Author Jane Hamilton had a quick response when asked why she is a novelist.
“I don’t want to get dressed up and work with real colleagues,” she said to laughs from an audience of about 60 at Lake Forest Academy last week.
Hamilton and author Gail Tsukiyama spoke on April 11 as part of Write 4 Courage/Speak 2 Courage, a series of talks being given this school year, said Patrick Finnessy, master chair in English, who moderated. Both authors have spent time at the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, Finnessy said.
Hamilton has had seven novels published, according to her website, including “The Book of Ruth” in 1989, which received the PEN Hemingway award for first fiction, and “A Map of the World.”
Explaining why she is a novelist, Tsukiyama said: “It’s something from within. We cannot not write.”
Tsukiyama has also had seven novels published, according to www.Bookreporter.com
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, the latest being “A Hundred Flowers.”But Tsukiyama joked that she’s not completely secure in her profession.
“I was in CostCo the other day watching the person ring up my purchase, and I said, ‘I could do that,'” Tsukiyama said. “I’m always looking for a back-up.”
Asked about inspiration, both authors replied that strong feelings motivated them in their earlier years.
“When I was younger, I was filled with rage and that was my fuel,” Hamilton said. “Now I’m much more interested in form and the structure that holds the narrative.”
“As you get older, it changes,” Tsukiyama said. “(Strong emotion) gets leveled out.”
Asked how they’ve changed as writers, Hamilton says she thinks she’s become funnier.
“When I was younger, I was very deep and serious and wrestling with the big subjects,” Hamilton said. “I feel I’ve become more attuned to the wondrous absurdity of being on this planet.”
“I think I have become a more complicated writer,” Tsukiyama said. “I used to be really free-form. Now I think in terms of structure. What am I going to cover, what do I want to say.”
Both authors agreed there are challenges to writing. Tsukiyama spoke of always looking for something different.
“You can fall into a niche and never be able to get out of it,” Tsukiyama said.
“After 9/11, it seemed like, who wanted to write about family dysfunction?” Hamilton said. “What is someone who writes the kind of books I write going to write about now? That took a while to figure out. I had a period of seven years where everything I wrote was terrible. That was very painful.”
Attendee Denise Foster said she found the talk intriguing.
“It was interesting to see the personality behind the writing,” Foster said.
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