Answers with Monica Byrne

Answer 1

Congrats on a successful first novel! What has the experience been like for you?

Every day is like Christmas morning. Seriously. I look at my bookshelf in my study, and see my own book there, among my other books, with the bright pink-black-and-white spine, and I think, I wrote that book, here in this room, and now, there it is, in hardcover. I still can't wrap my mind around it.

Answer 2

The first words in The Girl in the Road read, "The world begins anew, starting now." Have you ever wanted to start over? Have you ever actually tried to?

Absolutely. The closest I've ever come to a complete restart was a moment when I was twenty-three. I was trying to juggle the stress of graduate school, my mother's recent death, and several romantic train wrecks. I said, "I think a part of me loves the sadness." And my therapist said, "Yes, I think you have a romance with melancholy." And I said, "You're right. I don't want to be that way anymore." So I disidentified with that way of being. I'd recognized it was simply not a viable way to continue. On the bus ride home, I thought: I don't know what I am without my sadness, but I have to build a new self, on a deeper reality, if I'm to survive.

Answer 3

Why did you decide to base your first novel in foreign countries?

I wanted to make the point that the United States is not the apple of the world's eye, so to speak. Or even if it is, it won't be forever. The insularity of American literature, in particular, bugs me, if for no other reason than it's symptomatic of a larger failure of imagination. We can do so much better.

Answer 4

Do you think a pedestrian bridge spanning an ocean, like the one in The Girl in the Road, is possible in the near future?

For sure. Similar structures already exist. It's just a matter of whether the technology is cost-effective, which is ultimately a question for engineers.

Answer 5

Describe the two main characters, Meena and Mariama, for those who haven't read The Girl in the Road yet. Whose story did you like writing better?

I can't say I liked writing one better, but I can say that Mariama was much easier to write than Meena. Mariama's very open, a true innocent. Meena was much harder to get to know--she holds her cards close to the chest, and is way too smart to have easy answers to anything.

Answer 6

Do you think women, even fictional characters, still have a long way to go?

No. I think people who think 'women have a long way to go' have a long way to go. We're already here. We always have been.

Answer 7

Both women explore their sexuality in The Girl in the Road. Why did you decide to include these scenes?

Sex is a part of life!--creatively, emotionally, spiritually. I think, Isn't it for everyone?, and then I remember: bah, Puritan influence. I was intensely aware of my body when I was traveling, in all of its aspects, including the sexual one, and wanted to represent that truthfully. Several readers have told me that they appreciate the poop scene, too. Traditional adventure stories are often weirdly disconnected from the body, aside from food matters. But we all poop. And adventures are made up of so many mundane, monkey-mind moments--food, poop, attraction, aversion, sex--just like daily life.

Answer 8

Do you have plans for a The Girl in the Road sequel, or at least plans for a second novel?

No plans for a sequel to The Girl in the Road, but definitely for a Novel #2, set in the Maya cave systems of western Belize. Most of the research is done and I'm cranking out a thousand words a day. It's wonderful to be back in the trenches of actually creating something ex nihilo.

Answer 9

Is it true you were in the middle of your geochemistry doctorate when you decided you wanted to be a writer instead?

True! I was writing a column for The MIT Tech called "I Did It For Science" and, like a good scientist, empirically observed that I loved writing those columns way more than I loved writing my thesis. Like three orders of magnitude more. Conveniently, at the same time, my advisor was burning all his bridges at MIT, so I thought it was a good time to throw in the towel and follow my heart.

Answer 10

How has your science background impacted your creative writing?

I feel so lucky to have the scientific toolbox at my disposal. It includes, for example, a certain mercilessness when it comes to edits: "Does this work? No? Then cut it." If you believe (as I do) that the artwork already exists, and you just have to channel or uncover it, the process is actually very similar to science. You're articulating a system.