Ask Mona Simpson! discussion

If you have a question you'd like to ask Mona, you can ask it in this thread. Mona will start answering questions on August 22, 2011!

I would like to ask you about the opening chapter of My Hollywood. The title 50/50 is so clear and provocative and I love that the book begins with a conversation between Claire and Paul that leads to a promise, a contract that will be broken.

A friend told me that she started to read My Hollywood and had to stop after the 50/50 chapter because it was threatening to her marriage. This person has several degrees from top institutions, as does her husband; they met in college. She made the money in the household for many many years, and they now have two small children. She continues to work and pull a large salary though not as large as her husband's; he works in business and travels constantly, often on a moment's notice.

This is a long-winded way of asking, could you say something about the 50/50 chapter, the contract made and broken? How does My Hollywood explore contracts we cannot keep? Is this something that the characters confront constantly, in your mind? Is this the nature of child-rearing in the 21st century? How much, if anything, does the failure of 50/50 have to do with two parents who pursue artistic careers, or is this incidental?

Thank you.

What did you discover about yourself, something you did not know before, while writing "My Hollywood"?

Magdalena wrote: "I would like to ask you about the opening chapter of My Hollywood. The title 50/50 is so clear and provocative and I love that the book begins with a conversation between Claire and Paul that leads..."

I’m sorry to hear that your friend found the opening of My Hollywood threatening to her marriage. That’s certainly not my intention. In real life (so-called), I’m a matchmaker, not a divorce whisperer.
I like your description of a conversation that leads to a promise that implies a contract.

The novel opens with a date.
It’s a moment, though, when two people, with drinks in their hands and the flicker of a candle flame softening their young faces, talk about how they will live their lives as parents, if they are to have a child.
50/50 is a lightly made promise, a notional contract, full of good faith, optimism and hope.

There’s another contract in the book, much later on, drafted by an attorney, to be signed by a couple hiring a nanny to take care of their young twins.
This is an explicit, detailed contract, full of intricate expectations baldly stated. This contract states overtly that the nanny will be expected to organize closets and do laundry while the babies nap. The terms under which either party can leave the agreement are also spelled out: the Gelfonds can terminate Lola’s employment without cause upon two weeks’ notice or, in lieu of that, two weeks salary. Lola can leave upon six weeks notice. The job can also end by Lola’s permanent disability, due to illness, accident or other cause, after a period of one month.

These are two ways we enter into life-changing arrangements. Sociologists, scholars of gift exchange and the marketplace, economists who study the “pink economy” have written about the ways in which we don’t like to spell out the “terms” of caregiving, of any kind. We want to feel inspired by love.
One of the questions I wanted to probe in this book was how much love can be bought and sold, in a marketplace for caregivers.
I think we’re all interested in how love, a feeling and an act not usually associated with contracts, bargains or negotiation, can survive a huge social change.

Richard, the father of my children, once worked in the U.S. Attorney’s office. We followed what we called The Progress of Dad, (our little homage to Alice Munro’s The Progress of Love.) When the first baby was born, the dad in the office would generally take part of the allowed paternity leave (not the full six weeks, but two of them, or even three if he didn’t have an upcoming trial.) By the second child, it was under a week. Invariably. One guy sent out an ostentatious announcement to the whole office that he would on leave from noon Friday until the following morning “to support Judy.”

I often poll my students about the ways their households worked, about who did what, who worked, who came to their games, who helped with homework, and did their parents let them quit piano.
If it’s any consolation, many more teenage boys now cook. Although I regret to say that as of yet my own seventeen year old is not one of them.

Jaime wrote: "What did you discover about yourself, something you did not know before, while writing "My Hollywood"?"

I discovered a lot of things about myself writing My Hollywood. A certain degree of self-knowledge is one of the unintentional and sometimes even unwanted side effects of writing a novel, any novel. It’s a daily sustained effort. You learn about your limitations, mostly; your ability to concentrate, how much attention and cheerleading you need, how courageous you really are and how afraid.

Hi Mona,
I have just returned from a Writers' Conference (my first) and found it thrilling.

Will you be participating in any Writers' Conferences this year? Are you at liberty to tell us which one if any?

After I read "My Hollywood," loving the book and the characters, I wondered if the title was off-putting to some readers who might have thought it was a Hollywood tabloid, focusing on stars.

Did you and the publisher have any other titles in mind?
"My Hollywood" is absolutely one of my favorite books, and I'd like to see it more widely read!

Eileen wrote: "Hi Mona,
I have just returned from a Writers' Conference (my first) and found it thrilling.

Will you be participating in any Writers' Conferences this year? Are you at liberty to tell us which on..."

I think I'm teaching at a writers' conference in Aspen for a week next summer. I'd meant to go this summer, but I had a chance to take my kids to Kenya and Turkey. I'm looking forward to it. I hope I'll meet you there.

Mona wrote: "Eileen wrote: "Hi Mona,
I have just returned from a Writers' Conference (my first) and found it thrilling.

Will you be participating in any Writers' Conferences this year? Are you at liberty to t..."

