I could send my review of Lisa Goldstein's Dark Cities Underground when I came across your name; then I found The Brazen Hussies & knew I'd found some soul sisters! A long time ago I found your The Falling Woman on the summer paperback rack, read it & it's been with me ever since. When we started this website yours was, naturally, one of the first books I reviewed. I offer it to you for all the hours of delight you have given me! I would love to review your latest work if you could send me a copy!

Pat :
Hi, Rebecca,
So glad you found your way to our web site! Thanks for sending the review of The Falling Woman; I'm delighted you enjoyed the book.
 
As you know, from our web site, my latest novel is There and Back Again. I have another one, Wild Angel, coming out in August. As it happens, I have a few extra copies of the bound galleys. Let me know if you'd like to see both books.

Rebecca :
I am looking forward to the galleys! These will be my very first - any chance you could autograph them for me? I'd be honored to own them.

Pat :
Just wanted to let you know--there'll be some delay in getting back to you. During our recent heat wave, my computer's power supply fried. The machine is in the shop now, and it'll be 10 days (at least!) before I get it back. And it's just fine with me to do separate reviews/interviews. It's your call. I'm delighted that you enjoyed the books.

Rebecca :
Questions about The Falling Woman for which you won a Nebula Award: Was the archaeological theme of this book a one-time flash?

Pat :
Not really, though it's the only novel I've written that deals directly with archaeology. I'm fascinated with anthropology and with how different cultures deal with the world and with social mores in different cultures. I like to travel--in Mexico, in Nepal, in Thailand--and meet people from cultures other than my own. I'm interested in how the past impinges on the present, a theme that is clear in The Falling Woman but also shows up in The City, Not Long After and, in a funny way, in There and Back Again.

Rebecca :
Had you been to a Mayan site?

Pat :
I got the idea for The Falling Woman when visiting Dzibilchaltun, a Mayan site near the city of Merida on the Yucatan Peninsula. There, surrounded by worked stones and the tumbled remnants of ancient buildings, the past seems very close to the surface. On that trip, I visited a number of sites--Chichen Itza, Tulum, Coba. Before that, I had visited sites in Honduras.

While I was working on the book, I took a couple of trips to Mexico to visit other sites. And I spent a summer working at an archeological dig in Arizona and studying with an anthropologist who worked in the Yucatan. Sometimes, writing provides a great excuse to travel!

Rebecca :
I know it was over a decade ago since The Falling Woman was published, do you remember how long it took from conception to completion?

Pat :
My best guess is that it took about two years. Since I work at the Exploratorium, San Francisco's Museum of Science, Art and Human Perception, I only write fiction part time. That makes me a rather slow writer. Last year, I took a year leave of absence from the museum and wrote fiction full time. What fun! During that time, I wrote two books: There and Back Again and Wild Angel. So I'm not necessarily a slow writer--just a writer without quite enough time.

Rebecca :
What were the hardest & the funniest things that came up during the writing?

Pat :
The Falling Woman was my second novel. Before I wrote it, someone in my writers' group told me that 85% of those who published first novels never published a second novel. I don't know if that's true or not, but it certainly got my attention. I was terrified that I'd be one of the 85%! When I wrote my first novel, The Shadow Hunter, I figured it was enough just to get a novel written. I figured that the second novel had to do more than that; I wanted it to be really good. So between the terror and my high expectations, I made it rather hard on myself, I think.

While researching the book, I had a great time working on an archeological dig (an Anasazi site near Meteor Crater). The descriptions of how dirty you get on a dig are absolutely true to life. I remember a startling, funny shift in perception when the folks from our dig went to the Hopi mesas to attend a dance. We were walking down one of the dirt lanes and I saw some very dirty, disreputable looking folks walking toward us. Grimy jeans, filthy bandannas around their necks, dirt ground into their hands. “Who are those people?” I asked one of my companions. “Oh, they're the Black Mesa dig.” Then I looked at myself and my group and realized that we looked even worse.

Rebecca :
In the past 30 years there has been an opening of a dam built eons ago across the minds & mouths of the womanly perspective to “history”: archaeology, anthropology, psychology. I thought Elaine Morgan's “The Descent of Woman” was the plug that began the flood - do you have a book that was pivotal in your exploration of the world according to women?

Pat :
During the seventies, I read all the wonderful science fiction being produced by women writers: Ursula Le Guin, Joanna Russ, Vonda McIntyre, Suzy McKee Charnas, Kate Wilhelm. That was important to me as a science fiction writer. Joanna Russ's nonfiction book, How to Suppress Women's Writing is something that every writer should read.

I didn't start writing my own science fiction until I was in college in the 1970s. The very first story I wrote had a man as its hero. Looking back on that now, I find it strange--and at the same time completely understandable.

