Sunday, November 11, 2012
Claire Vaye Watkins: First 4 Stories from BATTLEBORN
There are many great reviews of Claire Vaye Watkins's 2012 debut collection, and interviews with the author, but I'd like to share an excerpt from this one, between Roxane Gay (one of the editors of PANK) and Watkins, a conversation published in Salon. It touches on concepts we've brought up in class: the usefulness of writing from personal experience, the goal of making art, and the importance of research.
Gay: Do you often write from personal experience?
Watkins: I do. I may not start there but if I really want to write something honest I need to think deeply about why I’m interested, why I care about this person. I often find there’s a connection to something that’s on my mind, some relationship I had or some moment I keep worrying about. For a long time I thought that was a cheap or immature way to write, and then I realized I was doing it sort of sneakily anyway and now I don’t worry about it so much. I am just grateful the stories come. It’s supposed to feel a little bit raw. If I feel totally in control, the writing is not really going to be great.
Gay: Do you like to feel out of control when you write?
Watkins: I do like to make good art. That’s something I have to go towards, the scary stuff, the hurt. The alternative is to become a little bit of a robot and I don’t want to do that either. I don’t want to forget the rawness and the real human impulses behind those stories.
Gay: Is research part of your writing process?
Watkins: I do tons and tons of research. I always read a lot about whatever it is I’m working on and when I wrote “Past Perfect” I grew up near brothels – prostitution is legal in this town in Nevada where I grew up so I learned to parallel park at brothels. I spent a lot of time reading about brothels and corresponding with some people who work there and there’s this amazing documentary called “Pleasure for Sale” that I watched, which is set at the Chicken Ranch, the brothel by my house. Some of the stories definitely feel more researched than others, but I spend a lot of time reading about everyone. It’s important that the language of this world is convincing. How does a rock hound think and feel? How does he see the world? How do teenagers working in a pizza parlor feel?
One of my fascinations with "Ghosts, Cowboys" is its structure, the insistence on fluidity concerning where one begins a story; the other is with the invention of Razor Blade Baby. In telling this story of her mother, father, connected to a history of place, Watkins is announcing the story-ness of our lives. We're all out of control, even when we try to get all the "facts" straight, or send out an anchor, or desperately scan coincidences for meaning.
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The first four stories written by Claire Vaye Watkins were stories that I easily read through because they held my attention so easily. The moments of distinct description and detail kept my attention, as well as my fascination of Watkins herself and the moments that she grew to know as she became a woman. Some of the writing was wonderful, and some of it was disturbing, which is probably why it was so interesting. An example of this interest in disgust was within the story “Rondine Al Nido.” This story was so horrifying to me in the simplest of ways, only a few graphic moments happened, but I still felt uncomfortable throughout the whole story. We don’t know who the narrator is, but the narrator will call the main character “she” or “our girl”.
ReplyDelete“The Last Thing We Need” also kept my attention simply because the whole story is written in letters. The strangest thing though, is that all of the letters are from one person to another person. They have not met each other before, and the narrator never receives an answer from the man he is writing to. “Ghosts, Cowboys” also had me feeling uncomfortable, especially Razor Blade Baby. These stories were written for an audience that is intrigued in way that people normally aren't, and I will definitely be continuing to read the rest of “Battleborn”.
I’m glad that Catherine posted the interview of Watkins, because the topics it brought up were things on my mind as I was reading already. The presence of research especially was something I was aware of while reading “Ghosts, Cowboys” because of the incredible detail of the setting. I think that amount of specificity is what I aim for in my own writing, and began to chip away at with my last workshop story. I trust the story that much more because I trust Watkins’ background knowledge of the story’s elements. I did have a bit of trouble sometimes keeping track of the names and the relations, but by the end I’d worked it out.
ReplyDeleteAnother line I loved from the interview was when Watkins says, “I don’t want to forget the rawness and the real human impulses behind those stories.” That’s something I could definitely feel in her stories, that sense of natural rawness of situations and of characters. She doesn’t try to solve everything. She leaves us with the inscription in the paint of the two lovers and Gloria’s uncertainty about how to address the past and whether it’s right to obscure it with paint. I thought these stories were so interesting and intense and as I said, naturally raw because of their content. Also I just think the name “Razor Blade Baby” and the woman’s history is so crazy and fascinating.
