A Feather on the Breath of God? No, Actually Its Acid
Rodolfo Morales
The creative process in writing works of literature is one that takes time, patience, and effort. Creating coherent storylines and believable characters is in no way an easy task. Renowned writer Sigrid Nunez can clearly attest to that. Author of such novels as A Feather on the Breath of God and The Last of Her Kind, Nunez recently appeared at Baruch College in celebration of the Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence Program’s 10-year anniversary.
Nunez, who is the Writer-in-Residence at Baruch College for the fall 2007 semester, read a chapter from her latest novel, The Last of Her Kind, at the event. The novel takes place in 1968 and tells the story of two college girls who become roommates and lifelong friends, but end up taking different paths in life. During the questions-and-answers section of the evening, which took place after the reading, Nunez described her creative process in writing her successful novels. She described her novels as falling under the categories of autobiographical fiction and fictional biography, and explained that while writing, she explores something that has happened to her in the past through the fiction she writes. A perfect example is found in The Last of Her Kind, where the two main characters, Georgette and Anne, attend Barnard College, the very college that Nunez studied in when she was younger. As far as organizing her thoughts before writing them down, Nunez denied ever organizing or planning the individual chapters to her stories ahead of her writing. This same rule applies to the vivid characters she creates in each book. “To me, its like a real life; you don’t have plans, you don’t have ideas, you don’t know how its going to work out,” Nunez explained. Instead, she begins with an idea of main characters and must fill the world around them with other characters. The biggest feat is making the characters and their surrounding environments believable.
Later on in the session, Sigrid Nunez discussed her most dreaded parts of the writing process: reviewing, editing, and publishing. She quickly encouraged all prospective writers to deeply appreciate and enjoy writing, for editing and publishing are the worst parts of the creative journey, or as Nunez most eloquently put it, “all hell.” Nunez was also asked if her characters were a part of her throughout her life. She stated that they were not, and that it was more of a situation where she gave her characters a little piece of herself. However, once she finishes a book, she leaves the characters behind and moves on to create fresh, new characters.
If there were one negative comment to be made about the evening, it would be about Nunez’s responses. Although there was a large amount of time set aside for questions-and-answers, Nunez seemed to deviate away from the true answers to the questions being asked of her. She almost seemed annoyed when questioned about her first work, A Feather on the Breath of God, and quickly moved on to the next questions. Whether this abrupt reaction was caused by unwillingness to answer such questions or because the book was written so long ago is unknown. However, one question that did receive a rather quick and heartfelt response was one of the more comical questions of the evening. A student in the audience asked in reference to a drug reference in The Last of Her Kind “Is it really true that you did acid?” Nunez readily responded, “Yes, I did Acid!”
Some of Sigrid Nunez’s other works of literature include Naked Sleeper, Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury, and For Rouenna. Nunez announced that her next work of literature is in the making, and it will feature her first male protagonist.