Rachna Singh, Editor, The Wise Owl talks to Jessica Anthony an American novelist and author of The Convalescent (2009), Chopsticks (2012), Enter the Aardvark (2020) and The Most (2024). Jessica was awarded the McSweeney’s inaugural Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award for her debut novel The Convalescent, Apps Magazine’s (UK) ‘App of the Year’ for her book Chopsticks. She was also a finalist for the New England Book award in fiction for her book Enter the Aardvark. Jessica’s latest release, The Most, has been longlisted for the National Book award for Fiction. Anthony’s short stories have appeared in Best New American Voices, Best American Nonrequired Reading, McSweeney’s, New American Writing, among other places.

 

Thank you so much Jessica for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with The Wise Owl.

 

 

RS: You are an acclaimed, award-winning author. For the benefit of our readers please tell us what made you gravitate towards writing novels and short stories.

 

JA: “Gravitate” is an interesting word here. It indicates a pull towards the centre of a thing, which is accurate. I was pulled to write novels and stories because I was already aware of them. I read every day growing up, and because I was constantly reading fiction, it made sense to me that I should write fiction. It took me less time to know that I wanted to write than what I was able to write. Sometimes starting out you think you ought to sound a certain way on the page or you’re no good, when what you need to do is figure out what interests you, and then learn why through story.

 

 

RS: Your latest novel, The Most, which has been longlisted for the National Book Award, appears to be completely different from your previous novels in theme and style. Tell us what inspired you to pick up the story of a couple at crossroads in their marriage and set it in the 1950s.

 

JA: Well, this story was originally imagined as the second in a book of novellas, and each of those novellas is now being reimagined as a standalone novel. So I wrote it as a deliberate stylistic departure from Enter the Aardvark, the first of the series. What it shares with the others in the collection is that it is an escalation: a fiction where an awful lot goes wrong in a short timeframe. I had been reading the stories, novels, plays and poems of women writing in the 1950s for a long time, and thought it would be interesting to try to write a contemporary historical novel with a sense of its own temporality: a novel that simultaneously felt like a novel that could have been published in the era.

 

 

RS: Our readers would also love to know how your novella builds on your previous works in terms of style or themes, and what was your greatest challenge in writing it?

 

JA: The first draft of The Most was written in about two months. Revising took six years. In fairness, I was writing and publishing another novel at the same time, but the challenge for me in fiction is always that I am a painfully slow reviser. It takes me a long time to understand what I have written, and see new ways into the work that articulate a core sensation. I aim for every sentence that appears on the page to belong to the sentences around it, and that takes a great deal of time and patience.

 

RS: Just so our readers get an overview of the work you have done, I would also like to focus on your debut novel, The Convalescent, where you mix Hungarian history with contemporary satire. Our readers would be curious to know what drew you to blending these genres, and how do you approach writing historical satire without losing the essence of either?

 

JA: I am endlessly curious about the plausibility of fiction, and the place where reality collides with mythology. Each of my novels is—or is partially build upon—historical fiction, yet I typically dislike reading historical fiction. Caveat: I like reading historical fictions in which the author demonstrates, even in a mysterious, oblique way, that recalling history for the purpose of story is an impossible task, and every fictional journey into history is an experiment with unreality. While Enter the Aardvark and The Convalescent are outlandishly irrational, The Most is a gentle irrationality. Any fictional landscape must work according to its own terms; has its own logic. So what happens when we are seeing the past through a present lens? Not to attempt the impossible and recreate it authentically, but to authentically acknowledge that we are looking through a lens, and that the world must be distorted in order for it to be understood.

 

RS: Your second novel, Chopsticks, was a multimedia narrative that was published as a book as well as an app. We would love to know what inspired you to explore storytelling through this unconventional format.

 

JA: A novel told through images and an App was the brain child of the brilliant designer Rodrigo Corral, who was in search of a writer to create a story that might suit the format. When my agent approached me with the opportunity, I seized it! I wrote 400 pages of instructions, which Rodrigo and his amazing team interpreted into image. It was an incredibly fun and unusual way to interrogate unreliable narration.

 

RS: Enter the Aardvark takes a satirical look at politics through a bizarre and imaginative premise. What inspired you to pair a Victorian taxidermied aardvark with a closeted Republican congressman?

 

JA: The conceit of the novel sounds very bizarre, I agree! But Americans are creating a political culture that many of us cannot recognise at all. We are living in a berserk moment, and the aardvark is an extraordinary and beautiful and also quite funny-looking nocturnal mammal. They have lived on earth for several millions of years. Through the mien of the aardvark came a sense that it was mirroring the very human tendency to act against our own best interests, enduring in spite of—or perhaps because of—our irrational expression.

 

RS: What I found very intriguing when I was reading your resume was the fact that your experiences range from being a butcher in Alaska to a masseuse in Poland to being a bridge guard in Slovakia. I’m sure our readers would be curious to know (as I am) how these diverse jobs shaped your writing?

 

JA: I am always connected travel and writing. Abroad, you are forced into new habits, new vernaculars. New senses are awakened. It tests your patience. For many years, though, I had very little money, so in order to travel, I had to find a ways to live. Learning how to be uncomfortable and patient helped me to not rush the experience of writing; to enjoy living in a state of perpetual uncertainty. That’s novel writing.

 

RS: You have earned a lot of acclaim as a writer. What advice would you give upcoming writers about honing the craft of fiction writing?  

 

JA: I would set aside the word “craft,” which maybe implies that writing fiction is a skill. Instead, I would urge upcoming writers to amuse themselves relentlessly in pursuit of the truth. To not worry if what amuses you seems absurd to other people. To not worry if suddenly what once amused you now terrifies you. And read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read.

 

​RS: What’s next for you in terms of writing or exploring new formats like you did with Chopsticks? Do you foresee more multimedia or cross-genre experiments?

 

JA: While I don’t see myself creating another multimedia novel, I will be exploring character and form in new ways for as long as I can write novels. A novel is imperfect, like a person. It bears infinite possibility for change.

 

Thank you so much Jessica for talking to The Wise Owl about your books, creativity and craft. We wish you the very best in all your literary and creative endeavours and hope that you win more prestigious literary awards for your work.

 

Thank you for having me!