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| (photo: Theo Cote) | |
Lydia Davis has published a novel, The End of the Story (1995); two volumes of essays; multiple collections of short stories, many of them flash length; and several notable translations, including Swann's Way and Madame Bovary, both awarded the French-American Foundation Translation Prize. Among her other honors are the Chevalier and Officier of the Order of Arts and Letters designations from the French government, and the 2020 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. Davis is a professor emerita at SUNY Albany. Our Strangers, her latest collection of 143 flash stories, focusing primarily on small-town life, is the inaugural publication from Bookshop Editions, to be released on October 3, 2023.
Tell us about the publishing arrangement with Bookshop.org--how did that come about, and what made you passionate about liaising with independent bookstores? Do you think of this as a symbolic protest, or as a practical change of course? Do you hope other authors will follow suit?
Although I was delighted by Amazon and their one-click ordering back in the '90s, over the years, I gradually came to realize how destructive they were, of smaller businesses and also of the idea of community in general. At the same time, they were in fact becoming more and more destructive. Many years ago, I began choosing not to buy through them. Late in 2021, just as my second book of essays was coming out, I realized I should not be allowing them to sell my books, either. I vowed that the next book would not serve to contribute to Amazon's vast wealth and poor business practices. My decision was born of a deep revulsion--whether it sets an example or is merely symbolic, it was simply something I had to do. I was fortunate that my agent was of the same mind and that she then found Andy Hunter [founder and CEO of Bookshop.org], who was on board to publish my book. Many publishers can't avoid working with Amazon--their hands are tied.
What is the particular appeal of flash stories? What are some of the advantages and challenges?
I came to write very short stories after writing longer, more conventional stories. I liked their concision and flexibility. I still return to longer stories when the material demands that form. More than anything, the length and form of the stories is in response to the material that inspires them--either brief and momentary or longer and more complex. The challenge of the very short story, of course, is that every word counts even more than in a longer story--as do the syntax, the paragraphing choices, the punctuation marks. I often revise and revisit many times a story of only a few sentences, or a single sentence.
The majority of these stories first appeared in other publications, and there is such a variety of genre and theme, though with linking elements and overarching concerns. When it came to putting together a collection, what was your strategy for structuring them?
This book has even more stories than previous books, I think--in part because I waited so long to gather together another collection. So organizing the book was even more difficult. As with other collections, I punctuated the whole with clusters of similar stories, such as the "Claim to Fame" stories, and put longer stories a little later in the book. In this one, unlike others, I decided on a roughly (very roughly) chronological order, so that stories inspired by material from earlier periods in my life came earlier in the book. I say "roughly" because I did not always follow that principle. And there are plenty of stories that are not autobiographical but are based on something I read in the news, or dreamed, for instance.
To what extent do you keep reader expectations in mind while writing--whether to affirm or subvert them? I'm thinking especially of "Master Builder."
I don't actually think of a reader outside myself while I'm writing. But I'm sure I have internalized "the reader," or joined that reader and become another reader. For instance, in the story you mentioned--which involves a fine craftsman working in a way that is actually destructive of an old house--I'm the one who first reacted to the work he was doing in this paradoxical situation, and then attempted to write it so that someone else--another reader--could react in the same way. I am struck by the experience in the first place, then try to transmit it artfully, through a story, in such a way as to allow someone else to share my enjoyment (or pain!).
Many of the stories are based on small-town encounters and everyday observations. Did you glean these from your own experiences?
Many are from my own experiences--some in my present village but many in earlier places I've lived, both towns and cities. But other encounters and observations are taken from my reading or from friends' experiences. Anything that strikes me, I write down in a notebook or on a scrap of paper. I let the note rest for a while, then, when I read it again, if it still strikes me as interesting, I shape it into a story.
You're renowned as a translator as well as a writer of fiction. How has your translation work influenced your fiction (or vice versa)--such as giving you a greater than average interest in word choice, or a better chance of "getting your ear in" to how people speak (e.g., in "On the Train to Stavanger")?
I can think of translation as a particularly intriguing and absorbing language puzzle. It is a challenge because of the tight constraint--having to reproduce what someone else has written. Yes, it's true that that constraint, in a pleasurable way, taxes my ingenuity in finding just the right word, the right phrase, and the right syntax, and also requires me to return again and again to the dictionary and explore etymologies in a way that my own writing does not require. It also takes me outside my own language and returns me to it again, so that it is always fresh. --Rebecca Foster