Today it gives the Speculative Fiction Showcase great pleasure to interview Patricia Ricketts, whose novel Speed of Dark is released on May 3.
Tell us something about Speed of Dark. This is your debut novel; what led you to write it?
Wow…well, I’ve been writing all my life—poetry, short stories and my first novel—Even, After All the Years—many years ago. [Unfortunately, that novel was lost in a move, pre-computer, before I could pitch it to publishers.] Nonetheless, I love, love, love the act of writing. Bringing a character alive with real-life conflicts fascinates me, lets me understand what I think about the way of the world and the soul of another. Working on a good storyline sparks my creativity and sends me into the flow of something larger than I am.
Your main character, Mary Em Phillips, is in a dark place at the start of the novel. What brings her there and how does she begin to escape?
Mary Em Phillips has lost everything: her grandmother Mamie who raised her, her husband Jack, and her only child Petey. Dark enough? So, I wanted to see what a woman would do with all that loss, surrounded by nothing but apparent darkness. Speed of Dark explores what Mary Em does with her sorrows and flashes back to where she’s been as she journeys through grief. Not all is dark as the novel progresses, however; the light comes in at the most amazing junctures. Some of which will surprise you.
And, oh yeah…there’s even humor in Speed of Dark.
Amazon lists the novel under the heading of Magical Realism. What does that mean to you?
Magical Realism is the propensity for the mythical and spiritual to exist in real form in the everyday life of a novel. In many other cultures, however, magic is as real as a coffee pot. Not always so for those of us who live in the west. Consequently, we give it a term—magical realism. Having said that, Lake Michigan, Mishigami in Speed of Dark, is an actual character with a voice, a personality, a past, present and future—and oh, so many worries. He will touch your heart. He certainly touches mine.
As well as Mary Em, your story has two other voices or narrators: Mosley Albright and Mishigami. Can you tell us something about these characters and the part they play in the story?
I fell in love with Mosely Albright from the moment he walked onto my computer screen. He has heart, soul and troubles in his own life, just like Mary Em. He brings her something she needs, and unintentionally, she brings him something too. Mishigami’s issues are different. He needs a champion and he’s set his eyes, and his heart, on an unsuspecting Mary Em.
Mishigami is the spirit of Lake Michigan, named by The Ojibwe tribe. Are there elements of Native American myth in the story, as well as ecological concerns?
I’ve included a beautiful Ojibwe “creation” story in Speed of Dark, and mention of the Ojibwe settlements on Mishigami’s northern shores centuries earlier. A subtle comparison is made between the Ojibwe’s cohabiting with nature, and contemporary people’s abuses of it. Many ecological concerns come through Mishigami, also, as he explains his concerns about our cavalier habits and practices as they relate to the earth. My dedication at the beginning of Speed of Dark reads: “Considering both the vastness of this planet’s beneficence and the finiteness of its precious resources, I dedicate this novel to Lake Michigan, our Mishigami, without whom we could not survive.”
To what extent is grief and recovery from grief an important theme in the story?
Recovery from grief is a seminal theme in Speed of Dark. And isn’t grief and grief recovery a universal struggle for most of us? Dark and light wrestle in my characters’ experiences—past and present—as they wend their way through their individual griefs.
How far has writing and reading played an important part in your life?
Writing for me is essential to my well-being. The cool thing about writing is it allows me to explore my own personal issues: you know, like psychotherapy without the fee. That goes for journaling, or writing poetry, or blogs, or novels, too. Writing allows me to explore my own beliefs and fears. For me, that’s centering.
Reading, too, is essential. I fell in love with reading with a book my mother suggested back in fifth grade: Marshall Saunders’ Beautiful Joe. From there it was off to the races for me with the likes of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, John Irving’s The World According to Garp, John Fowles’ The Magus, Toni Morrison’s Beloved…oh I could go on and on. I believe a book breaks open the heart so that love—and shock and grief and growth—start to pour inside. Like hands clasped tight-to-the-chest in prayer, are novels. Fuel for something to ignite us, grander and brighter than anything we ever thought we could be.
You were awarded a scholarship for creative writing from the University of Edinburgh. How did it come about and what impact did the experience have on you as a writer?
While teaching high school AP English, I was encouraged to apply for this scholarship, which I did. What an incredible experience it was at the University of Edinburgh: I got to hear Scottish writers lecture on stylistics, Welsh poets read their poetry and Scottish authors conduct fabulous workshops on creative writing. And, as luck would have it, during that time, Fringe and the International Book Fair were taking place in Edinburgh, so I got to see live theatre, watch stand-up comics and street musicians perform, and attend live interviews with the likes of authors Neil Gaiman and Audrey Niffenegger. Each experience stoked the fires of my writing passion.
