Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Dear Readers, our “Pinch Me” moment has finally come full circle. Not only did the impossibly-gracious Haven Kimmel agree to an interview with two squealing, hysterical bloggers who can offer nothing in return (except to promise never to bother her again), but she actually composed and delivered the answers during a week-long-and-counting migraine, and moments before she left on a reading/signing tour to promote the paperback release of She Got Up Off the Couch. Even if she weren’t such an amazingly talented author, we’d love her just for that. But she is an amazingly talented author, and in case you still haven’t taken our advice and picked up one of her novels or memoirs, we’ll throw together a little Haven Kimmel 101 before the interview proper. And then if her fabulous responses still don’t convince you to read her books already… well, heaven help you.

“If you took the complete works of E. B. White and put them in a blender with the essays of David Sedaris, you might end up with a delicious concoction close to the hilarious, irrepressible charm that is Haven Kimmel,” author Alison Smith has observed. And the two of us have already established that we’re hugely huge Haven fans, so perhaps it won’t strike our readers as too terribly much when we say that “irrepressible” could also describe our enthusiasm for any new Haven Kimmel work — whether it be her upcoming third novel or her upcoming chapter book for children, both to be released this year (and both discussed below).

On my end-of-the-year report card all she wrote was “Is disruptive in class. Colors outside the lines. Talks out of turn.” When I showed it to my parents, they read it out loud to me, and my mom said, “Good for you, sweetheart.” And my dad gave me a little pat on the back. (A Girl Named Zippy)

Having started out as a poet (as she told Random House in a 2001 interview, “{t}his prose thing I’m doing is really an act of infidelity and I’m terrified Poetry will find out”), Haven Kimmel’s first published book was her memoir of childhood in small-town America (population of three hundred, to be exact), A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana (2001), which is consistently told from the viewpoint of the author as a young girl. Zippy zoomed to the top of The New York Times bestseller list and became a book club darling. As many reviewers were keen to point out, the book is a rare thing in today’s age: a happy memoir about growing up. “I wanted to awaken childhood,” Haven has said about this captivating, well-crafted work, which Library Journal called “a love letter to her hometown” and which is full of warmth and wit and eloquence and grace. And, as Newsweek’s Malcolm Jones put it, “{Kimmel} can sum up ancestry in a single sentence.”

Her first novel, The Solace of Leaving Early, was published in 2002. With startling insight and compassion, Solace tells the story of two people — a preacher who may be too smart for his own faith, and a would-be academic who has left her doctorate program in disgrace — who are thrown into an uncomfortable alliance to care for two orphaned sisters. Something Rising (Light and Swift), published in 2004, stars the fiercely competent and independent Cassie, who supports her fragile sister and depressed mother by hustling pool. Both are gorgeously lyrical, ridiculously beautiful, and utterly original, with characters so honest and flawed and true that they practically leave bruises on you.

Cassie stood, stretched herself out, then went inside for her backpack… She carried in it a Swiss Army knife, a compass, a box of waterproof matches, a second box of waterproof matches, a rain poncho, an old snakebite kit, a small flashlight, a harmonica she couldn’t play, a worn guide to dressing field injuries. Now she added a ball-peen hammer – a regular hammer was too heavy to carry – and a small box of nails; boards were always popping loose on the shack, and if she left it to the inbreds and malcontents, as Jimmy called them, the shack would fall down around their ears and they’d go right on sucking the heads off crawdaddies. She also added a second chocolate milk, knowing that everyone down at the river would want it but be afraid to ask; this was the sort of gesture that kept everyone clear about who stood where. Cassie was the person with the chocolate milk and the hammer in her hand, that was all they needed to know. (Something Rising (Light and Swift))

She also penned the picture book, Orville: A Dog Story (illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker) in 2003, a true story which she originally intended to be a chapter in Zippy. And she contributed to Killing the Buddha: A Heretic’s Bible (published in 2004 and edited by Peter Manseau and Jeff Sharlet) with her re-telling of the Book of Revelation. Publishers Weekly described Killing the Buddha as having “{s}ome of the most original and insightful spiritual writing to come out of America since Jack Kerouac first hit the road.”

Her most recent work (2005) is She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana, her second memoir in which we further our adventures with the Jarvis family once again from the point-of-view of the author as a child. However, the memoir is primarily, in Haven’s words, “the story of my mother’s evolution and the way it reflects a broader cultural shift.” Haven is currently on tour, promoting Couch’s paperback release.