I had grown up reading science fiction, and I had gotten used to reading stories in which men were the heroes. I was writing stories that I wanted to have published, so I was writing stories like the ones I had read. And in those stories, I had gotten used to seeing men as the space captains and heroes and, on an unconscious level, I assumed that was the way the world worked.

I only wrote one or two stories like that. Never sent them out; never sold one. I took a look at them and consciously realized what I was doing--and made a conscious decision to write the stories that I wanted to read--not the ones that I had already read.

It wasn't a political decision at the time. It was a selfish, personal decision. I write because I like to write; I like the stories I tell myself. And the stories that I like the best have room for me inside them. Looking back, of course, it was a political decision, made for selfish reasons.

Lately, I've been reading Writing a Woman's Life by Carolyn Heilbrun. Something that really rang true for me was this:

“...it is a hard thing to make up stories to live by. We can only retell and live by the stories we have read or heard. We live our lives through texts. They may be read, or chanted, or experience electronically, or come to us, like the murmurings of our mothers, telling us what conventions demand. Whatever their form or medium, these stories have formed us all....”

I think Carolyn Heilbrun is right: You believe the stories you are told. And it can be difficult to imagine new ones. I have many goals as a writer--to entertain, to inform, to engage your emotions. But one of my goals is to tell new stories, and by doing so to change your expectations about the world.

Questions about Wild Angel

Rebecca :
Did you do a lot of exploring of the territory as you wrote? What were some of the favorite places you found? The ugliest places?

Pat :
I spent some time exploring California's gold country, which is not far from San Francisco, where I live. I also spent a lot of time exploring the history of the region. One of my favorite pastimes when working on an historical novel is to go out looking for something that isn't there anymore--to see if I can figure out where it used to be. I suppose one of my favorite spots was a wonderful lake up near Sierraville, right near the Sierra Buttes.

The ugliest spots were those areas where hydraulic mining operations had blasted the land. In hydraulic mining, water was diverted from rivers and used to wash tons of earth away so that the gold it contained could be extracted. Up near the town of Columbia and in the state park that surrounds the town that was once called North Bloomfield or Humbug, there are areas that look like moonscapes--bare, cratered land where all the fertile soil was washed away. The Gold Rush was, in many ways, an environmental disaster for the California foothills. In places, the land still shows its effects.

Rebecca :
Did the people come to you fully present or did you have to struggle to “grow” them?

Pat :
Both. My work usually grows out of the characters, so I usually start with them. In Wild Angel Sarah, Max and Jasper were there from the start. I was also making use of versions of characters who had already appeared in There and Back Again: specifically Gyro Renacus and Gitana. From the start, I knew there would be a traveling circus and a temperance lecturer who ran off with the circus.

But working with characters, for me, is an on-going process, a sort of conversation between the characters and the demands of the story. A character may shift and change with the roles he or she is required to play--while at the same time remaining true to him or herself. Sounds contradictory, but I'm not sure how to explain it better than that.
 
Rebecca :
How was it to write about people with evil intentions?

Pat :
Difficult. I always find it tough to write about characters who do evil things. When writing about such people, I have to get into their heads, I have to understand why they do the things I perceive as evil. Do they feel that what they are doing is good? (That was true in General Fourstar, a character in my novel The City, Not Long After.) Or is the character a sociopath who lacks all empathy with others? Such a character does things that I think are evil--and thinks nothing of them. I don't much like living in the heads of such characters, so I find writing about them difficult

Rebecca :
I see from your Nadya: Wolf Chronicles that you are well versed in wolf lore - was there, in fact, a legend in the gold mining communities of the time about just such a girl?

Pat :
Nope. I made that part up entirely. It's great fun making up historical legends that sound true.
 
Rebecca :
I gather that Mark Twain is a favorite author of yours, was his writing also an example for you? What about the way he wrote, resonates with you?

Pat :
One of the things I like about Mark Twain is his sense of humor. Books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn can be hysterically funny--and dead serious at the same time. I admire his ability to have fun with his writing.

By the way, this when I talk to people who say “I never read science fiction,” I often cite examples of work that they may have read that they didn't characterize as science fiction. Like a novel about a man who turns into a giant bug: Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. Or a novel about a man who travels in time from contemporary America to King Arthur's court: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain. I've been trying to convince librarians that Connecticut Yankee should be shelved with the science fiction.So far, I haven't had any takers.

Rebecca :
What time of day/night is the best for you to write? Was it all computer written?

Pat :
I usually write first thing in the morning, before heading off to work at the Exploratorium. During my year off, I alternated writing with puttering in my tiny garden. I usually write on the computer (early training as a newspaper reporter made me very comfortable composing at the keyboard). On rare occasions when I get stuck, I shift to pen and paper or typewriter (yes, I still have one of those). I find shifting modes helps me break through when I'm stuck.
 
