Thirteen Questions with Alison Clement: An Interview

by Doug Dean

Local award-winning novelist Alison Clement discusses her latest book Twenty Questions, why she writes, and her fascination with HBO's The Wire.

What does Twenty Questions mean to you personally?

I started with a story idea, taken from my own life: a woman who has a close connection with a murder. I decided to give my character a job at a low- income school much like the school where I work. So the novel became a way for me to talk about the kids I work with. It was a way to write about poverty and kids in poverty. One of the things people give up when they’re low income is the ability to define themselves—our culture demonizes poverty. We assume that people don’t have money because they’re not smart or capable. One reader questioned my portrayal of June. She didn’t think it was realistic that a character like her would be capable of higher order thinking.  I tried to show that poverty is nuanced and also to let the kids speak for themselves. Almost everything a child says in the book is a quote from a real child. I wanted my readers to meet the kids on their own terms, with their own words.

I began writing Twenty Questions as the US invaded Iraq. That invasion was part of the emotional background of the book. I wanted to look at the relationship between personal, private violence and the violence -the militarism- of our culture. I thought of it as a book about war, partly, an anti-war book.  But it was written before Abu-Ghraib, Fallujuah and all the rest, and by the time it was published, that protest seemed pretty mild to me.

I’m interested in betrayal: parents betraying their children, husbands betraying wives, people betraying themselves. I wanted to explore lies that people tell, to each other and to themselves. And intention that goes awry.

What about your characters? Are the characters all ‘you’? Are they all people you know? None of the above?

I used to say that my characters aren’t autobiographical, but honestly, how can that be true? June, in her obsessions and her tangential way of thinking, is my most autobiographical character, although her husband is nothing like my partner, Chuck Willer. Chuck said that when the women he works with were reading my book, they were all mad at him. So while June may be a little bit like me, even if she is slightly creepy and has been criticized for lacking depth, Bill Duvall is not Chuck.

This is a dark book to be written by an elementary school librarian. Any comment on that?

First I should say that, although I work as a librarian, I don’t have a library degree. The schools, at least here in Corvallis, hire staff without degrees and, while I don’t believe in job discrimination based on educational background, we’re not hired because of our skill and despite our lack of credentials, but because we’re cheap. This is a sore point I have with the schools. I think it reflects a growing disregard for libraries and the world of books, in general. My little personal ax to grind.

That aside, I don’t think of the book as especially dark. Is it? June is morbid, but I don’t think of the overall tone of the book as dark.  And if it is, I have to say that children’s books these days, YA books, can be awfully grim. There’s a lot of social realism in contemporary kids’ books. (I think that’s fine, but I also think that before children find out that the world is a terrifying place, they should see that it’s a also good place, full of beauty.)

My first novel was very sexual. When it came out, I had to explain to parents that no, this wasn’t a book for them to read to their children. I write for adults. I’m interested in adult problems and relationships and in the compromises adults are sometimes forced to make.

Does winning the Ken Kesey award affect your ego as a writer? Do you feel validation when your writing receives critical praise or does the validation come from elsewhere?

When my writing is criticized, I tell myself that it’s exactly the same writing as it was before—being criticized or rejected doesn’t change the writing. It doesn’t make it any worse. I guess if that’s true when the writing is criticized, then it has to also be true when it’s praised.  But I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the award hasn’t meant a great deal to me. As for my ego, it’s hard to get a very big ego as a writer, when there are writers like Margaret Atwood or Flannery O’Connor.

Do you watch shows like Law and Order or CSI? What do think of the cop-show craze in the U.S.?

I am a fanatic about the HBO program, The Wire. It has great dialogue and character development, complex plot and is right on politically. I wonder if the cop-show craze is driven by the same things that make people want to read mysteries: you want something to be fair. You want to think somebody in charge gives a shit and that the bad guys might be caught. I know that after the last two so-called presidential elections, I went through a phase of reading only mysteries. I’ve seen the same phenomena with children, when they’ve had personal trauma. They go for The Babysitter Club Mysteries.

Your book has been compared to Thomas Harris’s books (Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Red Dragon). Any comment on the comparison? Is the comparison justified?

I’ve never heard of this comparison, and am surprised! Are you sure you don’t have me confused with someone else? I haven’t read Harris. I’m pretty thin-skinned about violence. I can’t even watch the trailer for the Silence of the Lambs movie.

Have you given thought to whether you’ll follow Twenty Questions with a sequel or leave that story alone?

I don’t think so. I’m finishing a novel right now, Watching Rhonda Honey, and have another one planned, a eugenics mystery. It will be my first real mystery, by the way. Some people thought Twenty Questions was a mystery, but you only realize there is a mystery at the very end, so I don’t see how that can count. A newspaper printed my photograph with the heading, “Mystery Writer.” I was a little surprised by that.

What are your goals for your writing and yourself as an author?

We’re living in a such a strange and important time. Everything is at stake: our children, the animals, oceans, forest, everything we love, everything there is. It’s all up for grabs. Meanwhile I sit in my living room and write. Is it the best I can do? Should I be doing something else instead? Does fiction matter? Can art make a difference? I want to write things that matter and to write them well enough to know that yeah, it’s fine that this is what I’m doing.

Alison Clement has been a waitress, bartender, housepainter, and fruit picker. The author of Pretty Is As Pretty Does, she lives with her family in Corvallis, where she is an elementary school librarian. Alison Clement's book Twenty Questions recently won the prestigious "Ken Kesey Award for the Novel" and is available at all major booksellers, but is easily picked up online.

Twenty Questions by Alison Clement