“We didn’t say on that afternoon or any other that maybe it was unusual how she had to wash my clothes and give me a bath; Rose’s mother did it, too, and she never said anything. Melinda did it year in and year out. Olive didn’t mention that I had two grandmothers who were my real grandmothers and I had never once been asked to spend the night with them. A big thing, a gigantic winged thing, hovered where that conversation might have been, and only my sister would speak of it…” (She Got Up Off the Couch)

This year Haven will bring to her readers the third novel in what she calls her Hopwood Trilogy (read below for more on that), entitled The Used World. It is set in fictional Hopwood County, Indiana, as were her first two novels.

She earned an undergraduate degree in English and Creative Writing from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, followed by a graduate degree from North Carolina State University (having studied with novelist Lee Smith). She also attended seminary, as you’ll read below, and she currently lives in Durham, North Carolina.

Here’s one of our favorite descriptions of Haven, written by Dave Korzon of The Rambler:

Haven Kimmel is a magnificent collection of paradoxes. She is a Quaker who eschews political correctness and who admittedly feels most at home among the less-than-well-behaved. She is extremely shy when it comes to talking about herself, but her memoirs . . . are intimate documentations of her family and childhood . . . She is a writer’s writer, so enamored with the craft that she went off to hone her skills in, of all places, seminary. Her writing brims with wit and athletic turns of phrase but can make the most hardened of readers puddle up with emotion. There are mysteries here, to be sure, the answers ultimately belonging to only Kimmel herself. But apart from all this, plain and simple, Haven Kimmel rocks . . .

Haven has said before her only real dream as a child was to grow up to be a rodeo star. Though she probably would have made an entertaining one, we’re glad she chose writing for a career. And we’re grateful that she agreed to let us bring her to you in an interview.

7-Imp: Tell us about your decision to enter a Quaker seminary.

Haven: I lived on a 55-acre farm in Indiana; fallow. The house was haunted, I think. I’m pretty sure. It was built in 1826 and a lot has happened since then. The house sat back a long lane (the property appears in The Used World) and during one particularly horrible winter storm I got snowed in there alone. My daughter had just gone to see her grandparents, and eighteen inches of snow fell in one hour. Snow is a persistent theme in any question involving Indiana. So I was alone back there and extremely isolated, with just my rottweiler, Roxanne. The power came and went; heat came and went. It took almost two weeks for that long lane to be plowed, because no plow could fit between the locust trees that lined either side.

I had just graduated from college and was trying to figure out what I was going to do next. I had a degree in English but had minored in like 327 things, so I could have gone to graduate school in many different fields. I was a published poet at 21, and I continued to enjoy success as a poet for all the years I lived in the Midwest, so everyone assumed I would get an MFA. MFAs were all the rage, even more so than now. But during those two weeks I spent a lot of time alone with my mind: no radio, no movies, no telephone. I hadn’t watched television for years, so I didn’t miss that. I read and read and read. And toward the end of that time I read Gail Godwin’s Father Melancholy’s Daughter and I knew in an instant. I didn’t want to write about myself; I didn’t want to write about the circularity of criticism; I didn’t want to write about the agonies of being unable to write. More than anything else, I didn’t want to write about . . . I don’t know, how my refrigerator is a metaphor for how cold the world is or WHATEVER. Everybody was writing these poems with STUFF in them, ‘Ode To My Washing Machine’ and whatnot and I thought, well, just kill me first. Here we are, standing in the world, this ruined cathedral, writing poems about our tepid complaints and self-pity and broken appliances. I decided I only had two choices: spend a few years thinking about the really big questions and then become a writer, or go to graduate school and become an academic. As a lifelong Quaker, I called the only Quaker seminary in the world and asked for the Dean. I said, “I’m a sinner and a heathen and I fall short of grace every day, and you’ll never turn me into a Christian.” He said, “Fabulous! Diversity!”

Now oddly enough, I went to seminary and everyone there wanted me to become an academic, but instead I wrote a book about myself. So you just never know. (I don’t owe Zippy to the Earlham School of Religion, but I sure owe Solace to it.)

7-Imp: The theme of people trying to come to terms with their own faith, either within the structure of organized religion or just outside it, comes up frequently in both your memoirs and fiction. Do any characters or situations in your works particularly reflect your own struggle with the “big questions”?

Haven: Oh, look! You said “big questions” right after I did! That is so cute.