I love how Watkins says “I don’t want to forget the rawness and the real human impulses behind those stories.” I think it’s safe to call each of these four stories “raw” in their own way—the fact that she intertwines her own family history with the Spahn Ranch and the strange, unpredictable character of Razor Blade Baby in “Ghosts and Cowboys,” the letters from Thomas Gray that make you picture him as a gentle guy until he slaps his daughter in the face in “The Last Thing We Need,” and how “Our girl” drags Lena through an awful night in a Vegas hotel in “Rondine Al Nido:” “Our girl nods and says, You’re fine. Let’s have a good time. Lena smiles weakly. I’m fine, she repeats” (57). I hated this part. I wanted to jump into the story and pull Lena out of there myself. But that’s the rawness of Watkins’s storytelling—she “goes towards the scary stuff” and brings her reader along with her. Finally, in “The Past Perfect, The Past Continuous, The Simple Past,” we read about Michele visiting a sex ranch and blowing the debit card money that the Nevada Search and Rescue had given him (80-1). When Watkins writes, she writes about the situations that we all know deep down occur, but usually turn away from because of how “raw” they are. She writes about what we don’t want to see but can’t look away from.
ReplyDeleteSomething that stood out to me about Claire Vaye Watkins is how she develops her characters in her stories, as well as the storyline itself. In “Ghosts, Cowboys,” I liked how each new section starts with “Or maybe the story begins,” and then just goes on to give more detail about her (the narrator) and her family’s past. I also liked the character of “Razor Blade Baby.” I thought that her becoming “friends” with the Razor Blade Baby was interesting because of their connections to Charles Manson: Razor Blade Baby being born at the ranch, and Claire’s father working for him. I thought that their friendship at the end symbolized her somewhat moving past what happened with her father and living her own life. I also liked the use of the letters in “The Last Thing We Need.” Though the writer of the letters seems to fail at every attempt to reach the intended person, we as readers learn a lot about the writer/narrator through what he reveals in them.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that stood out to me about her stories is the clear emotion put behind her writing. I could tell that there were definitely some moments that were very personal to her, especially in “Ghosts, Cowboys.” Having that kind of knowledge about somebody in your family, your own father even, must be hard enough. But when she wrote about admirers coming up to her so that they could catch a glimpse of Paul Watkin’s daughter, I could tell that it must be hard being reminded constantly about something as awful as her family’s role in the Manson Murders. You don’t go through something like that unscathed.
It would seem apparent that many (if not all) writers like to experiment with their stories and broaden their abilities. I like how from these few stories we see clear changes in Watkin's approach to storytelling. The first story has several “beginnings” which, while very unique, all flow into each other. The second story is told in the form of letters which, while not completely uncommon, is diverse to other stories in “Battleborn.” I sometimes think it's a little ridiculous when writers are referred to as having one particular “style,” because we shouldn't have to limit ourselves like that. We should anticipate the fact that we continue to learn as we write which should inspire us to expand on our capabilites.
ReplyDeleteI really admire that Watkins does research for her stories while also draws from personal experiences. I believe these two ideas can coexist and should for any and all storytelling. I know that I do not do much research with stories I write and I need to change that. It's a way for you to educate yourself on new topics while extending the scope of ideas you can possess. And, naturally, any writing should be injected with personal experience. This is, ultimately, what makes the characters human and the events real. One of my favorite parts of these stories is the end of “Ghosts, Cowboys” when Claire and Razor Blade Baby are in the theater. This was genuine and raw, which is how emotion should be projected as. It's exciting to read something that is not familiar to what we are used to, yet assuring to realize how relatable the characters and situations are.
I think part of what makes Watkin's stories so raw, is that she doesn't shy away from the darker, grittier parts of life. Though she does delve into pretty heavy stuff, it felt almost natural to me, and not like she was writing about those themes specifically for shock values. I think for me the amount of research Watkin's did for her stories added to the rawness of them. While I know nothing about living out West (or more particularly life in a brothel) all the details of her story seemed so natural, that I didn't doubt for a second that someone, somewhere had once lived them. To me, even her fiction stories felt like they were non-fiction. I think this also added to the rawness of her story at least for me-- because I always find it easier to sympathize with a character if they're a real person.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, despite being having different characters and setting, I loved how each of the stories seemed to flow together into one cohesive whole. To me, it felt less like I was reading individual stories about different characters, and more like I was reading one story about the West itself.
Claire Vaye Watkins really kept my attention all throughout the first four stories. I agree with Sydney that the details and descriptions and just plain readability kept me interested and wanting to continue. In "Ghosts, Cowboys," I really enjoyed the depth that Watkins went into for her characters by having multiple beginnings. She would start at one point and give detail about the characters, and then would jump to a different point in time and do the same thing. It all flowed very well and didn't feel abrupt or sudden, like that kind of skipping around can. It felt very natural and I liked it a lot.