Rebecca :
Do you write in solitary confinement or do you share with a group?

Pat :
I workshop regularly with a group of professional writers. Workshopping isn't for everyone, but I love it. Hearing other people's opinions gives me a fresh perspective on my work--and that's incredibly useful.

Rebecca :
You have a funny bone that peeked out in Wild Angel. Have you thought of writing an entire comedy novel?

Pat :
It's tempting. I had a great time writing the funny parts of Wild Angel. I'm an admirer of Donald Westlake's work, which I find tremendously funny. Time will tell--I always have dozens of projects on the back burner, and this might be one of them.

Rebecca :
How do you know when an idea for a book arrives? Do you suddenly “see” the beginning, middle & end or is the story a mystery to you until you've written it?

Pat :
Books arrive for me quite slowly. I mulled over the three book set that I'm just finishing--There and Back Again, Wild Angel and Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell--for years and years before I even started writing the first word of it. One of my writer friends accuses me of having an office like Frankenstein's workshop--a piece of a story over here, a chunk of a character over there, notes on a setting over yonder. Gradually, the pieces combine and I realize that I have a novel to write.

I plan books in detail before I write them--creating outlines, considering pacing. But I also remain open to the surprises that emerge during the writing process. There are always surprises--that's the wonderful part of the creative process. When I teach writing, I advise students who are stuck to look in the manuscript that they have so far and see what presents they have left for themselves. What details did you throw in that you can now use? What has your unconscious set up for you?

The subconscious mind is a wonderful thing. I find writing to be a dialog between my conscious mind--the part of me that outlines, writes down the words, and quibbles about what happens next--and my unconscious, which inserts interesting surprises that my conscious can later discover.

Rebecca :
Many images your describe in Wild Angel remind me of the artist Susan Seddon Boulet's works in her Shaman, have you seen her work? How do you know when you've written a moment of exquisite charm?

Pat :
I'm not familiar with Susan Seddon Boulet's work. I'll have to check it out. And I never know when I've written a moment of exquisite charm. I know when I've written something that works for me--but I don't know whether it will work for anyone else until after I hear back from people.

Rebecca :
What is the most difficult thing about writing an adventure story?

Pat :
It wasn't difficult for me, but it was a change of pace. For years, I joked with fellow writer Karen Joy Fowler about writing a book in which no one ever talked about their feelings. Every time a character tried, a shot would ring out or someone would start a knife fight or pirates would attack. Wild Angel isn't that extreme, but it tends in that direction.

Rebecca :
What are your next projects?

Pat :
I'm just finishing Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell, the third book in a set of three books that are linked by the pseudonyms who are writing them. Wild Angel was the second book in the set.

This gets a little complicated, so bear with me here. The first novel in the set is There and Back Again, written by Max Merriwell. Max is very much a pulp writer, unabashedly overjoyed to be writing science fiction. This novel is, as the title suggests, based on The Hobbit. Basically, it's The Hobbit retold as a space opera, with worm holes, space pirates and pataphysicians. It's a wild quest to the center of the galaxy. Max and I had a great time writing it.

Wild Angel is the second book in this project. Though we've been talking about Wild Angel as my book (and it does have my name on the cover and it's listed in bookstores as by Pat Murphy), it's really written by the pseudonymous Mary Maxwell.

Now here's where it gets a bit twisted. It turns out that Max Merriwell writes three books--a science fiction novel under his own name, a fantasy under the pen name Mary Maxwell and a mystery under the pen name Weldon Merrimax. So Mary Maxwell is actually a pseudonym of Max Merriwell. On the title page of Wild Angel, the byline is “by Mary Maxwell, by Max Merriwell, by Pat Murphy.“ And there are afterwords by all three of us.

I'm currently working on the third and final book in this project, Adventures in Time and Space With Max Merriwell. This book is about Max Merriwell, in which Max' pseudonyms start showing up and making trouble for him. It's a novel about reality and identity and the tenuous nature of both. (Oh, yes--and Pat Murphy shows up as a character in all three books.)

Readers don't have to know any of this to enjoy the books. They can all be read independently. In fact, it may be better that way. I'm a little afraid I will confuse people while amusing myself. But for those who want to read all three books, the set will form a sort of literary shaggy dog story. Or, if you want to be stuffy about it, a metafictional narrative. Whatever one chooses to call it, I'm having a great time writing it.

Rebecca :
Thank you very much for a lovely picnic beside those pink columns of the Exploratorium, one of my favorite places in the City by the Bay, & for giving your thoughtful answers.

Check out Author Sightings.

You can reach the Author at her website: http://www.brazenhussies.net/murphy/

Rebecca
(Published August 06, 2000)