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Interview
Marlene Evangeline

With a love of literary philosophy and a gift for language that few possess, Marlene Evangeline seems to have everything she needs (well, everything for which a poet and writer would wish), and she is certainly poised and ready for the next installment in a life that has hitherto been anything but dull. There is a sense of impending fame about her, thereby making her, among other things, the perfect choice for this, our inaugural boox interview.

We caught up with her recently, just after her latest release began to see some press ("The Whiskey Eaters" -- see our review, the boox reviews section, adult fiction link), and asked her to first set the scene for us in her own words.

EVANGELINE: If it were raining, you would step over the leak by the refrigerator, then I'd move my leather satchel, gym bag, and Bugatti briefcase that I keep in the dinette seat across from where I work. You would not be entirely comfortable; this 1971 Dodge Class C motorhome is about 18 feet long. It’s old, rotted, leaky, and entirely inappropriate for anything, but it’s free. I've a phone, fax, and electricity, but no toilet, water, or cooking facility. I work out at the gym, and have become creative for my more primal needs. Currently I am renovating a 35-foot bus, self-contained, with all the more human comforts, and hope to move into it in the next few weeks.

BOOX: We notice from your bio in "The Whiskey Eaters" that you are a Southern California native and that you raised your daughter in Wyoming. Was the initial decision to move there by choice or circumstance?

EVANGELINE: I moved to Wyoming shortly after being busted for growing a substantial sized crop of marijuana in Lake County in 1979. Right after that happened I met a skier/outdoor/hard drinking Wyoming guy who asked me and my daughter to go back to Wyoming with him. The timing was right. We went. Three years later, after I spent forty days in Lake County Jail, and, well after that relationship ended, I looked very hard at returning to California, and decided that it wasn't really the place I wanted to raise my daughter. We lived in Wilson, Wyoming then (a VERY small town), my daughter was settled in school, and happy with her friends. The small community was much like an extended family at that time, and, I'd grown to love Wyoming for the security it offered in that way. Today, my daughter is grown, and I find the coastal climate more suitable, almost addictive, I really love being near the ocean, and hope someday to be on it. I've a 50-foot Navy Utility Boat, that someone has just GIVEN me, and I plan to make it livable this next year, and live aboard as a way to survive in the rather expensive rental climate here. I've no plans to move on. Ever. I've landed, and the moment I live for is the "creative moment."

BOOX: What about your childhood? Can you sketch for us the most joyous moment? How about the most painful?

EVANGELINE: Although I talk much about joy and delight, and suffering and sorrow, in my “Poetics of Modern Fiction,” I do so in an intellectual fashion, and I found relating it to my life took some searching. Joy is a very big word, I think, and is a hard one to honestly describe. When I was very young, 2ish or 3ish, my parents would take a blanket to the front yard, where the grass was, and put me in the middle of it. Then they'd each hold the corners on each side, and toss me in the blanket as high as they could. And, they continued this to 4ish or 5ish. I never wanted them to stop, ever, urging them to throw me higher and higher. That feeling of suspension, weightlessness, lightness, in the midst of the laughing voices of my mother and father, those moments were joyous moments. As I remember this now it was like being suspended in that laughter, those moments of sheer delight, that excruciating lightness.

BOOX: How, if at all, did these specific moments influence your writing?

EVANGELINE: This lightness returns only in the writing process, suspension in the moment of word; thought, expression is something that makes me feel weightless, suspended perhaps in another dimension, unattached to what I feel is grim or weighted in the world. Your question brings this to bear in an interesting way, and yes, I think this is something I've sought, perhaps unconsciously, as a way to recreate that feeling, that suspension away from the world, that place of light. I think I was born with an old soul, and, one day, I disobeyed my father, and took off to see my mom at work. I had reasoned it out in my mind, in a rather sophisticated way for a five-year-old, why this was acceptable behavior, but I got in a lot of trouble for it. It was extremely painful to me to find that my perfectly logical (to my mind) action caused so much discomfort to everyone. Following rules has never been my strong point. I still find it painful to follow any rules except my own.

