 Jonathan
Galassi: Rebecca,
lots of people are going to be asking, Where did this all come from? I mean:
a fly. I mean: a Jew in 18th-century France becoming a fly here and now.
We're well beyond the bounds of realism here. Can you tell us what the first
kernels of Jacob's Folly were, and where you found them?
Rebecca Miller: The first thing I wrote was in the spring of 2008.
It was the moment where "reliable, true" Leslie Senzatimore, the
volunteer fireman, is peeing on his front lawn as the moon sets. So all I had
was this big, very good man peeing at dawn--and then I saw a creature above
him, nestled in the sky--some kind of demon or sprite, a mischievous soul
stuck as if between two harp strings in some sort of transmigration accident,
laughing down at him. So I started with a human and a low-order divinity.
This spirit/human dichotomy had been fascinating to me since I was a small
child and used to stare and stare at my mother's tiny Mexican earthenware
chapel that contained a few people praying, a priest blessing them, and the
devil laughing down at them all from the roof.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment