Yes, we’re suckers for any writing that incorporates food, but it was the apt depiction of a marriage beginning to stagnate—and the surprising amount of tension it generates—that made us choose “Menu” as our January Web Exclusive flash fiction. We spoke with author Peter Grimes about writing and pursuing the tenure track . . . and, of course, about food. Obviously.
Erin McReynolds: The strains of marriage is such a familiar trope, but with “Menu,” you found a way in that was subtle and engaging. How did this come to you?
Peter Grimes: My wife and I were living in Dickinson, North Dakota, at the time. Before Dickinson, I was accustomed to mid-sized or large cities—Asheville, NC; Cincinnati; Philadelphia—so small-town life was a challenge.
One of our few outing possibilities was a nice restaurant. Since we ate there often, I probably started thinking about what it meant to us, why we did it, if we depended on it in some way. Looking at the menu, glancing around in the dim lighting, I pretended to be in another town, another place. It all started to suggest the marriage metaphor.
It’s always easier to create conflict in fiction with two characters than one, but maybe at base writing the story was more me questioning my obsession with trying new things. For someone who doesn’t like change (I’ve been told), I seek it out all the time—drive different ways to and from any destination, rarely re-read books, all that variety-is-the-spice-of-life stuff. Maybe I’m only comfortable with superficial, daily change. I don’t know. I guess that’s true. Maybe trying new menu items is some sort of defense mechanism, me trying to convince myself that big changes—loss, basically, in its many forms—are A-okay with me.
EM: How long did it take you to write “Menu”?
PG: I am not sure. I vaguely recollect writing most of a draft in one very lengthy sitting, starting early in the morning before the worries of the day capture me. Probably I came back and finished up the draft the next day, but I don’t remember exactly. After having a draft, I would have picked at it over the next several days and weeks until it felt like it was something.
EM: I’ve found that writing about food can also be tricky—it’s tempting to get too deep into the sensory details, but I personally prefer the writer just name dishes and ingredients (like you do here) and let me, the reader, imagine it. What’s your take on food in stories?
PG: I love food in stories (and vivid setting in general), but I agree with you that food descriptions can take over and become self-indulgent. Sometimes (in real life) I get hypersensitive to the sounds of people eating around me. All those wet noises and clinking sounds, the feasting. It makes my skin crawl. Reading self-indulgent food descriptions can make me feel that way. But in my own writing I mainly just name dishes because I’m not much of a foodie, so I lack the vocabulary for in-depth food description.
EM: Ugh, mouth noises. I go insane. And I think the only person who can get away with florid descriptions of food is Brillat-Savarin. But the French kind of sweep the awards where writing carnally is concerned. Do you have any favorite authors or books in terms of sensory detail?
PG: I remember being captivated in elementary school by the post-carnival scene in Charlotte’s Web when Templeton, the rat, creeps around the fairgrounds enjoying the refuse—half slices of pizza, melted ice cream, slush at the bottom of a paper cup. I must not have encountered such a sensual description of trash before, but it made sense to me that a rat would see it that way—one of my early discoveries of point of view. I think it made me hungry.
Another pivotal reading experience for me in terms of sensual detail was Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News, a book I’ve long intended to re-read. Thinking back, I can’t say I remember anything about the plot, only the outsider protagonist, Quoyle, arriving in the harsh-yet-beautiful landscape of Newfoundland, his ancestral home, the daily rigors of life there. The sailor’s knots described in exquisite detail. I have a sense, too, that Quoyle’s body was vividly written.
As for a food story, I recall reading a few collections by T. C. Boyle as my entrée into contemporary literary fiction. His story “Sorry Fugu,” from If the River Was Whiskey, features a chef trying to impress a food critic. What stood out to me was the moment the chef tries to occupy the critic’s boyfriend, who has no interest in fancy food, with what he describes as “shanty Irish” food: some overcooked steak and flavorless peas. The boyfriend loves it, and I loved reading his act of devouring it.
EM: Okay, the dishes in your story—are any of these dishes you have personal experiences with? Do you really stress-eat pepper jack curds?
PG: The restaurant we went to in Dickinson had something called chizlets and cheese—chunks of meat and deep-fried cheese curds. I don’t eat beef, so my wife ate the chizlets, and I ate the cheese (Jack Sprat and all that). They weren’t pepper jack. Most of the food in that story I’d either tasted at some point, heard about, or semi-invented. The Dickinson restaurant wasn’t too cutting edge, to be honest. A basic steak house—so I was limited to a few over-priced vegetarian items when we ate there. Mostly I liked the ambience.
