On the drive to learn and understand

In the two novels you’ve published, science is a key theme. The Anatomy of Dreams follows two researchers studying lucid dreaming, and in The Immortalists, one of your main characters becomes a scientist who studies longevity. What draws you to write fiction about science? In a parallel universe, would you have been a scientist?

In a parallel universe, I could not have been a scientist, because I struggled in science classes—I’m pretty sure I got a C in high school chemistry. I remember driving my teacher crazy by asking why there were a certain number of electrons in an atom, or why they orbited in a certain way. She was like, “Because that’s the way it is!” And I was like, “But what’s the story?!”

For this reason, I sometimes wonder at the fact that I continually write about science and scientists. But I find the world fascinating; I’m curious about all sorts of things, and I’m driven to learn and understand. I think I’m partly drawn to science from a philosophical or even spiritual perspective. Much of my work explores the border, and the tension, between what we know and what we don’t. Uncertainty is one of life’s great challenges, but the unknown is also a site of possibility and wonder. I see science and spirituality as different ways of engaging with that space.

The phrase I just used—”fiction about science”— is funny because it’s so very different from science fiction. Your books take place very much in the real world. In your opinion, what differentiates science fiction from fiction about science? And do you take any inspiration from science fiction?

This is such an interesting question. You’re right that my work until now has stayed within the realm of the real, though I think that can be a somewhat blurry continuum—it often seems to me that there is mystery and even magic (if we define that as what we can’t explain) woven throughout the fabric of reality. For example, in The Immortalists, there is the question of psychic ability. Perhaps clairvoyance is part of a continuum that includes more familiar phenomena, like intuition, but it still feels rather magical to me.

I just finished my third book, which is the first time I’m diving fully into science fictional territory. It’s been thrilling and a little scary, in part because I have so much respect for fantasy and science fiction writers; it takes a ton of imagination and discipline to create a new world, or at least to do that well. I grew up reading books like A Wrinkle in Time and The Giver and His Dark Materials, the latter of which remains my favorite trilogy. These days, I’m inspired by a range of writers who toe the line between literary and genre fiction, including Emily St. John Mandel, Ted Chiang, Jeff Vandermeer, Susanna Clarke, Mohsin Hamid, Michael Zapata, and Vandana Singh.

What’s your process from start to finish—does the idea come first, or the plot, or the theme, or the area of science? When do you choose when to research or brainstorm versus when to write or rewrite?

The concept typically comes first. Those are the lightbulb moments, the most muse-y ones. For my first book, it was the idea of this uneasy trio involved in dream research, a romantic couple and their professor. For my second book, I knew that four siblings would visit a fortune teller, who tells them their dates of death (or so she claims), and that the book would then follow the siblings over the course of their lives. And for this new book, there were two threads—one was a fascinating (real!) science experiment that was producing results with eerie implications. And the second thread was my desire to explore the universe of marriage, or partnership.

I maybe get a really compelling idea every five years, and I need it to be exciting enough to hold my interest over the long process of writing and publishing the book. For months after the idea comes to me, I get to know it. I take notes, I think about plot and structure, I visualize it—it’s a receptive, dreamy stage, you can’t push too hard, the idea is like smoke at that point. Typing can feel too concrete, so I use notebooks; writing by hand feels intuitive and more aligned with that generative, discursive, follow-the-thread(s) part of the process. Sometimes I even draw or collage or paste in interviews with other artists. Often language from the book will come to me: bits of scene, dialogue, imagery. Eventually I accrue enough material that my thinking clarifies; I have a sense of overall arc. And that’s when I like to begin the actual writing. I move chronologically through the book, from page one to page two, but I also have those snippets of language or scene tucked away for later in the book, which I add or reassess as I go along. Interestingly, I often find that this very early writing does indeed make it into the final manuscript, even verbatim.

I typically do enough research at the outset to feel comfortable creating within the world of the book. If I’m writing about the 1960s in New York on the Lower East Side, for example, I have to know enough about that time and setting to be able to fictionalize accurately, paradoxical as that might sound. But I do most of my research, especially the really detailed stuff, as I go along. For this most recent novel, which I’ve been calling Book 3 (though it does have a title!), I’ve been lucky enough to hire a research assistant, and that has drastically simplified my process. I still do a lot on my own, but to be able to kick it back to them, brainstorm together, and ask for their expertise in the fields with which I’m least familiar—that’s huge.

So I basically make my way through the book like this, and pretty slowly. Book 3 took four and a half years, and that was just for a first draft. Now I’m starting to revise.

What is your approach to research? Does this approach change based on whether you are researching background science information versus general worldbuilding (getting the details of a place right, writing about the AIDS crisis, how magicians do their magic, etc)?

I don’t think my approach changes very much between the two. I do a lot of reading, of course—nonfiction, memoir, academic articles, journalism, also sometimes fiction. I find documentaries or other video footage particularly helpful, visually and emotionally. And then I also do a lot of what I call experiential research, out in the world. That might mean shadowing scientists, or traveling to a particular place, or taking a workshop so that I can try an activity myself. Sometimes it feels like being undercover. It brings me a lot of delight and inspiration, and I hope it also imbues the book with texture and physicality. I want the scaffolding to be so robust that, as a reader, you can hang out there, touch things, wander around.

I also rely heavily on interviews. I’m incredibly grateful to the people who have spoken to me about their professions or experiences and trusted me to fictionalize from there.

Did you ever travel for research?

