This month we’re excited to bring you Monica McFawn’s captivating “Ornament and Crime,” the story of a family surviving the tyranny of a father’s taste for minimalism. It’s a sharp-witted tale that manages to bend something as lofty as aesthetics into strange, tender moments.
Monica lives in Michigan, where she teaches writing at Grand Valley State University. Her stories have appeared in places like The Georgia Review, Missouri Review, Web Conjunctions, and Gargoyle.
Her collection Bright Shards of Someplace Else won the 2013 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. The award’s series editor Nancy Zafris testifies that Monica’s stories “whip away that familiar rug under our feet and turn it into a magic carpet.”
We’re sure you’ll feel the same way.
AB: Let’s start with the title “Ornament and Crime,” which I believe is lifted from an essay by the architect Adolf Loos (thanks Wikipedia). Did the story lead you to the title, or was it the other way around? Talk to us about Modernism!
MM: The title came first. My boyfriend, Bob Marsh, who is an artist and studio furniture maker, mentioned the essay in passing. I was immediately taken by the title and began imagining what it might mean. “Is it about people who turn to crime because they’re so offended by ornamentation? Is it about militant minimalists, committing crimes in the name of good taste?” Bob shook his head no, but my inaccurate imaginings struck me as a good idea for a story.
The story is notionally about Modernism, but more broadly it’s about taste itself—the shifting force that drives movements in art, design, and writing. The strange thing about taste, especially when it comes to home furnishings, is that some people seem to have it and others don’t. I don’t mean this as an insult—I simply mean that some people strongly care about the visuals of their living space—the colors, the composition of the furniture in the room, the proportions of things—while other people are happy with whatever things they’ve happened to accumulate, in whatever formations they happen to be in.
I used to think that this was sad—it must be terrible not to have the wherewithal or desire to make a nice space. It seemed like a missing sense. But as I was conceiving the story, I thought about how taste itself is a kind of a burden, a way of seeing that can bring both pleasure and agitation.
AB: One of the things I love about this story is its ability to bend an aesthetic concern into a real emotional force. This pushes the characters into bizarre moments with surprising, new weight—“[my mother] sometimes had me wear different plaids from head to toe, or found several zippered pieces—pants, shirt, boots—and put them all on me at once.” There are others, of course. Do you remember how any particular scene came together?
MM: I remember writing the small moment about the kid cleaning the refrigerator. There was something poignant to me about this imaginative child, in this austere space, finding companionship in a smudge. I thought of how personality-filled objects and even dirt can seem, especially when you have nothing else to look at.
AB: Congratulations on your collection Bright Shards of Someplace Else, which just won the 2013 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction and is slated for publication with The University of Georgia Press in 2014. What can you tell us about these stories?
MM: It’s definitely an eclectic collection—both subject wise and stylistically. I was thrilled and a little shocked that a collection as varied as mine would find a publisher at all, much less win the Flannery. To give you an idea, one of the stories is about a biologist who becomes obsessed with the resemblance between abstract art and amoebas, another is about a dead horse that proves difficult to bury, another is about a mathematician who solves a famous proof, but is waylaid before he can share his discovery with the world, and so on. The stories do share a few preoccupations, however. I’ve always been fascinated by how little we truly know about the interior lives of others, even people we know well. What would it be like to listen in to someone else’s inner monologue? Would it even be comprehensible?
There was a really interesting article by Tim Krieder in the New York Times a few months ago about people’s tendency to simplify the thoughts and inner lives of others. One line really struck me, and I think it sums up the crux of the tension in my stories. “We don’t give other people credit for the same interior complexity we take for granted in ourselves, the same capacity for holding contradictory feelings in balance…” My stories are broadly about how people really love, fear, and are moved by their own misreadings of other people, not the people themselves.
AB: You host a great collection of essays at Litandart.com. One on the progression of art and science had a line that struck me: “What is considered progress in art and science is nearly opposite: while science moves forward to more accurate truths by building on certain theories and shucking others, the ‘progress’ of art (if you could call it that) involves simply inventing news ways interact with the unknown.” As a writer, does this bring you comfort, fear, or strike you some other way all together?
MM: I think it’s a comforting thought. Art is really about how to live in the face of somewhat terrifying unknowns, rather than try to solve or circumvent them. The same mysteries that fascinated people hundreds of years ago are essentially unchanged. We still aren’t sure why we’re here. We don’t know what happens when we die. We have a pretty small understanding of space. The best art makes all these unknowns feel sort of sparkling and exhilarating, an enchantment rather than a curse. I love Woody Allen, particularly because he makes the “big questions” feel like something to laugh at during a cocktail party, rather than weep about in a dark room. His work, like all good art, helps me not just cope with uncertainty, but to see its beauty and value. As a writer, I hope to do the same for someone else.
