Jeffrey Eugenides: Reading is a dangerous occupation

A conversation with one of the most famous American writers about romance and marriage, his religious searches, and how the books we read influence our lives and the way we view the world.

By Mihaela Frank

Published by ELLE Romania in March 2012

“The Virgin Suicides,” “Middlesex,” and “The Marriage Plot”. Jeffrey Eugenides has only published three novels so far in 18 years (there are nine years between each of his books, which many tease him about), but all his books have been successful and envied by any fellow writer. “The Virgin Suicides” was adapted into a film by Sofia Coppola that was a sensation and continues to sell in massive quantities. “Middlesex” earned the author a Pulitzer Prize. As for “The Marriage Plot,” the novel published last autumn and awaited by readers around the world with great anticipation, well, it has been enthusiastically received by critics and important names in the literary world, and was declared by Publishers Weekly the best book of the year in 2011 in the USA.

The plot is set in 1982, the year when the three main characters, Madeleine, Leonard, and Mitchell, graduate from college and try to find their place in the world. We also have a love triangle here: Mitchell, who studies religion and plans to go to India after graduation, is in love with Madeleine - a literature student - who, however, loves Leonard, a philosophy and biology student, charismatic, charming, and manic-depressive. “The Marriage Plot” offered me the chance of a conversation on Skype with Jeffrey Eugenides.

Question: The three protagonists in "The Marriage Plot" have just graduated from college and are trying to find their way in life. How was this period for you?

Jeffrey Eugenides: I think it's a difficult period for anyone when they finish school. In college, you're somewhat protected by the academic environment, before that your parents take care of you, and then suddenly you must make a lot of decisions about your career, how you'll earn your money, marriage, children - whether or not you'll have them... So, all kinds of questions assault you all at once. It's a very confusing time, as I remember it. For me, the years after graduation were the most difficult in my life. I moved to a new city where I didn't know many people. I was alone and faced all sorts of problems. Today, it seems to me that things are very similar to the time when I graduated: young people are coming out of school in the midst of a recession, moving back in with their parents, and trying to figure out which way to go and what to do with their lives. It's a shame because when you're in your twenties, you're in the best shape of your life in terms of health, and work capacity. Psychologically, however, it's a dramatic period, full of anxiety and imbalance, and such periods are the perfect setting for good stories.

Q: What was your first job after graduation?

J.E.: My first job was at a sailing magazine. I was an editor. I also reported on some of the sailing races in San Francisco. It wasn't a very interesting or glamorous job, and it paid very little, but at least I had a job.

Q: How did you imagine yourself at fifty back then? Are you the person you wanted to be?

J.E.: I imagined I would be a writer, and I am. So, my evolution wasn't a big surprise to me.

Q: So, you always wanted to be a writer?

J.E.: Yes, ever since I was sixteen. I liked to write, I liked literature, and I admired writers at that age when it's so easy to be impressed. It seemed to me that this was the most interesting thing I could do in life, that literature was the best direction in which I could channel my energy, that it couldn't be boring, and I didn't think it was too difficult a goal to achieve. I thought all I had to do was learn how to write well and differently from others. I just had to write the books I hadn't read! It seemed like a good way to spend your life, trying to do something in a way that had never been done before. Looking back, it's funny now: I'm a person who makes decisions very slowly - from the smallest decisions to the important things - but in this regard, I decided very early on.

Q: Ten years passed between graduation and the publication of your first novel, “The Virgin Suicides.” Was it hard to find a publisher?

J.E.: Once I managed to finish writing the book, it wasn't difficult to find a publisher. In fact, I sold the manuscript to the first publisher I contacted. I was lucky, they liked the book. But it was certainly a difficult and long period between finishing college and finishing the first book I wanted to publish. There were years of trying, years in which I practiced my writing, and tried to write something worthy of being read by others. I didn't rush to publish quickly in the first years after graduation, I even thought I wouldn't publish anything until I was thirty.

Q: Did you expect the success that “The Virgin Suicides” had?

J.E.: Success didn't come overnight. Things happened slowly after the book was published, so there was no big surprise. The appreciation came gradually. When you write a book, you are mainly concerned that things fit together and that the final result is good. You can't control the public's perception, so it's better not to try to imagine what will happen.

