Literary Fellowship, and is a two-time finalist for the Oregon Book Award. Gershow is the organizer of “100 Notable Small Press Books,” a curated list of the year’s recommended books from independent publishers.
My Q&A with the author:
How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?Visit Miriam Gershow's website.
As soon as I typed the last sentence of my first draft, I knew the title of Closer would be Closer. Even if I also know that I was choosing a title that could be read one of two ways. I began saying, almost immediately: “Closer as in opposite of further, not closer as in the last person to close down the bar at night.” So why choose this title? It’s similar to when I knew in my first trimester that my son would be Eli. When you know, you know. The idea of closer - getting closer, being closer - embodies everything this story is about. This novel is the story of a community, full of people who make heedless mistakes, often at a very high cost, all in service of trying to get closer to those they love, whether that be a child, a lover, a spouse, a friend. They get it wrong more than they get it right, and that’s what interests me. Closer is different than already being close to someone. Closer is aspirational; a want for more, a want for better.
How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?
I think my teenaged self would be impressed that I’m still obsessed with high school. So much of the action of Closer takes place in and around West High School, involving both the kids and adults of the school. Or maybe my teenage self would be shocked that the sights and sounds of that era are still lodged so firmly in my soft palate. I also think my teenage self would be a little disappointed that I don’t have a peekaboo cover featuring a sullen, haunted teen a la Flowers in the Attic or Petals on the Wind. She’d want way more creepy grandmother, questionable brother/sister dynamics, and a fat, breakable book spine.
Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?
Beginnings are so easy! The unfurling of possibility! So much freedom! With a beginning, you can write a check that your narrative doesn’t have to cash (yet). The are easily hundreds of fat beginning and middle pages before I have to make good on the promises of the beginning. But of course, the ending is where you have to bring it all home. One of the biggest challenges of Closer was having to write a triple ending because I’d set up three central point of view characters, each with their own distinct conflict to be resolved. I tend to either nail the ending or the beginning in early drafting, with the other taking up my attention in revisions. But for Closer, I rewrote the beginning and one of the three endings over and over and over. Both needed recalibrating and more recalibrating, and I just stuck with it.
Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?
I see myself in all of my characters! So much of my writing is an exercise in empathy: understanding why characters behave in the way they do especially when the behavior is not particularly wise or defensible. Closer is the novel ofa community, and I see at least a kernel of myself in every character. Stefanie, a parent of high schooler, is fiercely devoted to her teenage son, Baz. I started writing this book when my son was eight, but now, seven years later, I have grown into a parent who is similar to Stefanie—lulled by the sweetness of boyhood but with a teenager who strains to be his own person. With Woody, the guidance counselor swept into the spotlight of the school’s current controversies, I have that urge to be seen as vital and important like he does, to be the hero of the story. With Lark, the students who struggles to find her place alongside her best friend, Livvy, as Livvy is swept up into her first love, I am forever that awkward, clingy kid, needing reassurance as the sands shift under my feet. I see each of my characters - even the secondary ones - as tapped into some vulnerability of mine. I’m often asked about characters in terms of unlikablity: are they likable? Should they be likable? But the question that’s more interesting to me is if they are credibly human? Can you feel their thumping heart on the page?
What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?
I do not write melodrama, but I do love for a good melodrama to punch me deep in the feelings. It’s a reminder of what I want out of art and what I want others to get out of my art - to be moved. I was singularly obsessed with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga in A Star is Born for a good couple of years. I loved the family drama, Kingdom, even though I would never ever have believed anyone who told me I’d love a show about MMA. Same with Friday Night Lights and football. I love a good cry. I am a sucker for the weepy, folky, haunting tunes of Novo Amour and Ocie Elliott. I spent more days than I’m willing to admit listening to TALK’s “Run Away to Mars” on repeat because I’d heard it on the radio and it socked me in the throat in the most pleasurably painful way.
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