I don’t think there’s an intelligent person of faith who doesn’t struggle. As Keats called the world a “veil of soul-making” so is religion a veil of meaning-making. As Buddhists or Quakers or Hindus we are to deepen ourselves, and to learn in that process how to live. And not just how to live but how to do so with more compassion and kindness and acceptance of finitude and decay and mortality. Except that finitude and decay and mortality really really suck, and they make merry with our attempts at depth and growth; the plain facts of human existence make religion look naïve at best. So it has to be a choice, like marriage. You get up in the morning, you decide to stay married. That’s marriage. You get up in the morning, you believe in the Buddha-field or Quaker Universalism or Allah or whatever, and that’s religion. Some people find it much easier than others, for whatever reason. For some people it seems indisputable; objectively true and self-evident. Bless them.

All that said, the character closest to my heart is Amos Townsend in Solace. It isn’t easy for him and yet he tries every day. To me he embodies a certain level of heroism: the silent struggle that results in small, quotidian victories of goodness over the Self, over shallowness and narcissism. I love him as much when he fails as when he succeeds.

7-Imp: You’ve referred to your previous two novels — along with The Used World, to be published this year — as the “Hopwood Trilogy.” Without giving too much away about the brand-new one, how are the three novels linked? When you were writing Solace did you know that it would be part of a trilogy, or did that idea come later?

Haven: I’ve always referred to the three books as a trilogy of place; each novel is set in a different town in the same county. But they are linked thematically, too, and characters pop in and out of the three books. Amos is a character in The Used World, but he’s not the focus of the novel.

I knew when I was writing Solace that I was beginning a trilogy, but I didn’t know how it would unfold. For one thing I’m not the same person who wrote the first draft of that novel five years ago; I’m certainly not the same writer. What I most wanted to do was to write novels that showed a set of lives here, and another here, and a third here, all close together geographically, and to do so with as much precision and detail and accuracy as possible. I wanted to bring that part of the world to life as broadly and directly as I could.

7-Imp: Word on the street is, Mike Nichols got the rights to direct and produce the film version of Solace over a year ago. How’s that coming? And who’s gonna play Epiphany and Immaculata now that the Fanning sisters are too old?

Haven: Last year I was at dinner with a large group of people and some question came up and I said, innocently enough I thought, “I don’t know; I just don’t care about movies.” There was a huge, overwhelming silence, and then a man in his late twenties said, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that before,” as if I’d declared an erotic attachment to applesauce. I was made to explain myself, although of course how could I when I had just said all I knew how to say on the subject. I don’t care about movies. Nichols has since renewed his option on the novel; he’s keeping it even if he doesn’t make it, which is fine with me. Seeing a novel of mine on the big screen makes about as much sense to me as seeing it dropped into a shark tank: goodbye, novel.

7-Imp: You possess such an obvious affection for your characters. When you wrap up a novel or memoir, is it hard to say goodbye to them?

Haven: I think that might be the case if I were ever allowed to say goodbye. Instead, my editor says things like, “This is perfect and you are a genius; now I’d like to see an entirely new draft in a month.” So I do that, and she says the same thing again. I’ve been working on The Used World for four years, and in that time have written and published two other books. I’ve written five drafts of The Used World, followed by copyediting and the page proofs I finished correcting at 5:00 this morning. I’ve read the book cover to cover at least twelve times. Then when it’s published the publicity campaign will begin and I’ll have to read from it night after night, and I’ll be asked the same questions over and over, so I guess what I’m trying to say is I can hardly miss them if they won’t go away.

7-Imp: Can you tell us about any upcoming children’s book titles? Also, we saw in an interview that you described yourself as “phobic of writing,” since each word is so important, such a huge responsibility in your view. Do you feel like writing a picture book is even more so, due to its shorter length and compactness?

Haven: I have a children’s chapter book coming out this fall, and the tentative title is Kaline Klattermaster’s Treehouse. The main character is a seven-year-old boy with ADHD. He’s so funny I can hardly think about him. This is my first chapter book, so I got to spread my wings a little bit -– there is more room than in a picture book for sure -– but I was still entirely conscious of every syllable and how it would be read or heard by second and third graders. One of my best friends, Leslie Staub, is an author/illustrator, and she keeps her picture books at THREE HUNDRED WORDS. I use more than that asking my husband to bring me some sweet tea from the kitchen.