ReplyDeleteLike James, I enjoyed the experimenting that Watkins seemed to be doing in her stories. With "Ghosts, Cowboys," the story wasn't told in a typical chronological order and in "The Last Thing We Need," the entire story is written in the form of multiple letters, while the last two stories are told in a more traditional pattern, though "Rondine al Nido" does skip back and forth between past and present. Overall, I really appreciated Watkins writing and I look forward to reading the rest of the book.
I enjoyed reading the first four stories out of Battleborn. I agree with everyone else in saying that Claire Vaye Watkins does have a way of writing very raw and vivid details that are realistic. The idea that even if I haven't experienced going to a casino she can capture all the truths to the scenario.
ReplyDeleteBesides the fact that her images and scenes felt so real and , I also loved how each story was written in a different way. I think she really does a good job of using different techniques to pull her reader in. In the story "The last thing We need", we are thrown into a theme of letters all addressed to the same man, yet we never hear from him. However we are able to learn about Thomas Gray. Instead of just having him narrate or having a narrator all together we learn about him through his letters. I really loved that concept. I also loved how we are introduced to the characters in "Rondine Al Nido", she starts off with a third person, and then we see the characters as lena and Our Girl. I just really loved the voice I felt from that, as well as the technique itself. Reading Watkins really made me what to try her technique and see how I could play with them.
I agree with a lot of what Fran said above. These stories focus on things that I cannot even imaging happening to me, yet Claire Vaye Watkins writes about them so frankly. This did make me like her as well as the other characters much more and it also helped me to sympathize with them more because I did not feel like Watkins was writing to beg sympathy from her readers. Assuming that most of “Ghosts, Cowboys” is true, her father was essentially Charles Manson’s wingman, later testifying against him. This alone is something that Watkins says very matter-of-factly and she really doesn’t go into much detail about it, which I liked. I also enjoyed her unique use of form in the different stories (different beginnings, letters, etc.) because I thought they worked for what she was writing about and they allowed for us to fill in the blanks.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started reading "Ghosts, Cowboys," I really had no idea where the story was going, and I was thinking I wasn't going to like Claire Vaye Watkins much. Then, as I kept reading, I saw where the story was going and I absolutely loved it. No secret that I love dark topics written bluntly, and that's exactly what she did. Her description of Razor Blade Baby and the feelings she felt toward the entire situation was extremely frank, and the fact that the narrator spoke so frankly of her was phenomenal. Like when she was at the party and her friends asked if she'd brought her auntie with her, and she said "No, that's Razor Blade Baby." Considering the nature of the story, I wasn't really expecting the ending at all, and I think I liked the ending because I hadn't really felt bad for the narrator, but more pity for Razor Blade Baby, and the ending just kind of fit. Razor Blade Baby never even gets a name or called much else, and so the ending was a nice relief to her strange coming into the world and upbringing.
ReplyDelete"The Last Thing We Need" is one I'm still trying to figure out. It's like Watkins was relaying that people have many faces and masks that they wear to please different people. Thomas Grey talks about how he tells these things to Duane Moser, but they are things he hasn't even told his wife. At one point, he says that's the way it has to be, and he has to understand that. Also, the fact that in Moser's letters from M, it is said how he becomes alien and an entirely different person, I just see this reoccurring theme of masks and different sides of people. I like that Watkins is so detailed in her descriptions and that her stories are so relatable because she does this and doesn't try to fluff the reader, but simply write the truth of a situation.
So, Claire Vaye Watkins is kind of dark. I know in class we talked about how some of this is not entirely fiction, and that makes it even worse. Not that the stories are bad, they're great and I loved them. There's a level of emotional detachment that the narrators seem to have from what they are talking about that makes it all the creepier. In "Ghosts, Cowboys," there were two things that really got to me. First was the scene in which we see Razor Blade Baby being born. Holy shit. It was so blunt, but still made the grossest, most uneasy, disturbing birth description I may have ever read. Mr. Manson makes for a messy midwife. Second, the descriptions the narrator makes of her father are so very detached I don't know how to feel about him. And maybe that's the point, the narrator doesn't really know how she feels. On the one hand she'll say something like how he was the prime means for Manson getting girls, and on the other she'll say he wasn't necessarily bad, he didn't do any of the killing.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite of all the stories so far has been "The Last Thing We Need." The format of the story itself made the whole thing feel uneasy, like a film shot at a canted angle. The idea of writing letters to a man who is likely dead, and at the best just missing is so awesomely creepy. The man writing the letters, whose name escapes me at the moment, slowly stops using the letters to inquire about the other guy's situation, and begins using them as a way to vent. Ultimately we see that Thomas (I read the post above me and found out his name) is still messed up about shooting a kid he knew in the face with a shotgun. In his letters to Duane, he tries to come to terms with that. I loved it for the story, but also for the unique way in which it was told.