BOOX: So whom do you read? What are you reading now? Any rules there?

EVANGELINE: I've been browsing through “WormHoles,” a collection of essays by John Fowles. He is also the author of some of my favorites: "The French Lieutenant's Woman," "The Collector," and "The Clouds," a short story in "The Ebony Tower." I can pick up Proust at any moment and get lost, and, too, D.H. Lawrence. I read and reread. I'm rather fond of the old Brits it seems; Hardy is another favorite of mine. Actually, I go back and reread passages of my favorites when I can, just for the joy of the reading – but we all do this – I’m also reading "The Life and Death of Che Guevara" by Jorge Castaneda, part of the research for my novel-in-progress. I just read "Queer," by William Boroughs for the first time and loved it. Of late, I've been doing more browsing through books than anything, or picking short things like "Queer": my day-to-day survival has taken more time than I'm used to, living in this parking lot, and spending a lot of energy doing things that normally one would barely think about – washing my hands for instance. I'm also fond of Russell Banks. Of late, I've felt a bit like Flora Pease, one of the characters in his novel, "Trailerpark": she's this woman who breeds all these guinea pigs in this tiny trailer -- a portrait of genuine squalor, and of course, there's this fire, and all the guinea pigs burn. Anyway, I laugh when I tell people this story although it's not entirely funny. That I'm relating my life to Flora Pease is a genuine absurdity, but unfortunately an absurdity with validity. There is certain irony in it for me, as I've always strived for such excellence in everything, and this last year has really brought the dynamic of circumstance and timing into such a profound light, that it staggers me as a writer, and, has brought terms such as will and fate and predestination into the forefront of my thought. Philosophically I have found the experience extraordinary; because I am at the end of it, I can say this: this has not always been so. But many things conspired, happened, that made the normal mode of help impossible: my mother's husband had a stroke, she was involved in his care: so I couldn't ask to stay there. It would simply have been too much for her. Another friend saw the slide, and turned away. Someone I would have always thought would be there. Things happened in an extraordinary manner, and all, to my regret, and certain astonishment.

BOOX: In terms of your own work, there's been a novel, a novella, poem collections, "The Whiskey Eaters" stories: Did you make conscious choices to work on the forms you did when you did? For example, it looks like your next move, following "The Whiskey Eaters," may be a collection of poems and essays? Are there internal rules to this order?

EVANGELINE: No, no internal rules, and sometimes, the vague plan gets wrecked for one reason or another. For instance, when I returned to Wyoming this last year I planned on finishing my novel-in-progress, “Requiem,” and then, the interest in the short stories blossomed and prompted me to drop the novel, revise and complete the collection of stories. Then I planned to go back to the novel-in-progress when I got to California, but I lost my job, and ended up camping out of the back of my car for four entire months. During this time, I was so angry about losing the job, having no roof, that I swore I wouldn't write about the experience. I was just angry, and didn't want to subsidize what was happening. Well, I had to. I'm a writer and I gave in to that part of myself. I started the novel (perhaps it’s a novella – it’s around 65,000 words – “The Dance of the Steel Trains”) on August 12th, and it chronicles this period of my life. The novel is in third person, a very experimental stream-of-consciousness type piece about an over-educated woman on the skids. The title comes from the freight trains that use to pass by the place I use to park and camp along Seacliff Beach, the stretch where the RV's park. A freight train used to pass around four in the morning, stop on the tracks, and clank, and moan, changing tracks or something I guess, but the sound seemed to last for the longest time, always waking me up: that was the dance of the steel trains, and this novel is as unusual as it gets. I wrote in libraries, at Starbucks, parked at the beach in the back of my car, in parks, wherever I could. Sometimes I wrote in hotel lobby's or restaurants, I spent a lot of time at the Montecito Library writing on the comfortable couch, all the time doing the last editing on the collection of short stories (blue line, etc.), in the midst, still, of the monumental task of living without a roof and plumbing. And too, I had to sneak to sleep overnight, because that stretch of beach is designated for RV's, so I'd go there after it got dark, and leave about five-thirty in the morning, before the rangers showed up for work. I'd go to Starbucks then and start my morning of writing. Often, I couldn't afford coffee; I'd just sit and write, and then leave. When I was happy with the day’s odd offering, and that stream of consciousness piece became this extraordinary platform where anything went, I found, as I wrote it, that it had such a unique, unbearably original dynamic that it kept startling me: the thematic things that arose in the writing of this novel are extraordinary monuments to the human organism’s will to survive and the extents that being goes to preserve itself. So, basically I unleashed thought entirely, and kept it all, all the anger, all the fear, all the longing, all the startling injustice of it, and I have not edited one word except for spelling. The novel is as it was written in those moments. And, I'm very proud of it because of that brash honesty. I showered then at the parks, at little Mexican trailer park off the freeway in Carpinteria, sometimes at harbors in Santa Barbara or Channel Islands, and then, catching my e-mail at the libraries. I read my blue line draft at Starbucks in Montecito, and spent a lot of time at the Starbucks in Carpinteria, writing in those great wingback chairs. I ended the novel on the eve of the millennium as a gesture to the new millennium coming, and, my great hope it couldn't be as tough for the just plain grit of getting through the days. And now, I do need to look at the poems and essays again, but it’s editing time, and I put it off.