You have had short stories published in New Directions, Slate, Meta, Blue Hour, Realize Magazines, and on NPR’s “This I Believe” website. What can you tell us about your short fiction? Does it have a specific focus or theme?
I am a sucker for a writing prompt. They don’t even have to be good ones to get me started. Someone could suggest a word, like “umbrella,” or a situation like “getting stoned” and I will write a poem, or a song [yes, I’m a singer-songwriter, too], or a novel to the power of its suggestion. So I’m not stuck on any one theme. I’ve written short stories about a father’s feelings on the morning of his son’s wedding, a crippled man playing his violin for the swallows under a viaduct, a little girl stealing her big sister’s imaginary horse, a woman apologizing during a pedicure to a Vietnamese man for all the harm Americans did to his country. I’m all over the place and love every minute of it.
What made you decide to write a novel as opposed to a short story?
I’ve written many short stories. And completed two novels. Short stories are harder because they are spare; novels are harder because they are expansive. In the end, writing is a creative venture into characters and plotlines and themes using the cadence and imagery language provides. I like both forms.
You are working on a second novel, tentatively titled The End of June. What can you tell us about this book?
Set during 2020, in the thick of the pandemic, this novel tells the story of June Toole Byrne, who decides she needs to breathe—away from the stifling nature of the virus, from the concrete confines of Chicago, from the patriarchies which still rule the day. So she heads off on a cross-country trek to camp in a ‘82 VW Vanagon with her dog, Henri, as companion. It’s an odyssey of experiences which climax in a dramatic confrontation with a brown bear in the wilds of Wyoming. [Coincidentally, June is recently divorced from an ex whose name is Dwayne Behr.]
Your website includes autobiographical extracts as well as poetry and short fiction. The stories of your childhood are particularly vivid and show detailed recall. How far do you think childhood experience shapes the style and personality of a writer, and of you in particular?
In a word, immensely. While writing fiction is not autobiographical per se, our childhoods are instrumental in shaping attitudes, providing agar for the petri dish of our characters and storylines, and—in my case coming from an artistic and literary home—nurturing creative tendencies. Further, I’m mostly Irish and was raised Catholic in a family with five loud, talented, and fun/funny siblings. That has influenced me, too.
What authors do you love to read, now and in past years? Are there any particular influences?
Throughout the years, many books have swept me into the wonder of something eternal. Books like Abraham Verghese’s Cutting For Stone, Barbara Kingsolvers’ Poisonwood Bible, John Fowles’ The Magus, Joyce Carol Oates’ We Were the Mulvaneys, Brian Doyles’ Mink River, Richard Powers’ The Overstory, John Irvings’ Prayer for Owen Meany, Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Oh, I could go on and on. But I would be remiss if I didn’t specifically talk about Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides as something which swept me away, whose Prologue itself is so moving, that I used to read it to my AP English classes once a year. “Come in. Sit down and get comfortable. I’m going to read you something that will shuffle you off this mortal coil…and give you pause,” I’d say. Conroy’s artful yet truthful use of language, his tales of savior tigers, of fraternity fails, of grandparent idiosyncrasies make me howl with both laughter and pain. Every time I read it, Prince of Tides carries me, body and soul, into both the salt flats of South Carolina’s Low Country and to the city of Manhattan where the hubris of the north clashes with the tattered soul of the south—in love, in perspective, and in abuses through Tom Wingo’s troubled soul. Which, I came to find out, was a part of Conroy’s own. Further testimony that one’s childhood fuels a writer’s fiction.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
I’m a busy person. I love to paint—using both watercolors and oils—and draw. I love to play my guitar and sing, usually my own songs. Occasionally, Peter and I host open mic concerts. I love to golf and, even though I am not terribly good, I love the sound of my club connecting with a really solid drive or watching a twelve-foot putt slide into the cup. I love Lake Michigan—summer, autumn, winter spring—and am drawn to its sides no matter the weather. I swim, loving the expansiveness that occurs when I dive inside it, and I collect beach glass on its shores when swimming isn’t possible.
Amazon
About Patricia Ricketts:
PATRICIA RICKETTS received a lifelong love of music, the written word, the visual arts, and healthy arguing around the family dining room table, leading to an undergrad degree in English Literature and a Master in Written Composition. She penned various essays, short stories, poems, and novels during her 30-year career as a high school English teacher. However, her passion really took off when she received a scholarship to the University of Edinburgh for Creative Writing. Since then, she has had short stories published in New Directions literary magazine, Realize Magazine, The Slate, Meta Magazine, The Blue Hour, on the Storied Stuff website, and in NPR’s* “This I Believe” segment. She is currently working on her next novel, The End of June. Ricketts currently resides in Chicago with her
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