As her second novel I Fear My Pain Interests You is published, American writer Stephanie LaCava talks about the complexity of female friendships, inherited trauma, and why people mistake her books as ‘poor little rich girl’ stories
’s second novel is irresistible. Like a lyric from a cherished song or a fragment from a beloved poem,hints at all the most compelling themes – hurting, intrigue, dominance, submission, lust, and dysfunction. While the book does speak of all of these alluring, tortured topics, it’s also about pain’s supposed antithesis – numbness; a total disconnect from feeling and a nihilistic wish for oblivion.
. Emotional pain does still seem to reach her – albeit in a muted, vague way, like an indistinct conversation she can hear but can’t quite decipher – b Emily Dinsdale: To begin, please could you introduce Margot and the complicated dynamics of her family? ED: The novel really chimed with a lot of conversations I’ve been having with female friends about how we’re conditioned to subjugate ourselves so frequently, the pressure to please others, and a prevailing sense of disconnection from our own needs.A lot of people have said similar things to this, which I love. And I guess that makes sense, right?
ED: I read an interview with a successful screenwriter whose advice to any writer was to always keep a secret in your back pocket. Would you say this is true of you?Yeah, I mean, even my memoir – my first book I wrote when I was really young, which I kind of want to disown now – one reviewer said, ‘The most remarkable thing about this memoir is how little of Stephanie is in it at all.’ That’s something I’ve carried through and I think is essential to my work.
ED: A few really important novels of recent years I’ve read seem to have these very privileged but utterly disengaged, numb female protagonists. The main one that springs to mind isMy Year of Rest And RelaxationI mean, this literal desire to obliterate oneself, whether it’s through drugs, sex addiction, or sleep. That’s a very real thing, and it’s a real thing for me …
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