A Q&A With Lauren Groff, Author of October’s #1 Indie Next List Pick

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Booksellers have chosen Lauren Groff’s novel Fates and Furies (Riverhead) as their number one Indie Next List pick for October 2015. Written in two parts — “Fates” and “Furies”— that present two different perspectives, the novel tells the story of handsome, lovable Lotto and beautiful, mysterious Mathilde, seemingly perfect people whose marriage, the reader realizes, is much more complex, and troubled, than at first glance.

Fates and Furies, Groff’s third novel, was recently long-listed for the National Book Award for fiction. It has also received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, School Library Journal, and Booklist.

Tarah Jennings of Mitzi’s Books in Rapid City, South Dakota, called Fates and Furies “an engrossing and complex novel” in which “Groff crafts amazing, shocking sentences and brilliantly reveals the lies and deceit hiding behind the perfect façade.”

Earlier this month, Bookselling This Week spoke with Groff during a break from the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance trade show in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she participated in SIBA’s “Magical Writing” author panel.


Bookselling This Week: In Fates and Furies, you use elements of Greek mythology in the book’s structure, themes, and characters to tell the story of a marriage. How did you come to see Greek mythology as a good fit for your story?

Lauren Groff: The idea of the marriage actually came first. I was in the middle of my last book, Arcadia, when I started this one; I like to overlap projects because it makes it less stressful if the project doesn’t succeed. I started by putting up huge sheets of paper on my wall and writing Lotto’s side on one wall and then Mathilde’s on the other. Then I developed it by drawing and by putting up pictures and maps with the stories on each wall.

After about two or three drafts, I just happened to be taking a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) about the “Greek hero” and that led me to read The Iliad again. I had never read it as a cognizant adult; I’d only read it as an adolescent because I had to, but this time I was just blown away. It’s the most perfect piece of literature. That got me really revved up, and it led me to see other parallels and to reframe the idea of the story. I was playing with the idea of the tragic hero, and then I started playing with the idea of Greek mythology, but also Greek drama, too. There are a lot of references to Sophocles and Aeschylus in the story, and I was really having a great deal of fun almost playing against Lotto’s idea of himself as a tragic hero.

And then Mathilde: I think she has a completely different philosophy about life, and hers is more along the lines of the mythical Furies, rather than the mythical Fates. So it basically explored the idea of Lotto’s privilege and lack of insight into how much other people had given him in order for him to succeed, and then indirectly the marriage, because there is sort of an embedded tragedy within the story.

The Fates and the Furies part came up later. At first I had thought it was going to be two separate books, one called Fates and one called Furies, but they came together, and I think it works better as a book in and of itself.

BTW: You use the phrase “a matter of vision,” which seems to refer to the essential and unavoidable fact of personal perspective: there is the story that you tell yourself about you, and there is the story that other people tell themselves about you. It brings home the point that human relationships are extremely complex and mysterious, and can be understood better in the subtext. With that said, do you think that the story of any marriage could be written in the same way as you did for Lotto and Mathilde? 

LG: I definitely don’t think that most marriages are as dramatic as Lotto and Mathilde’s. We would all be living in an operatic, nonfunctional environment if that were true. But I do think that we’re all individuals within a collective, and when you put more than one person in a room, there are going to be two radically different takes on what’s happening. What’s so weird and special is the sort of murmur inside of our heads as we are living our lives, and it’s usually a rebellious little voice back there, resisting a lot that comes up to us in the world.

Going back to the beginning part of your question about “a matter of vision,” it doesn’t just mean the way one sees any particular given story or relationship; it’s also how close and how far one can see things. I think Lotto is a close looker; he sees the current moment and he doesn’t see very far, while Mathilde sees extremely far and extremely clearly, so it’s almost as if he’s this genial person on the ground and she’s watching from the top of a mountain. She’s able to see the effects of her actions on other people far into the future. So it’s basically a question of interpretation and empathy, too.

BTW: Some people might be put off by the character of Mathilde, but most readers will likely feel empathy toward her despite some of the darker revelations in the book. Is this something you intended or expected?

LG: Mathilde is complicated. I love her deeply. She’s flawed, but I have never met a human being who is not flawed. She does questionable things, I think, but she is very clear about what she wants. Some of the things that she does, which might seem from an outside perspective to come from immorality, come from a strong sense of herself and what power she has, how she can get herself to a different place where she can act more like, and be, the domestic and quiet person that she really is on the inside.

Obviously, I don’t think that people need to write likable characters. I think the most interesting characters — Emma Bovary, for instance, and even Anna Karenina — they’re not likable, but they’re compelling because you can sort of see why they have chosen to make the bad decisions that they make. Or they’re compelling because they are written deeply, and that was what I was trying to do with Mathilde. I was trying to write her as deeply as possible. I think that when you look at anybody on the planet, even people who you think that you hate, if you think about them deeply enough, with enough empathy, then you’ll find something to love. I think everybody is human and so everybody has something in them to cling to and to admire and to love.

BTW: Did you enjoy writing this book? What was the writing process like as you were going through it?

LG: I had so much fun writing this book. This was by far the most fun I have ever had with a book. I let myself be really loose in the first eight or nine drafts. I write longhand; I write many, many drafts, I throw out the drafts without reading them again; it’s the process that I have developed.

It just never felt like a chore because I came to it with such glee. I came to each part thinking: How do I find a mode that is absolutely appropriate to the story being told at the time? And how do I find the structure for this part that will make what I’m talking about even clearer or even more complex? I loved writing this book.

BTW: What’s next for you? Is it another novel? Is it a collection of stories?

LG: I have a really hard time writing on the road, so I’m doing some other stuff I have put off for a long time. Once I get home and can actually settle down and start thinking again… I’m in the middle of three projects and one of the projects is a short story collection, one is novel, and another one is … I don’t even know what it is. It hasn’t really formed into anything yet, but I really like some of the ideas in it, so we’ll see where it goes. Or it may not go anywhere and that is perfectly fine as well.

BTW: Do you enjoy visiting independent bookstores while out on a book tour? What have your experiences at indies been like since you began your career as a writer?

LG: It is my favorite thing on the planet. It’s the icing on the long, hot process of baking the cake to get to go and just talk to people who love books. Last night I was in Athens, Georgia, at Avid Bookshop and I had such a magnificent time.

It’s like going home to a place where there are more books than I can keep in my own house and there are people who are just so happy to talk about literature. It’s a pure joy and pleasure. I would do it 365 days a year if I could, from my house. I would send out my hologram!