Victoria Redel

Victoria Redel is a first-generation American author of four books of poetry and six books of fiction. Her newest novel is I Am You. Redel’s work has been widely anthologized, awarded, and translated in ten languages. Her debut novel, Loverboy (2001) was adapted for feature film directed by Kevin Bacon. Redel’s short stories, poetry and essays have appeared in Granta, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Bomb, One Story, Salmagundi, O, and NOON among many others. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center. Redel is a professor in the graduate and undergraduate Creative Writing programs at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in New York and Utah.

My Q&A with the author:

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

My hope is that before reading the novel the title I Am You provokes a question in the reader-- What does this mean? Or maybe even a response of-- No way, you're not me! But when you start reading the novel, what the title means keeps slightly altering as the relationship of the two central characters, Maria and Gerta, shifts. And when you come to the end, the title hopefully feels quite layered and rich.

What's in a name?

In I Am You though the story is invented, the central characters are based on real people from the Dutch Golden Age and I've kept their names.

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

I've actually written the kind of novel my teenage reader self would have gobbled up, which maybe says that my obsessions haven't changed all that much. A novel that concerns itself with paint, art, an awakening self, gender, obsession, betrayal and secrets-- that was my jam then, and it apparently still is.

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

The key for me is to find the opening. I believe that once I have the "right" beginning I simply have to keep unpacking it to find the entire work. So, sometimes that takes a while. In I Am You, the opening paragraphs happened fast and easily and are not much changed. At a certain point in the writing, I could see the end. The hard part for me was not rushing to get there, to slow myself down, and find more unexpected surprises along the way.

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

Despite the centuries between myself and my characters, I feel close and deeply connected to them. There is so much that Gerta says and feels about herself and her awakening development as an artist that feels akin to me. Maria is difficult in ways that I am not, but I wanted to think about ambition both it's necessity in the world and the corrosive effects it has on relationships.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I'm not trying to be glib when I say everything! I spend a lot of time outdoors-- in the mountains, on lakes, and lately, at a late age, I've started riding horses (western). So trees, creeks, the attentive ears of horses are all inspirations. In this novel, I was also able to pay homage to my love of painting, paint, and color.

Visit Victoria Redel's website.

The Page 69 Test: Before Everything.

The Page 69 Test: I Am You.

--Marshal Zeringue