Q: Does the status of a celebrity bother you in any way? Do you enjoy or get bored with book tour appearances?

J.E.: I'm not really that much of a celebrity. Not in the way it happens with actors, for example. The profession of a writer is a solitary one. Most of the time, you stay at home, at your desk, and write, in solitude, often in agony. You raise your children, and take care of your family. So, when I finish a book and must promote it - which in my case happens every few years - I enjoy "going out into the world". It's a welcome change in my routine. Of course, I have to tell the same stories all the time, the questions I am asked are often similar, but that doesn't bother me.

Q: There are a lot of books in “The Marriage Plot” - books read by the characters, books that sit on their room shelves, books that travel with them, books that are discussed in classes. And these books play an important role in the characters’ lives. Do you believe that what we read really influences our lives?

J.E.: Indeed, my novel postulates the idea that many of our expectations, especially those related to love, are determined by romance novels we read or films we watch, which are largely similar to the great novels of the 19th century. I could say that my novel is largely about how books influence our behavior, even though social conditions have changed since these books were written - and in particular, about the fact that the way we fall in love reflects what we read about love. Perhaps I became a writer because I read “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” by James Joyce in my youth, perhaps other readings have influenced my life. Reading is a dangerous occupation: it plants notions and ideas about the world in your mind that can affect your life. Reading is far from just a fun way to spend time. Books can truly shape the way you see the world, and give you ideas, ambitions, and hopes. I am convinced that readings influence our lives in many ways.

Q: Another important theme of the novel is marital intrigue. Where does the interest in this subject come from?

J.E.: Marital intrigue has always been a great subject for novels! I'm thinking especially of English novels, where there are always stories about young women looking for a husband or having to choose between potential husbands - like those written by Jane Austen: “Pride and Prejudice” and others. Then, in the 19th century, novels with marital intrigue became more complex, and darker, and the story didn't end on the wedding day, but followed the marriages of the respective women. You can see what happens to the heroines of the books after the decision to get married. And often these marriages are unhappy. Even Anna Karenina is a novel with marital intrigue in a way - a woman is trapped in an unhappy marriage, and her escape from this marriage ruins her life. All of these are great stories that have produced great novels. Due to the social changes that have occurred from the 19th century to today, it's impossible for a contemporary writer to write such a novel. Well, these books are important to me, I've read them with great pleasure, and my novel begins by lamenting the fact that all these wonderful stories are no longer available to today's writers, and while lamenting this fact, I try to find a way to resurrect this type of novel, to write a book with and about marital intrigue in the context of contemporary realities. Obviously, today women have a different status, and a different voice, they earn their own existence, they are no longer required to rely on a man for their life, and can divorce at any time, so the decision to marry a certain man doesn't weigh as heavily, it's no longer as definitive and doesn't determine a woman's entire life as decisively. Things have changed a lot with sexual emancipation. At the same time, romantic dreams have not lost their value yet, people still look for their better half, and they still want to share their life with someone. Marriage (or at least finding a soulmate) is important today. Otherwise, match.com wouldn't exist and neither would the debate animating America at this time, about the marriage of gay people. The idea of marriage is deeply implanted in our minds. So, I tried to see what could still be exploited today from marital intrigue and what needs to disappear.

Q: I think there is a fascination with the feminine universe in your books - starting with “The Virgin Suicides” and ending with “The Marriage Plot,” where you have created a very well-crafted female character. The way you manage to penetrate the feminine universe seems to indicate a particular interest. Especially since you grew up in a family without daughters...

J.E.: When I write, when I create a character, I try to get inside their mind - whether they are female or male. In terms of female characters, I relate to them in a way similar to how someone thinks about their mother. You grow up near your mother, close to her, and one day you ask yourself about her life and how it was shaped by the decisions she made at one moment or another, or perhaps by the things she had to do for your father... And so you begin, for the first time, to think about the condition of women, asking yourself questions about your own mother. I didn't have sisters, so I couldn't observe the feminine experiences of girls my age. But slowly, by growing up and expanding my horizon beyond the house, I started to have female friends, to meet girls and talk to them about all sorts of things, and I started to learn more and more about how life looks from the other side of the gender divide. The stories I heard about women's life experiences all seemed profound, sometimes a little tragic. Moreover, many of the writers I admire portray women and feminine experiences - Henry James, in particular. So, I think that, on the one hand, the novels I have read (such as “Madame Bovary” or “Portrait of a Lady”) and on the other hand, the experiences of the women I have known have introduced me to the feminine universe and made me want to write about women, as well as men.

