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Letter from Joyce Archives
Look for the February 2004 release of The Usual Rules in paperback!
July 21, 2004
Dear Friends,
After
many months, I’ve delivered the final draft of my new novel, The
Cloud Chamber, to my publishers, Simon and Schuster. Billed as a novel
for young adults (but as appropriate for adults, I like to think, as my
last novel, Usual Rules, was for younger readers) the book tells the story
of a boy, Nate, growing up on a dairy farm in Montana, in the aftermath
of his father’s shocking and, of course, deeply traumatic attempted
suicide.
I’m often asked what sort of fiction I write: thrillers? Mysteries? Romance novels? (A surprising number of people seem to assume that’s what my area of specialty would be, evidently because I’m a woman.) No, I tell them. So what is it that forms the common element in my rather diverse body of work?
It’s drama of human relationships, I’ve decided. Men and women, parents and children. Families in particular. There’s plenty of mystery and suspense in that territory, actually -- just fewer guns and chase scenes. And once again, in this novel, I found myself exploring a theme that no doubt comes out of my own early life experience: the theme of family silences, and shame. In my case, the silences (in my otherwise enormously communicative and articulate family of origin) had to do with my father’s drinking -- a topic never raised under our roof, for the seventeen years I lived with my parents. In the new novel, the unmentionable subject is the father’s suicide attempt and subsequent hospitalization, and the deep shame the children feel, over aspects of their lives in no way of their making. No doubt it has colored many of my own choices not only in my life, but in my writing, that I find myself wanting, again and again, to shine a light at the kinds of experiences so many people feel uneasy about discussing. This was one.
In Guatemala, with
friends Samuel and Selma and their children,
Frisdy and the new baby, named after me, but spelled Chois
With the new novel off to the publishers, I’m looking around for my next project once again. It is one of the things I love about my work -- but also, one of its challenges -- that things are always changing here. For the last eight months, I’ve been fairly well immersed in the issues of Montana agriculture, cloud chamber construction (which gets round to astrophysics), baseball, horses and dairy operation. While I loved all of this, (and look forward to some upcoming trip to Montana, I hope, in which I get to check out some of the territory I’ve just finished writing about, and maybe get on a horse, myself), I’m also ready to explore some new territory now. (Or go back to writing about a landscape more familiar to me, maybe. Which -- even after eight years in California -- may still mean, New Hampshire.)
The last few months also saw a bunch of interesting travels for me: to New York City for my son Charlie’s graduation from N.Y.U. (where he now holds a degree in ethnomusicology, with a particular emphasis in a field of study he terms “dj-ology”) and to Vermont, where I did a stint as a lecturer and guest writer with the Bennington Writing Program, in June, where I got to work with some wonderful student writers, and to swim and ride a bike, two activities I miss here on my northern California mountaintop.
Joyce with Charlie, newly-graduated ethnomusicologist, in New York
I’ve also done some more live performance of stories with my beloved Moth group, based in New York (check them out at themoth.org), and hope to do some more of that in the months ahead, both in New York again and with the Porchlight group in San Francisco. And of course, I catch brief glimpses of my globe-trotting children -- currently based in Brooklyn, Los Angeles and New Hampshire, where Audrey now produces, markets and personally demonstrates an amazing all-organic salad dressing called Kanghi Omnisauce, invented by her dad. If you ever get a chance to try it, you owe yourself the experience. Kanghi makes even tofu exciting.
Joyce with Audrey,
salad dressing diva, in New York
The main food item being produced in my own kitchen, these last few months (as you may gather, from other places on this site) continues to be pie. My Tarts for John project -- in which I’ve been hosting instructional pie baking parties at my home, and elsewhere, for the purpose of raising money for the Kerry campaign, will very soon have reached the $10,000 mark -- which translates into roughly one hundred pies, but probably a few more, since of course, the bakers also ATE pie. And it was darned good, too.
Coming up, I’ll be heading once again to one of my favorite places: Walloon Lake, in Michigan, where once again I’ll be participating in my friend John Lamb’s annual writing workshop, the last weekend in September. Last year, a highlight of the workshop was getting to sing Johnny Cash songs with John and Billy Collins and Michael Moore. No telling what we’ll come up with this year, but it probably won’t be Battle Hymn of the Republic. I also hope to be making more school visits, talking with young people about my novel The Usual Rules (now out in paperback), and about their own writing. If you are a teacher or librarian interested in working on a visit by me, I’m always happy to hear from you, and see if we can work that out.
In August, I’ll be spending a little time with the young woman I call my Israeli daughter, Shani, as she prepares to begin her senior year of high school here in this country, and to embark on the college application process. As those of you who have been visiting this site for a while will remember, I first met Shani through the discussion forum here on this site, when she wrote to me, at age fourteen, from her small village in Israel. She is now an A student at an east coast prep school, and preparing the college application process (though her own education will be interrupted for a while, after graduation, while she fulfills her army service in Israel.) I count her one of the many gifts in my life that have come to me through this site, and the ongoing pleasure of getting to hear from friends around the world I might never know, otherwise, who come here with their stories, observations and reflections on life.
I hope you will be among them. Your turn.
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