About the stress-eating, though, food is definitely a comfort for me. Maybe that’s why I generally like reading about it, in small doses. That makes me wonder if any writers are known for their “shelter” descriptions, since humans need that as much as food. In fact, I finally just read Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, and one of her shelter descriptions—the creepy ranger’s station in the last few chapters—did make me long to be in that fire-blazed room even though I was comfortably ensconced in my own bed. Hmmm.
EM: That’s funny, I just re-read Wild and I know exactly what you mean. I think you’re onto something—we fetishize shelter in reality TV shows on HGTV, etc., but we haven’t seen much compelling fiction involving shelter. As a professor of writing, what trends would you say you see among your students’ work? What themes are they attracted to?
PG: One of my mentors, Padgett Powell, told me once that he encouraged students to write about what interested them, even if those topics didn’t particularly interest him. I agreed with that advice. My students are interested in many topics you might expect 18–22 year-olds to be interested in: relationships/break-ups, technology gone wild, the tragic dimension of overzealous parenting. Many are drawn to fantasy worlds full of heroic, vaguely medieval figures. Many like to write mysteries or detective stories that are loosely based on Law and Order or CSI. I find myself telling them frequently to remember that regular characters are more interesting when they have regular jobs and live in places with names and physical features, when they want something tangible. Mostly I assign and evaluate work based on formal considerations—plot, POV, characterization, conflict—leaving topic entirely open to them. Maybe, though, I should throw out some required topics from time to time, to get them writing about something unfamiliar. Write a story about chinchillas. Set your story in the 1930s, rural South Carolina. Make your protagonist a window cleaner. Maybe I’d start reading more fiction set outside of the dorm room.
EM: Oof. One hopes. You’re pretty prolific—in the last year alone you’ve published 11 stories, including this one. How do you do this and teach and work on your novel and Pembroke Magazine? I feel I’ve earned a long Netflix break if I just write three pages and do the dishes in the same day. Can I eat your still-beating heart or something?
PG: Last year and the year before, my final two years in Dickinson, I’d figured out at last how to juggle a faculty position and writing. I started at Dickinson State University in the fall of 2011, so it took me five years. This year is my first at a new school, and it’s definitely been busy. No writing whatsoever. I’m looking forward to an extra prolific summer. So, in answer to your question, I haven’t yet figured out how to consistently balance writing, teaching, and life. Give me a few years at my new school. It’ll happen. Seriously, though. Three pages a day is more than I do. I need to learn from you.
EM: [Cough] That was three pages in one day, not necessarily per day. What should writers who are interested in pursuing teaching at the collegiate level know before they go down that road?
PG: Teaching at the collegiate level can be wonderful—working with smart and talented people, summers off. I have been lucky enough to get a tenure-track job, with all its security and freedom. As everyone knows, there aren’t nearly enough TT jobs to accommodate the MFA and PhD graduates who would like to have one.
That’s the first concern, frankly. I wish more MFA programs guided students through post-graduate career options outside of academia. Many get experience teaching as TAs and say, Well, I might as well stay in academia since I liked teaching this class. It’s a big risk. A life as an adjunct brings no security and low pay. As an annual contract faculty member or lecturer, you can at least achieve benefits. Tenure-track jobs are great if you can get one, but you won’t be able to choose where you want to live very easily. I feel so so lucky to be back in my home state of North Carolina, seven years after I graduated with my PhD.
So I guess I’d say to those interested in teaching at the collegiate level that they should have some back-up plans as well, other interests such as professional writing or editing. They should pursue some internships in such areas in case they decide academia won’t pan out. Meanwhile, publishing in journals, attending conferences, having faculty observe your teaching, volunteering for service work on campus, organizing events, writing grants—these are the sorts of activities that build a CV appropriate for the academic job search. Also, it can be a good idea to get a PhD in creative writing (in addition to or instead of an MFA) if you don’t have a book publication. That’s a large investment, but it will make you stand out among candidates with MFAs only.
Peter Grimes is an assistant professor of English at the University of North Carolina—Pembroke, where he teaches creative writing. He also serves as the editor of Pembroke Magazine, an annual journal of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry since 1969. Peter’s fiction appears in journals such as Narrative, Mississippi Review, Fiction International, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Memorious, Sycamore Review, and others. Visit his website at www.peterjgrimes.com.