A Life Dedicated To Literature
Susan Coll discusses her latest novel “Real Life & Other Fictions,” her experiences in the literary world, creative process, and how working in a bookstore influences her writing style.
Susan Coll, the brilliant American novelist whose sharp wit and masterful storytelling have captivated readers for decades, brings her remarkable insights to Reader’s House in this exclusive interview. The award-winning author of seven novels, including her latest masterpiece Real Life & Other Fictions, has consistently demonstrated her extraordinary ability to weave complex narratives that dance between comedy and tragedy with remarkable finesse.
Throughout her illustrious career, Coll has gifted us with literary gems such as Bookish People, The Stager and the widely acclaimed Acceptance, which was brilliantly adapted into a television film starring Joan Cusack. Her unique perspective on the contemporary American experience, coupled with her talent for creating quirky, unforgettable characters, has earned her a special place in modern literature.
As a distinguished contributor to prestigious publications like The Washington Post and The New York Times, and through her invaluable work at Politics and Prose Bookstore, Coll has maintained her finger on the pulse of the literary world. Her experience as the president of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation further demonstrates her dedication to advancing literary excellence.
In this candid conversation, Coll shares fascinating insights into her creative process, discusses the inspiration behind her latest work, and reveals how her various roles in the literary world have shaped her writing. From the mysterious Mothman legends to the inner workings of independent bookshops, she offers readers a glimpse into the wonderful world that spawns her distinctive narratives.
Join us as we delve into the mind of one of America’s most engaging contemporary authors, whose work continues to delight and challenge readers in equal measure.
What inspired you to blend elements of surreal humour and real-life mystery in Real Life & Other Fictions?
“I’ve never been sure if it’s a gift or a curse, but no matter how tragic the subject, I wind up injecting humor into the narrative” – Susan Coll
I have long been fascinated by the story of The Mothman—a supernatural creature—part man, part giant moth— said to have been seen in in the vicinity of a deadly West Virginia bridge collapse in 1967. The Mothman has also supposedly surfaced prior to other disasters, including Chernobyl. Now, more than 50 years later, The Mothman is largely regarded as a whimsical and campy figure. The town of Point Pleasant, where the bridge collapse occurred, has become a tourist destination—there’s a Mothman museum, an annual Mothman festival, and a statue of the creature in the middle of the town where people take selfies. In the novel, I set out to capture this odd juxtaposition of comedy and tragedy by telling the story from the point of view of a woman who was orphaned in the bridge collapse. She sets out to understand why her parents were on the bridge, as well as why no one in her family wants to talk about the past.
How have your experiences working at Politics and Prose and serving as president of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation influenced your writing?
That’s a great question. I have worked at Politics and Prose for nearly nine years, and I find that my perch from inside the sausage factory of bookselling helps keep my own endeavor to write in perspective. It’s just a book, after all, an object that is logged into our inventory system and sold—or not sold—on the salesfloor, and perhaps counterintuitively I find this takes the pressure off the outcome for me. I also find the bookstore environment inspiring as a setting for my novels. Ditto for the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, where I served as board president for five years. My next novel, The Literati, is set at a literary nonprofit.
“It’s just a book, after all, an object that is logged into our inventory system and sold—or not sold—on the salesfloor” – Susan Coll
Could you describe the creative process behind developing the quirky characters in Bookish People?
Bookish People, set in an independent bookstore, was so much fun to work on that I have continued writing about one of the characters—Clemi, the young events manager, in my next novel. Another character (of sorts) in Bookish People is a vacuum cleaner, which served as the inspiration for the book. At the end of each day in the bookstore, the manager sends a document to senior staff called The End of Day Report. Over time I began to notice the frequency with which the report mentioned that the vacuum cleaner was broken. There were instructions about how one needed to kick the appliance a few times to get it to work, or advising that it was in the repair shop but would soon be back, etc. One day I realized that this vacuum cleaner was speaking to me, and that it wanted to be a character in a novel.
Re the humans in the novel, there are a lot of lovely—and yes, quirky—people who work in a bookstore, so it was easy and fun to develop those characters. Primarily I wanted to write about a young, aspirant, bookish young woman recently out of college, and about the pressures of a recently widowed older woman who owns the store. My favorite character to write was Raymond Chaucer, a renowned British poet who has gotten himself in some trouble with his drinking and philandering. Raymond appeared in an earlier book that I wrote, The Stager, and may yet return!
What challenges did you encounter when adapting Acceptance into a television movie?
I did not write the screenplay for the adaptation of the novel, so it was fun, and something of a wonder, to watch the way that another writer chose to reinterpret the material. The screenwriter made choices that would probably not have occurred to me, such as using one of the characters to narrate the story, and thereby inverting the plot. The writer also gave that character’s mother—played by the hilarious Joan Cusack—a larger role, which really made the movie fly.
In what ways have your contributions to publications such as The Washington Post and The New York Times informed your narrative style?
Most of my work for The Washington Post and The New York Times has been in the form of book reviews, and being in the position of having to evaluate another writer’s work forces me to pay closer attention to the mechanics of novel writing. If I’m going to critique another writer for failing to keep the momentum going, plot-wise, for example, then I’d better be careful to do the same in my own work. It has made me a sharper reader and writer, I think, but I know how hard it is to keep all of the novelistic balls in the air, so it has also made me more compassionate.
How do you navigate the balance between comic absurdity and poignant themes across your diverse novels?
I’ve never been sure if it’s a gift or a curse, but no matter how tragic the subject, I wind up injecting humor into the narrative. My first novel, karlmarx.com, was intended as a historical novel about the suicide of Karl Marx’s youngest daughter, Eleanor. Somehow, it wound up being a comic novel set at a Washington, DC think tank. Similarly, Bookish People began with tragic events in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia, when a neo-Nazi, “unite the right” rally turned violent, resulting in the death of a young woman. I began writing from the point of view of the bookstore owner who is so rattled by these events that she decides to go into hiding in a nook inside her store. Perhaps because of the inclusion of the aforementioned perpetually broken vacuum cleaner, as well as the sometimes absurd goings on at the bookstore, the book wound up a comedy, while at the same time capturing the characters’ very real struggles.