AB: Keeping with that idea, I wonder how you imagine the modern writing world. It’s been a historical trend to write towards or against something. Do you feel like that’s happening, and if so, do you want any part of it?
MM: This is an interesting question. I’m not sure I know the answer, but in general, I think fiction has moved toward greater indeterminacy and a softer structure. A lot of contemporary fiction I’ve read lately seems to be built from discrete scenes that could be rearranged without the story completely crumbling. Charles Baxter’s work would be a representative example. I think many writers try to bury or blur the structure of the story in order to create what feels like a more off-the-cuff, less fussily-crafted experience.
I like a lot of contemporary work that does this, including Baxter, but some stories are so arc-less and land so softly that they feel a little tame. I was quite obsessed with 19th century authors for much of my writing life (and still love Hawthorne) and this gave me a taste for work whose structure and plot devices are more obvious, and whose endings are more boldly drawn.
AB: Who are you reading now? What gets you excited when it comes to stories?
MM: I love short stories, and that’s the majority of what I read. Lately, I’ve been reading Rebecca Lee’s Bobcat, E.J. Levy’s Love in Theory, and whatever short story by Donald Antrim I can find in the New Yorker archives. I also recently finished Claire Messud’s The Woman Upstairs, which is a good representation of what excites me about stories. I’m drawn to stories that are philosophical in their orientation but voice-driven, to stories that are more theatrical than naturalistic. I like Antrim as well because he really uses artifice to get at something authentic.
There’s a saying in architecture—truth to materials—that basically means that building elements should be left exposed. The beams are beautiful—why obscure them with a drop ceiling? I tend to like stories where the materials of the structure—the plot contrivances, the backstory, etc, are apparent and used for artistic effect, rather than carefully folded into the action.
AB: I hear you’re at work on a play. What can you tell us about it?
MM: Last summer, I wrote a play in seven days in NYC with my friend Christopher Stephens, who is a voice and acting coach, a director, and six improv actors. Since then, I’ve reconceived the play as a screenplay. It’s called Snow Angel, and it’s about a woman who glimpsed heaven as a five year old, starred in a bestselling book about the experience, and is now plagued by a circus of people trying to get money and spiritual guidance out of her.
It’s a romantic comedy, something I’d never planned on writing. I thought such things were cheesy and commercial, but I had a great plot idea for one. So I thought: why not try it? After finishing my first screenplay, I now have nothing but respect for the writers of even the most groan-worthy romantic comedies. Even a so-so movie is a real technical achievement, because screenwriting requires a sophisticated understanding of story arc and timing, and there’s little margin for error. I also learned a great deal by writing jokes. I had the script read this month at the Public House Theatre in Chicago, and it’s simply fascinating to hear what people do and don’t laugh at.
AB: The internet gave me this gift of a sentence: “In her spare time, McFawn trains her Welsh Cob cross pony in dressage and jumping.” Please elaborate.
MM: Yes, I have a horse! His name is Eragon, and he’s six now. I’ve trained him from the ground up. I’ve always been a serious equestrian—I still take riding lessons, and have competed in dressage and eventing. I mostly train Eragon in dressage, a highly specialized form of riding which requires complete harmony and trust between horse and rider. Eragon’s a bold, sassy, in-your-face type of horse, and I’m a quiet, reflective type of rider, so the training journey hasn’t always been easy for either of us. But I love how horses really knock you out of your head space. They read emotions well and react to negativity or fear in sometimes unpleasant ways. I’m an internal person—very much in my own world—so I think I really benefit from the emotionally raw and demanding presence of a horse.
For a long time, I worried my considerable passion for horses—and the money and time I spend on them—meant I wasn’t a “real” writer. I’m out there for several hours, several days a week, time I could theoretically be writing. I’ve actually had people tell me that I should quit riding if I really want to “make it” as a writer. But being a writer, I think, is about being a passionate, engaged person out in the world, not just in front of the screen.
Andrew Bales lives and writes in Wichita, Kansas. He teaches English courses at Wichita State University and serves as an Assistant Editor at American Short Fiction and an Associate Editor for NANO Fiction. His radio segment Into It airs regularly on 89.1 KMUW and is rebroadcasted through PRX.