#flannery oconnor

The following interview was conducted with me (Cathy Adams) online by Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor regarding my novel, This Is What It Smells Like. The interview is part of a series of interviews with authors called, The Next Big Thing.

What is the name of your book?

This Is What It Smells Like

What is a one sentence synopsis of your book?

Val’s father left her before she was born, and now that he is dying she is meeting him for the first time because he decides he wants to return home to seek reconciliation and forgiveness from the wife and daughter he abandoned.

What genre does your book fall under?

I’d say general literature, maybe even dark humor.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

It’s funny that I can recall that day so clearly. I was sitting in my office at work when the power went out. I couldn’t do any work on my computer, so I sat next to a window with a notebook in my hand and the first line came to me, “My mother gave birth to me because she wanted someone to make her a sandwich.” It was all clear, easy, and compelling. I had no idea who was saying this, but I knew I wanted to get to know this character, so I let her keep talking. The first chapter came out in less than an hour, and before the power came back on I knew I had another novel being born.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I started it on a frigid day in February, 2008, and I finished it in late 2010. So, that’s about three years. There was a long stretch in there in 2009 when I didn’t write on it at all because I had a boyfriend who couldn’t stand the thought of me being a successful writer. He demanded that I stop writing it, and I actually did for a short time, maybe a few months. He’s long gone, I finished the book, and got it published by a terrific press. Happy ending. Or, more accurately, happy beginning.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I’ve met a number of people over the years that have inspired me, but the person who gets the greatest credit for pushing me to achieve is aLatinaauthor named Judith Ortiz Cofer. I met her at a writers’ conference before I ever wrote my first book. I was sitting beside her at lunch listening to her tell how she got up early each morning to work on her first novel and how it took her so long to get it done. I said I’d like to write a book someday but I was so busy with my job, blah, blah. She put her fork down, looked at me hard, and said, “Well, when you decide you want to write a book, you will.” I felt as if I’d been slapped, but it was exactly what I needed to hear. I started getting up before dawn and wrote until I had to get my kids up and get to work. I spent about a year doing this and finished my first novel that way. There was nothing stopping me from writing that book; I just didn’t want to do it badly enough before that. We do what we want to do, and we  make excuses for everything else. Maybe some of that is about fear, I don’t know. Being afraid you can’t do something stops a lot of people from trying, but what’s there to lose? You either finish it or you don’t. Nothing bad was going to happen to me if I started the book and failed. Writing a book is a very solitary experience, so the only thing at risk was my ego.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

This Is What It Smells Like was published by a new publisher out of Washington, New Libri Press. It’s available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple iTunes in both ebook format and paperback.

What other works could you compare this to in your genre?

Other people have compared my work to Flannery O’Connor’s writings. I admire her writing so much, I can hardly bring myself to accept such praise. I do have a lot of Catholic influence in the novel because it takes place at a small Catholic college in North Carolina. I’m also a native southerner and the whole southern gothic, grotesque, darkly funny way of viewing the world is deeply rooted in my stories. So, in that respect, I guess I can say my writing resembles O’Connor’s.

I’d say that Brock Clarke’s book, An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England, is similar to mine in character development and tone. At least I hope it is because I loved that book.

What actors would you choose to play the characters’ parts in a movie rendition?

Adrien Brody was actually in my mind as I wrote the part of the priest, or at least Adrien Brody about ten years down the road. I could see Gwyneth Paltrow as Tess, the mother, and maybe Bill Pullman as the father who left them. As for the part of Val, I keep seeing different people. The young woman who played the lead in “Hunger Games” would be a good choice. I just want to be in an extra in the scene that takes place in a restaurant in Asheville, North Carolina, called Rosetta’s Kitchen.

What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

The setting is in the fictitious town of Placid, North Carolina, just outside of Asheville, but several scenes take place in downtown Asheville, a place known for its local music. I included some of the local musicians in the storyline.

‘Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it.’ - Flannery O’Connor

Wise Blood, 1952

“When I was six I had a chicken that walked backward and was in the Pathé News. I was in it too with the chicken. I was just there to assist the chicken but it was the high point in my life. Everything since has been anticlimax.”

Flannery O'Connor

The Catholic writer, in so far as he has the mind of the Church, will feel life from the standpoint of the central Christian mystery; that it has, for all its horror, been found by God to be worth dying for.

He may feel that it is as sinful to scandalize the learned as the ignorant. In the end, he will either have to stop writing or limit himself to the concerns proper to what he is creating. It is the person who can follow neither of these courses who becomes the victim, not of the Church’s dogmas, but of a false conception of their demands.

Flannery O'Connor