Deborah Batterman

Deborah Batterman is the author of Just Like February, a finalist in the 2019 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, 2018 Best Book Awards, International Fiction Awards, and American Fiction Awards. A story from her collection, Shoes Hair Nails, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In 2012 she published Because My Name Is Mother, a chapbook of essays linked by the reminder that every mother is a daughter, too.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

When I read a novel with an intriguing title — and I think that can be said about Just Like February — I always look to that aha! moment when its meaning is revealed. Jake is a Leap Year baby, which gives him a unique perspective in terms of the passage of time, not to mention what becomes the central metaphor of the novel, revealed maybe halfway into it. There’s a fascinating history to how the calendar evolved. Politics and religion played their part in determining the length of months and marking important days in a way that might still be in sync with astronomy. All of which got me thinking that for all the scientific accuracy we have, randomness plays its part in our lives. Just like February.

What's in a name?

More often than not the names of characters just come to me. As a character surfaces in my mind, I form a picture of her or him and I start to play with different names. I’ve known more than one Rachel over the years (it’s a popular Jewish name) and I like the sound of it, which seemed to suit the narrator well. Haven’t you ever had the experience of telling someone they do or don’t look like their name? The name Jake popped into my head in the same way. Jake is actually derived from Jacob, a more traditionally Jewish name. And Jake is anything but traditional.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

My teenage self, an avid reader, probably sensed I would one day write a novel.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Your question calls to mind a quote attributed to E.L. Doctorow: “Writing is like driving a car at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” The point being that for me beginnings, when they’re right, take me down a road that almost always leads to one possible ending. I love beginnings — I love the openness of the places a sentence or a paragraph can take me. To answer your question more directly, in my short stories, beginnings almost never change. In a novel, sections might get shifted for a stronger narrative arc.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I think certain themes keep arising in a writer’s stories—in my case it’s family relationships and particularly the mother/child bond. As a mother, I can’t help but see at least a little of myself in my fictional mothers.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Music plays a big part in my writing. Songs are often referenced but more important is the part I think rhythm plays in what I think of as narrative pulse. It’s what so often drives the story. I watch movies a lot and they influence me in terms of framing scenes. News stories also find their way into what I write largely as a way of placing the reader in a particular time.

Learn more about the book and author at Deborah Batterman's website.

The Page 69 Test: Just Like February.

--Marshal Zeringue