The Author Responds, Part II

More responses from author Michelle Latiolais, author of A Proper Knowledge to the questions:

Had you at first thought the manuscript unpublishable?
Did the book change a lot from that version that was in the garage to the published version?

HER RESPONSE:

I have never thought in terms of publishable/unpublishable, as I'm not all that sure what measure that would be? I'd have to say I've read plenty of writing that somehow managed to get published, but quality could not possibly have been the reason. So, I don't think as I'm writing whether the work will be published or not; that's not even something I have much control over, so why would I bother. There are, I suppose, writers who can write to markets, but that's not why I write, nor would that ever even remotely interest me. That said, I deeply care about certain readers I have in my life. If I've taken something I've written to them and they shake their heads in dismay, well, you know, I change my wanton ways.

You ask if the book changed a lot when I did a final rewrite for Erika Goldman at Bellevue Literary Press. I would say no, but I think she would say, yes, awfully. When I went off to Ucross in Wyoming (http://www.ucrossfoundation.org/index1.html), I hadn't really looked at this novel in almost four years. It was almost as though someone else had written it, and really someone else had. Being widowed makes a very different person of you, believe me. I was stunned that the novel was being published, and very grateful, and I wanted to make it as good as I could possibly make it in two weeks, which was the amount of time I had at Ucross. I worked every day for about eight hours and did entirely rewrite it, by which I mean I polished every page. But I don't think I changed much fundamental about it. Ron Carlson had read it for me and had made me see that certain characters only lived when Luke was there in their lives, but they of course did have lives when Luke wasn't around and so I made those lives up, made them full, imagined them. Interestingly, those were "normal" lives. I'd spent so much attention writing the case studies, I'd neglected the lives without pathology.