BOOX: Do you otherwise have a writing routine now? If so, how tightly is it structured? During periods of block, when the words simply will not flow, what do you do to overcome it, and moreover, what do you find yourself wishing you could be doing instead?

EVANGELINE: I never have periods of block; my words are always there when I want them. I simply don't believe in Writer's Block: I've learned to value my own thoughts and ideas, ALWAYS, and I think that has something to do with people who get blocked, but since I don't experience it – ever – I cannot comment on it successfully. But I think too, that I honor my creative mind so highly that I know when to stop writing, and, say go to the gym, which is a highly creative place for me. I may write several pages, or even paragraphs of a story, or novel, or perhaps stanzas in a poem, and then stop, go to the gym, work out. What I have just written is still in my mind, and, the repetitive nature of say the Stairmaster or whatever, unleashes ideas, thought, words, and, then, those words, thoughts, ideas, may or may not get taken up in my next days writing and may or may not refer to the day's writing I've already done. When one is in touch with themselves as a writer, I think a certain rhythm develops, perhaps an internal rhythm, like a beat, and a day’s writing for me is a full beat, or perhaps two or three, and that rhythm develops as one develops as a writer. Then, a fixed schedule isn't necessary because your internal clock or metronome or whatever you might want to call it just sort of knows when to finish the beat, the day's writing. I like to think of it like a kind of percussion, jazz, some sort of syncopation that happens to word and thought and I just let it happen. But that's the kind of writer I am – and I worry for writers that don't allow themselves or haven't given themselves the permission to really write. That is what writing is for me, the syncopation of word and thought and idea and sound and language: and yes, it takes a lot of writerly time to get to that place: it has to develop, and it takes writing lots and lots of words to know how to honor them. And it takes reading lots and lots of words to know how to honor them. Thousand and thousands of words. Often times, I may jot notes of an idea that arises, and this is always best, and then use it when I write again, or use the idea later at another time. If I'm writing, I never want to be doing anything else, except perhaps move and get the kinks out of my legs. My life is pretty much used up between writing and exercise and writing again. I find editing a real chore, and I don't like to do it. Editing I'll avoid like the plague, but eventually, I have to sit down and do it or it just won't get done. I find I like to write in the early mornings, take a break at the gym, then on to the other chores of the day. I've just finished editing a novella, and, my next project is to continue my novel in progress, “Requiem.” I think of this as my epic work, and I've given myself a three year time period for the complete novel (I'm certain I'll complete it in less). There is a luxury with this work I haven't allowed myself before, as I'm often under the pressure of my own unimaginable deadlines. I've promised myself to give Requiem a slow steady pace, and this novel requires research, so it really demands all the above, but the story is intense and complicated and set in South, Central and North America.

BOOX: Of your published works, do you have a favorite? If so, what makes it so?