Thank you for your kind words. You're probably completely right. My Hollywood, the title, is completely my fault. I remember being asked about changing the title some months before before it came out -- the publisher had exactly the same worries you've mentioned, that the book would seem to be something it's not. A Hollywood memoir. I should have listened. I seem to either have titles from the very beginning (The Lost Father, A Regular Guy) or I struggle for ever and write endless lists all over the house. I remember Happiness and Accidents was on the list for Anywhere But Here. I never felt completely great about Off Keck Road either. I'd had My Hollywood from the very beginning so I was attached to the idea of keeping it. I liked it being Lola's Hollywood.
Next time I'll listen. Perhaps I can run the title for the new book by you.
.

You answered an earlier question about 50/50, specifically about the idea of broken promise between a young couple, but another 50/50 scenario, I think, is also very important to your novel: the division in narration between Lola and Claire. Which becomes a comparison of mother figures for William. Which is complicated by the fact that Lola is the loving, patient, but ultimately hired mother, while Claire is the biological but busy, time-limited mother.

It creates a class division within the role of mother, and when Lola is dismissed from regular charge of William--when it is crystal clear that one mother is expendable and the other is not--it is one of the most nerve-grabbing moments of the novel. And it seems as though Claire understands this, that creating and dismantling a family member through the giving or discontinuation of payment is somehow a strange position to be in, although an exceedingly common one. Was that moral grey area a region you were actively thinking about, or am I entirely off-base here? If I'm not, I'd love to hear any further thoughts you had when creating and imagining this particular relationship.

Peter De Vries famously remarked “I love being a writer. What I can’t stand is the paperwork.” As an aspiring writer, or rather, aspiring published author, I am curious to know more about your personal writing process. What's a typical working day like for you? When and where do you write? Do you set daily writing goals? What is the most difficult aspect of writing for you? What is your best advice for other writers to get inspired, stay committed, and remain productive?

Alex wrote: "You answered an earlier question about 50/50, specifically about the idea of broken promise between a young couple, but another 50/50 scenario, I think, is also very important to your novel: the di..."
The contradictions you identify -- the sense many a contemporary child may have that his "real" parent is also very busy, the one with limits, the one who will "try" to be at his game, his recital, his bedside when he's sick, while the more openly available and giving person is hired to be just that -- and the moral questions these contradictions give rise to haunted me for years, both in the writing of this novel and in my life as a mother who wanted to a mother and also some other things too. These moral questions are vexing and almost universal, even for people who don't have children. A forty year old who has her aging father living with her has a very different life than a forty year old who pays the bill for an assistant living facility and visits her father twice a week. I suppose if one question tagged me most throughout the writing of this novel, it was whether you could buy love. This is a matter that's become extremely pressing and urgent since women have begun to work. A man, in a traditional marriage,never had to hire anyone to care for his children while he went to work and perhaps allowed himself to become absorbed by that work; he assumed his wife was home, loving her children and that she wanted to be. I don't think many women of my generation or any other have had that option. And yet, many fathers raise children with this arrangement feel what working mothers feel -- that they done some things differently and that they don't know most of details. Almost all of these problems have the shimmer of material that belongs in fiction; there are no crisply walled "solutions," either social or personal. This is a world of grey area where the feeling inside an action matters and where everyone is implicated. Everyone has loved a person in need, either through infancy, old age or illness. The extent we're able to stay with another person, the way we do this, and whether there's also laughter and connection-- these are life's central challenges.

Honey-Squirrel wrote: "Peter De Vries famously remarked “I love being a writer. What I can’t stand is the paperwork.” As an aspiring writer, or rather, aspiring published author, I am curious to know more about your pers..."

That's a wonderful quote. The paperwork.

My writing habits have changed over the years, depending on whether I’ve been living alone or with other people whether I’ve had another job too and many other variables having to do with my love life.
Now, my children are 17 and 11, and so I take them to school and then come home and write most of the day.
So, a typical working day lately (it’s summer) may be like this. Run at seven, come home, look at emails, answer a few, make breakfast, take a shower, settle down with a coffee and work until lunch. (But then, I’m at the end of a novel, right now, so getting IN is not a problem.) I then make lunch, will try to keep one or more of my children at the table longer than two minutes, then work again until five or so. I talk on the phone usually at the end of the day and see friends.

When I was young and lived alone, I contrived to work outside of my apartment. I borrowed empty spaces, I swapped livingrooms, I loved having an office (what was I thinking?) Now most of the time I work at my kitchen table. I like a buzz of activity around me. But that’s the great (and ephemeral) luxury of living with children of a certain age. We’re glad we’re all in the house, but they don’t want me to PLAY with them anymore. I worked a whole year once in a public library. I was heartbroken for more than one good reason and I needed to work where I couldn’t cry.

At certain stages of work, I do. Now, finishing something, I can. Other times, I need to give my stubborn unconscious more reign.

The most difficult aspect of writing is also something I need: the solitude.

My best advice for writers to get inspired, stay committed and be productive?
You need to read, all the time, and also, to have fun.
Good friends who share your taste and sensibility are crucial.
This is not something you can get straight As in. Let yourself succumb, in your reading, and in your writing. You don’t have to parse out your time sensibly.

When I have problems with work, though, I try to simplify my life and throw more at the work – more time, more new sessions in the day, more of all I have. I read more wildly, take more walks and compensate for my stay at home life with as many homely pleasures as possible.

Oh, and I’ve always loved this quote from Richard Ford:

“Marry someone who thinks you being a writer is a really good idea.”

Thanks, Mona for your answers. I hope I can get to Aspen. And btw, I really struggle with titles! e