In “Hansa and Gretyl and Piece of Shit,” your story in this week’s issue, Gretyl is the youngest of three sisters who have grown up in a slightly disturbing family. One notable thing about them is that, when the story begins, Gretyl—like the other sisters before her—is experiencing the pains that accompany appendicitis, a condition that her parents seem intent on ignoring. Some of the names, of course, are taken from fairy tales, and some elements of the story seem fairy-tale-like. How do you go about mixing the realistic with the fantastic, and what kind of considerations come into play?
Many things that some might consider fantastic I consider reality. Things like one of a pair of twins, or siblings, or just close friends, sensing, across great distance, when the other one’s in danger or need seems “real” to me; that some people might have ESP, or have dreams that foretell the future, or be able to use tarot cards to predict and know things, seems “real.” I don’t have ESP myself, and I’ve never seen a ghost. But I know people who do, or have, and I believe in these things. My belief makes mixing the “real” and “fantastic” easier, because I’m simple enough to believe that it’s all real. Biology is a soft science. There is so much that we don’t understand—the connections between intention and physical manifestation, the power of the human mind. There is a book I love called “Extraordinary Knowing,” by Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer, about studies done in the area of ESP and the efficacy of directed intent that is fascinating.
I wanted to write a story about a teen-age girl with appendicitis, and I wasn’t sure how to tell it. I wanted it to be simple and linear. I feared that, by itself, the story might be too spartan or grim. I ran through various plot frames in my mind—all the classic fairy tales, fables, and classic novels, like “Dracula,” “Frankenstein,” “Hamlet”—to see if any might mesh with an appendicitis story. “Hansel and Gretel,” which I’ve always loved, seemed to fit. I reread the Grimm Brothers’ version and also a much older version called “Finette Cendron,” in which both parents are blood parents (no evil stepmother) and an ogre, not a witch, lives in a castle made of gems, not a cottage made of sweets. I identified common threads. I felt that my protagonist’s parents (like those in “Hansel and Gretel”) might feel too deprived or needy to be able to support children—might feel, for various reasons, that getting rid of a child would aid them. Setting a house in a wooded area was easy. Using names from the fairy tale was easy, and would let the reader know that I was trying to tell (or retell) a “Hansel and Gretel” story. I thought of how “Pan’s Labyrinth” uses a young girl’s dreams and imagination to allow magical things to “happen” without breaking the rules of reality. I hoped that letting Gretyl go on magical trips to the mountain in her dreams/delirium broke up the housebound claustrophobia of the story. It also allowed me to insert some “Hansel and Gretel” elements (the ogress in the cottage of gems). I borrowed two lines directly from the fairy tale: “He who says Yes to A must also say Yes to B,” from the Grimm Brothers’ version, and “You’re lucky my husband’s not here, I’m better than him,” from “Finette Cendron.”
And what about the third sister, Piece of Shit? How does that name, with its plain bluntness, play into the story?
I think there’s a literary tradition of having a character in a story or novel who is a writer, clerk, or journalist (to some extent, a stand-in for the author) and a “loser,” with a matching name. In Gogol’s story “The Overcoat,” the narrator explains at great length that Akaky Akakievich (the story’s protagonist) is such an unlucky baby that his family can’t even find a name for him, and he ends up with the worst possible one. Isaac Bashevis Singer sometimes gave his characters ridiculous names, most famously Gimpel the Fool. Sam Lipsyte’s protagonist in his unforgettable and hilarious novel “Home Land” is called Teabag. In the most contemporary version of “Hansel and Gretel” there are only two siblings, but in the earlier version, “Finette Cendron,” there are three, so I decided to add a sister and give her a ridiculous name.
Certain details—talk of Y2K, the presence of BlackBerrys, the picture-in-picture function on the TV—indicate that we’re around the turn of the century. What made you set the story in this near-past time frame?
Setting the story around the “turn of the century”—sounds so romantic!—was easy-ish, because I was around then and remember it. Setting the story then helped me because, in the late nineteen-nineties, there were no cell phones (or very few). So Gretyl wouldn’t have her own phone, and she couldn’t necessarily access her parents’ phone without their consent.
Why are all the adults in the story—save, perhaps, one or two—malevolent? If Gretyl survives into the world of adults, what kind of world is she growing up into?
I have what my husband tells me is a very “liberal” belief that there are no evil people, only sick ones, and ones who are genetically mentally deficient. We don’t blame people who are born with Down syndrome for being the way they are, but we do blame serial killers for being the way they are. Yet, according to some studies, we can track genetic differences in the brains of serial killers and psychopaths that clearly show deficiencies—of gray matter, in the areas of the brain devoted to remorse, recognition of social prohibitions, empathy, etc.—that control, perhaps even compel, their actions. Gretyl is unlucky, insofar as her parents are not the best. But people like them certainly exist. And if Gretyl had nicer parents (and better pediatricians) there would be no story. I believe that, when Gretyl grows up, she will meet nicer adults and more competent doctors.