EVANGELINE: That's a very difficult question because in the process of writing something, I'm always deeply in love, enchanted really, with that particular thing, whether it be a story, a poem, an essay, or a novel. I think writing is a very seductive experience, sensual, and, being lost in the moment of forming words into stories or characters or poems creates a sort of desire for that particular thing or perhaps the moment of creating that thing. So that desire is much a passion that eventually diminishes because something else has taken its place, one eventually has to end a poem or story, and go on to the next, and the passion then is for what is new. So my answer must be that I love best what I am writing, but, I do have a long story, or short novella, that I favor because it defines a moment in my life that changed it forever, and that novella fades between the past and present in a rather intoxicating manner, and, that intoxication is what I love about that story: “Bonny Doon.”

BOOX: Where do most of your ideas come from? Is there a common source?

EVANGELINE: I don't think so. I allow myself the freedom to glean ideas from any source: and I always follow an uncomfortable idea, the notions that challenge conventional behavior or mores: the raw stuff. Perhaps, if there is anything like a common source it would be a sense of loss, and once it seemed I felt I knew where that loss came from, but now it’s more vague, and I think I've felt it since childhood, and so I can't put my finger on what that loss is, but I've always felt it existed. Philosophically I think the human condition is formed by accumulations of loss: any other type of accumulation seems transitory and unstable. I understood this before this last year, but now, after the experience I've endured, I know it on a much deeper level, and so that is what I mean about fate because had this year not existed I would not have it in my writerly bones like I do now. And yet, never, on any level would I have ever sought it. I abhor discomfort on a personal level, but on a writerly level, I use it like manna. I've always felt life could ease up a bit, cause I've basically got the stuff to write for an eternity, but the tough stuff hasn't quit entirely.

BOOX: With respect to “The Whiskey Eaters,” is there a character within that you find yourself most endeared to? If so, why specifically attracts you?

EVANGELINE: Yes, I like the narrator in “Places,” and I like her because she refuses to re-enter the world. Really, it’s as if she has written herself right off the page, suspended herself in another dimension. She cannot be reached really, and that dimension seems to appeal to her.

BOOX: I loved "Midnight Plums" in “The Whiskey Eaters.” Can you tell us how that one came about?

EVANGELINE: “Midnight Plums” was written to serve the great title, “Midnight Plums.” The title came out of nowhere really. Suddenly it was before me, and I loved it. I was at the University of Alabama, at the Writer's Workshop taking a class from Ted Solotaroff, called Forms of Fiction. Ted had been a senior editor at HarperCollins for ten years, has edited “The Best American Short Stories,” worked with Raymond Carver, Saul Bellow, and other notable writers. The story served as an assignment in that class, and in a way, was written for Ted. So the dynamics of the story include much of what he was teaching about story: the dynamic of predictability and surprise, two elements Ted always spoke of in class. On this story in the margins of the first draft, Ted wrote, “There is no free lunch in writing fiction.” I do not remember the passage he wrote that about, but what he didn't mention was there are oftentimes no lunch at all. I think most writers are in more stable surroundings than myself; most of my writing friends have a spouse supporting them, I sort of wing it on my own. And I think “Midnight Plums” gets to disarming places, and that's what I like about that work.

BOOX: What is most important to you right now? What are your life passions?

EVANGELINE: Finding plumbing and a bed and a phone all under the same roof. My daughter, certainly, and aside from her, we've been talking about my passion all along. Writing is passion, desire, sorrow, suffering, joy, all those things, and the ability to put those things in the architecture of a novel or story or poem is a never- ending delight.

BOOX: As a human, what is your biggest strength? Weakness?

EVANGELINE: My fierce independence is my biggest strength and perhaps my biggest enemy. Most of the time I feel like the steel trains in my latest novel. Weakness does not seem to be an issue with me, I've endured some unimaginable experiences of late: that translates to strength on all levels.

BOOX: When you through here on Earth, what will be your epitaph?

EVANGELINE: Here lies the immortal poet, Evangeline.

For more information about Marlene, please click here

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