Q: Now you live with two women — your wife and your daughter — so I suppose that the doors to the feminine universe have opened even wider for you...

J.E.: Definitely, having a daughter is extremely revealing because now I see what it's like to grow up as a woman, I see the most intimate type of decisions a girl has to make, the social behavior of a girl, which differs greatly from that of boys and is determined by other things. I'm very aware of all these things and I learn a lot by watching my daughter grow up. Having no sisters, I've never seen any of this. It's complicated. In fact, I think it's difficult to know another person, whether they're male or female. It's a continuous puzzle to understand what's going on in someone's mind, to try to estimate how much each person understands about their own life and what's happening to them. I find it just as difficult to get into the mind of a woman as I do with a man. Some men are very hard to understand. Sometimes, because women tend to articulate what they think more easily, and I talk a lot with women, I feel like I know a lot about their lives.

Q: Are you interested in religion, like your character Mitchell?

J.E.: Yes, like Mitchell, I was very interested in religion at twenty years old. Many of the books he reads are books that I read during that time. I also took religion courses, along with many young people who were trying to find meaning in the world and put order in their own lives. When I started writing about my characters who were that age, these memories came back, and I endowed Mitchell with many of my experiences and thoughts.

Q: So, your interest in religion is more intellectual?

J.E.: Not only. I don't think you can be interested in seeking the truth if you don't believe you will find the truth. And I don't think that can be purely an intellectual pursuit. My experience is very much like Mitchell's. Initially, it was a purely intellectual interest, but I realized fairly quickly that understanding religion can't be purely intellectual. You have to put it into practice and let it affect your life in a major way. If that doesn't happen, then it's just an intellectual exercise without substance. So, Mitchell, through the volunteering he does with Mother Teresa, is testing his ability to dedicate his life to charity, to move beyond his purely intellectual interest in religion, and to live as a religious person who thinks less about himself than he had before. What happened to Mitchell on this journey and afterward happened to me largely as well. There were many other incidents that I was ultimately wise enough not to include in the book, but that's another story. Mitchell is the kind of person who wants to believe but can't make the leap. In my case, the investigation into issues of the soul and religion is still ongoing.

Q: Did you grow up in a religious family? Your grandparents were Greek immigrants. Were you brought up in the Greek Orthodox faith?

J.E.: No. My family isn't religious, which is why when I started college, I was completely ignorant about religion. My older brother was a hippie and practiced transcendental meditation for a while, and then my other brother did the same thing. My mother practiced it for a while too, and I did it when I was about fourteen, but that was about it. I ran into my lack of knowledge about religion in college, reading literature—Milton, for example, or Shakespeare—and not being able to understand a lot of the references. So, I took some religion courses to fill in my knowledge and soon realized that I was much more interested in the subject than I had thought.

Q: Where do your ideas for books come from, what inspires you? What made you, for example, write about a hermaphrodite?

J.E.: I don't know what to say... There are so many interesting things in this world, and for some reason, some of them attract you more than others. For example, it seemed very interesting to me to write a book from the perspective of an intersex person. Nobody had done that before, and I value originality very highly. Sure, the idea of a man-woman is found in classical literature and in antiquity, but in my book, it's a different approach, I talk about hermaphroditism from a biological standpoint, about the fact that it's something genetically conditioned... I wanted to make this character a real person because it's about a condition, a situation that actually exists. So, as in “The Marriage Plot,” it's a revival of an old vein, the idea of a character changing from a woman to a man, but adapted to modernity, to the science of our days.

Q: Are you afraid of old age? Or perhaps you think that as you get older you will write better, more easily?

J.E.: I'm not afraid of old age when it comes to writing, but I am afraid of old age when it comes to the body. The idea of losing your health, becoming unattractive, and being ignored by others are fears related to aging. I feel them now, much more than I did when I was thirty years old. These things really worry me. As for the connection between aging and writing, I feel that I have learned to be a better writer year after year, and, at least for now, I don't feel at all that I could run out of topics or lose my ability to write stories. That part of aging is okay, the other worries me more.