7-Imp: We are huge fans of your two memoirs. We’re dying to ask how your mama is doing, but we are just sure you get asked that all the time. So, how about: Are you still in love with Telly Savalas (or Glen Campbell? Or Engelbert Humperdinck? Or Jesus?)? Also, the ending of your first memoir — in which you receive your little piano — is quite memorable. Do you still play?

Haven: Telly Savalas: now there was a man. But you know what? I also had a MASSIVE LOVE CRUSH on Yul Brynner. I think you see what I’m getting at. I come across pictures of Yul Brynner and I have to close my eyes and think of England. Glen Campbell. It’s very unfortunate about that mugshot, because he is truly one of the greatest musicians alive; he’s one of the best studio guitarists of the past fifty years. Somebody needs to do a Johnny Cash on him before it’s too late: put him in the studio with just a guitar and his fabulous voice and his sweet little hair. I lost track of Engelbert Humperdinck, although it’s possible he still keeps track of me. And Jesus, you know. He never was what he appeared to be.

I played the piano for years and years, and indeed for a long time believed I’d be a singer/songwriter. From the age of twelve on I listened with furious concentration to Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon –- you can name the rest. Writing music and lyrics seemed to come very easily to me. I recorded some, I played in clubs for a while. And THEN I was working in a music store and we got a demo copy of Tori Amos’s Little Earthquakes (which might as well be her first record, as only music geeks have heard Y Kant Tori Read and thank heavens for that). I walked around the store, helping customers, putting things away, all the while taking in every note of that record, and I never played the piano again. My feeling was, “If you can’t do it like that, don’t do it at all.” And I didn’t.

7-Imp: What’s one thing that most people don’t know about you?

Haven: I am hyper-vigilant, and would be dangerous if threatened. My friend Augusten is the same way; we often say to one another, “If someone broke into my house or attacked me in the street, it’s THEM I would fear for.” I am all ethics ethics philosophy pacifism blah blah Quakerism justice etc. But as Yo La Tengo recently put it so succinctly: I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass.

7-Imp: What’s the Short List of Records You’re Listening To Right Now?

Haven: The new Patty Griffin, Children Running Through.

The soundtrack to the documentary Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man. Specifically, I play Teddy Thompson’s cover of “Tonight Will Be Fine” over and over and over until my ears are bleeding. Also his cover of “The Future.” Damn what a combination, Teddy Thompson’s voice and Leonard Cohen’s songs.

Antony and the Johnsons, I Am A Bird Now.

The Pernice Brothers, Discover A Lovelier You.

Damien Rice, 9. I love this record but it has a 21-minute song on it, which, I love you Damien but no.

Martha Wainwright.

M. Ward, Post-War.

My FAVORITE record right now is Midlake’s The Trials of Van Occupanther. Just sublime.

7-Imp: What is your favorite word?

Haven: “Y’all”

7-Imp: What is your least favorite word?

Haven: “Junket.” When people toss that around, say, “Are you going on a press junket for your new book?” I feel like telling them, “You really don’t want to talk to me that way.”

7-Imp: What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?

Haven: Great art, the kind that comes from ferocious originality and fearlessness. Courage in general. Governing one’s life by surprise and suggestion. Flat landscapes and predator birds. Very protective dogs. Ruins.

7-Imp: What turns you off?

Haven: Pretty much everything else.

7-Imp: What is your favorite curse word? (optional)

Haven: “Bitch,” but only when used in peculiar situations and in reference to inappropriate nouns — as in, pointing to my shoes, “John, hand me those bitches, would you?”

7-Imp: What sound or noise do you love?

Haven: Box fans. Large fires.

7-Imp: What sound or noise do you hate?

Haven: The electronic sound from computers and televisions.

7-Imp: What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

Haven: There isn’t such a thing. This is it for me.

7-Imp: What profession would you not like to do?

Haven: Well, all of them. But there are certain things I would really REALLY hate, like dentistry. I’m sorry, dentists. I also can’t imagine being the person who does the shampooing at hair salons. And then anything involving money or ambition or competition or schmoozing over cocktails in Manhattan. God help me.

7-Imp: If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

Haven: “Here’s your Mom Mary, and all the dogs you ever loved.”

For further reading:

• Visit Purity of Heart: A Haven Kimmel fan site for more information, such as interviews, a bibliography, and more.
• Read here for an excerpt from The Solace of Leaving Early.

Photo credits:

Top photo of Haven with her dog, Cloud (and “pregnant for Baby Augusten but you can’t tell it!”): Greg Plachta

Bottom black and white photo at Sunset Beach, North Carolina:
Augusten Burroughs