"Death by Bear Is Highly Impersonal": An Interview with Amanda Marbais

Amanda Marbais' work has appeared in Hobart web, Monkeybicycle, TRNSFR and elsewhere.  She is the Managing Editor for Requited Journal.

Her story, "Horribilis," appeared in Issue Forty-Eight of The Collagist.

Here, Amanda Marbais talks with interviewer William Hoffacker about obsessive characters, humor, and grizzly bears.

Please tell us about how/why you began to write “Horribilis.”

Like my character, I’m terrified of grizzly bears. We’ve hiked a few times in Montana, and I’m more comfortable with bear territory now. But last trip, a group of us spotted fresh bear scat on the trail, a giant heap of in-season huckleberries, the color of digested purple crayon. The bear scat ramped the stakes, and we began general bear safety of talking loudly, clapping our hands, and unsheathing bears spray cans. A few yards up the trail, we saw a mother and two cubs on the hillside. (No one was hurt. We discovered a ranger and a group of people nearby.)

There have been only a few dozen bear-related deaths in the last century in the US. There is so little chance of being killed by a bear, a terrorist, or a shooter. Yet, I think the threat of certain violent deaths scare us more than others. We all know eventually, death will happen. But, I think there are small fleeting moments, when we’re suddenly okay with the impersonal nature of death. Death by bear is highly impersonal. I suppose seeing the mother bear was one of those moments when my terror was immediately replaced with awe. (Although, I might not have had such a profound response if the bear took a bite out of me. Then I would have written a different kind of story.)

Your sense of humor shines through very prominently in this story (as in sentences like “To have a cat phobia is to not be able to use the Internet”). At what point in the drafting process do these funny lines generally enter into a story like this (e.g., perhaps you’ve thought of them before the story has begun in earnest, or the humor comes later in revision)?

Most often, these lines emerge in the “first draft” stage, which might stretch over several sittings. (My first drafts are sprawling.) I’m genuinely entertaining myself with those lines. And, they motivate me to run forward with a work, especially in the second and third and fourth, etc. drafts. But most lines come during a stage of writing new content, and never when I’m shaping text or focusing on sentences.

There are times when those lines are ripped off from a conversation, especially those I have with my spouse, who is also a writer. In that way they become a kind of time-capsule about what’s happening in my life, although that’s not the primary intention. Still, it can be a positive effect, spurring me to remember the emotional state I was in, and that opens other scenes, patches of exposition, and characterization.

Our protagonist is a woman who keeps a long list of her phobias, and the character we see her interact with the most is her therapist. What appeals to you about writing for such a neurotic character with a complicated, emotional inner life? What were the challenges of occupying this protagonist’s headspace and writing in first-person as her for a while?

I frequently use this neurotic narrator. First, it gives me the opportunity to make a lot of jokes. But also, I think exaggerating this obsessive inner life, helps me define the character’s features. Her neurosis is born out of her largely unresolved fear of death. Like many of my characters, she is myopic, and it’s the origin of her trouble.

I’m not as neurotic as my narrator. But, I did use her to inflate my own issues with mortality. I like to use obsessive characters to extrapolate about larger fears like growing old, feeling cut off from others, and fears about failing relationships. Obsessive characters allow me room to demonstrate a greater disparity between a character’s sheer joy and her general discomfort with life. The upshot is, I can have them say crazy things.

There are a great deal of pop culture references in this short story, everything from Magnum P.I. to Girl Talk to SheRa. Do you often find these recognizable names making their way into your work? What makes these references meaningful and/or useful to you?

I’m torn on the pop-culture references and often try to steer away from them. (Then they inevitably show up.) I grew up on television and movies. At young ages I associated TV characters’ canned emotional responses with something I was expected to feel, myself. Life is obviously much more complicated than sitcom scenarios, thank god.

I’m interested in this breakdown between the way we feel we’re supposed to experience emotion and the way we actually experience emotion in daily life. A character I’m using in a different piece compares her feelings for her best friend to “how Joan Jett feels for the Blackhearts and Balky feels for his cousin,” which means, she really doesn’t know how she feels at that part in the story, but she has an idea of how she’s supposed to feel. And, the comparison is intended to be absurd.

What writing projects are you working on now?

I’m working on a novel that is a crime-drama, family tragedy. It has the same neurotic voice. And, even in times of betrayal, there are probably inappropriate asides. Even when there’s a murder, there are inappropriate asides.

What have you read recently that you are eager to recommend?

I read a lot of great stuff this summer, when I wasn’t teaching. I would recommend a whole list, but the most recent were The MiddlesteinsAwait Your Reply, and Tampa. All three of these books were great. Tampa, though, seems to be generating a lot of stir I find interesting. If you haven’t read it yet, it’s about a sociopath completely driven by her sexual appetite for 14-year-old boys. (It’s effectively disturbing.) There is an impressive lack of equivocating in the narrative, and that helps it succeed. But, for me, Tampais at its best when the passages are both absurd and sensational. (And there are many.)