Yes! One of the fun things I did for Book 3 was to shadow scientists working in caves. I live in Wisconsin, and that was in Minnesota. I attended a women’s mushroom conference at a state park. I drove to Chicago to see an exhibit of Remedios Varo’s work—she was a surrealist painter, and I’d been researching female surrealists. Of course, traveling for research can be expensive, so it’s something that I’ve been able to do most with this current book, after The Immortalists enabled me to write full-time. I never take that for granted.

Do you travel for non-research and how does it feel different?

This made me smile, because it’s true that even when I’m traveling for non-research—on vacation, visiting family, etc.—I still have the book in mind. It’s like a valve that is always open, and whatever I see or experience filters through, even if those experiences aren’t ones I’m seeking out for the purpose of the book. But I am also trying to draw a firmer line between my writing life and my “personal life,” whatever that means. It’s tricky, because I think for all artists, it’s not so simple as “My art is my job, and I can turn that part of my brain off otherwise.” I am a writer constantly. But I also think it’s important to experience for the sake of experience itself, not just with an eye toward documentation or creation. I’ve had periods when I prioritized my writing so much that I was under a lot of strain, mentally and physically. For instance, it’s hard for me to take off weekends, or to generally prioritize rest.

So I guess this is a long way of saying that in some ways, anything I do is connected to my work, but also, it’s important for non-research travel to feel different than research-related travel, because that has to do with living fully and being present in real time. And I’m working on that.

How does the physical location of your writing impact the writing? Do you feel differently when you write in Wisconsin versus San Francisco versus on the road? Does the relative quietness of Madison make you feel more quiet in your head? Is the chaos of San Francisco good for new ideas and connections?

I grew up in San Francisco, and I think it played a major role in making me an artist. The diversity, the eccentricity, the atmospheric moodiness. I miss it intensely, though thankfully, my parents still live there. When I go to visit, I feel so alive. That valve I mentioned earlier—in San Francisco, it opens up all the way. I just drink everything in.

But the pace of a major city can be frenetic, and San Francisco has really troubling issues. There’s massive wealth inequality, for example. I couldn’t afford to live there at this point. I don’t mean to suggest that Madison doesn’t have its own issues, but I have been able to make a life here as an artist. There’s a slower pace and a groundedness that reduces internal static for me. I’ve experienced community differently; that can be hard in a larger city. And of course, Madison is inspiring in its own way. Book 3 is partially set in Wisconsin (also in San Francisco—I couldn’t help myself), and the particulars of those sections wouldn’t have been accessible to me had I not moved here.

How did you choose which characters to tell your story through? For instance, one POV in the first book and four POVs in the second book. By this logic—will the third book have sixteen POVs?

That’s one of the things that comes to me by instinct and is typically part of the original idea. The four Gold siblings were simply a part of the concept for The Immortalists; it didn’t feel like there was any choice, it was baked in from the start. I love your theory about exponentially increasing POVs and am sad to disappoint by saying that the next book goes down instead of up in perspectives, back to one. However, there are sixteen chapters, so you must be on to something!

Did becoming a NYT bestseller impact your creative work? For instance, do you think you spent more time thinking about The Immortalists before moving on to writing your next book than you would have otherwise?

Definitely. That was a pivotal period in my life. One of its impacts was indeed that I remained actively engaged with the book for longer than I did with my first novel, since I toured for over a year after publication. To connect with readers and booksellers at that scale was profound. My publisher got behind the book so completely. It was a rare experience and a privilege in so many ways. I feel that it gave me my career.

The intensity of that time was also challenging. My first book had sold modestly, and I felt like, This is my chance—like I couldn’t say no to anything. A lifetime of striving and perfectionism crashed up against that publication and led to disabling chronic pain. It’s taken years to untangle why that happened and to establish new patterns; for me, finding mind-body therapies (especially Pain Reprocessing Therapy) changed everything.

Ultimately, though, what happened for The Immortalists enabled me to live as an artist, a literal dream come true. Eight years later, I still pinch myself constantly. I recognize that it’s something few artists get to experience, and that isn’t fair.

You are also an avid knitter. Do you find any connection between that creative process and that with writing? I’ve seen that you’ve knitted a couple truly lovely Immortalists-themed projects inspired by the cover.

I’m both a creative and obsessive person; I just love making things. So whether it’s via words or yarn, there’s something thrilling and probably addictive about the experience of that magic trick. But knitting is more physical than mental, so it gives my brain a break. And it’s tactile—whereas language, even when printed and bound in a book, still lives in the mind. It’s comforting to have a finished object that is concrete.

My publisher had the idea to connect The Immortalists to the knitting world, and it was a blast. I’ve done events at yarn stores and done some fun book-themed collaborations. I’m really moved by how the knitting community embraced the book. They’re a very literary bunch. Books and yarn seem to go hand-in-hand as far as cozy hobbies go.

You have a very mysterious Instagram post that you say is a compilation of photos about your next book, which you just finished writing. The post includes, among other things, a cave, a pile of clocks, and a photo of you wearing what looks like a robot suit. What can you say about the book? Will there be time-traveling robots in caves?

This made me laugh. I know that I am hint-y on social media and I often fear that this is obnoxious, but it comes from genuine superstition about sharing too much before a book is finished. I have to keep the energy of a book kind of secret and contained so that it remains dynamic and doesn’t dissipate. But I also love connecting with readers and it’s excruciating not to share anything after all these years.

But anyway—what can I say?

Clocks. Snow. The end of the world. (Or at least the bottom of it.) Nostalgia. Apple trees. Reunion. Possibility. Mushrooms. Octopi. Sheep. Sleepovers. Wide, spreading roots. Melting ice. Mirrors. Other worlds.