Rachel Levy's piece "The Hat" was published in the March 2012 issue of The Collagist. Her prose can be found in places like Drunken Boat, Everyday Genius, and PANK. Her first chapbook is forthcoming from Ghost Ocean Magazine. She lives in Boulder, CO.
What inspired you to write "The Hat"? What was going through your mind while you were writing it?
I wanted to tell a story from the perspective of a solipsistic narrator who can’t deal with the inexplicable appearance of a hat on her partner’s head. Her partner is deliberately silent on the issue of the hat, and I kept thinking about how his silence might give the narrator’s utterance an interesting shape.
I read your piece “Becoming Deer”, published at PANK in July of last year. That narrator is also female, and I noticed an interesting detail that both she and the narrator of “The Hat” have in common: they use some variation of “to be honest” or “I just want to be honest” repeatedly throughout their stories. Could you elaborate on this, on the function of repeated intentions of honesty in a narrative?
It seems to be a tendency of mine to use that phrase when I’m writing in the first-person. Not long ago, I completed another first-person narrative and I noticed afterward that the phrase appears in that story, too (and the narrator of that piece is also female). I find the repetition intriguing because it wasn’t conscious on my part, even though I’ve come to think of myself as very self-aware of my intentions/actions while writing. Apparently I’m not as conscious of certain tendencies as I originally thought. In any case, I do feel drawn to that phrase and the strange energy it brings to a first-person utterance. In “Becoming Deer” I see the narrator’s desire “to be honest” as genuine; it is perhaps her only desire, but it is one that is impossible for her to fulfill, so the repetition becomes desperate. Maybe the only honest sentiment she can communicate is that she honestly desires to be honest. In “The Hat,” the phrase seems to impart a different sort of energy—maybe a comic energy, rather than a desperate one—because the narrator is incredibly unaware of herself, so her claims to honesty are very dishonest. She’s rather tyrannical in the way she demands honesty from her partner, but she cannot hold herself to the same standard. I guess it’s interesting to me that the phrase, “I just want to be honest,” always speaks to dishonesty. When it’s spoken sincerely, it seems to be such a sad and desperate thing to say. When it’s spoken without sincerity it seems to be a very frightening (albeit comic/pathetic) thing to say.
When you were interviewed by Gary Fincke in Smokelong Quarterly, you made an intriguing statement about your writing process:
“I sit and listen for voice. I find it very hard to say anything at all if I don't first establish a range in which to speak.”
Could you tell us about the process of listening for this narrator’s voice, how she came to you?
I think I tried to listen for a voice that was prone to both curious exclamations and odd, slightly paratactic reasoning. Then I tried to connect the dots between her exclamatory utterances (“I know him, and he is mine!”), her process of reasoning (“Which is the problem: I need to know), and her moments of storytelling (“Once, half in jest, I proposed another color”). Somehow that framework allowed me to discover what this narrator would say and how she would say it. I wanted her voice to be comic, pathetic, and scary, and keeping those goals in mind allowed something like a narrative to emerge.
Your chapbook, Necessary Objects, has gotten quite a few recognitions, and is forthcoming from Ghost Ocean Magazine. How has your work changed or evolved since putting that chapbook together?
The stories in the chapbook are very short and a lot of them are serial in nature. I tend to start each story with an idea, proceeding through composition by working through that idea. I pay close attention to the craft of style, voice, and form, attaching narrative elements when I can. I can’t say that my approach has changed much since putting the chapbook together. I’m still in grad school, so I would never claim that I’ve mastered any approach to story writing, but I do worry that I tend to fall back on what feels comfortable and easy. Well, I don’t think writing is easy, but I do think it’s easier for me to write very short, conceptual pieces. With that in mind, I’ve been trying to write longer pieces to see if I might expand my range. I’ve noticed that when I write longer stories I think a little less conceptually, giving more attention to event and character. I’ve also noticed that when I write longer, I don’t mind spending time describing the visual aspects of a narrative—the details of a particular image, setting, or character—whereas when I write short I tend to forbid all attention to visual detail for fear that such attention might zap the piece of movement and tension. Maybe my work is changing for the better; maybe it’s getting worse. I can’t tell at the moment. “Long” for me is never more than 4,000 words, so maybe I need to force myself to go even longer. I’m trying to loosen up a little bit, allowing myself to try things in a story that I would normally eschew, so that I might afford myself some room for growth.
Do you have any writing projects in the works right now?
I’m in the beginning stages of figuring out a project, I think. In the meantime, I’m trying to write a good amount of first-person stories, similar to “The Hat” in style and concern, to see what kind of project might emerge from that effort.
Are there any new releases or recent publications that you’re particularly excited about?
I have a couple short pieces in a forthcoming issue of Bateau that I’m pretty excited about. I’m also excited that summer is almost here, so I will have more time to read. A professor of mine recommended that I challenge myself to read only works that were published before the twentieth-century. I’m starting with The Marquis of O- and Other Stories. That should be fun.