LitMinds Blog and Interviews

Sheila Kohler is the author of six novels and several other works; her most recent book is the historical novel Bluebird, or the Invention of Happiness.  Now a writer and teacher in New England, Kohler grew up in South Africa and lived in France for several years before coming to the United States.  Her first story, “The Mountain,” received an O’Henry prize, and her story “Africans” was published in the Best American Short Stories of 1999.   Since she came to the United States, her work has been acclaimed by publications across the country, including the San Francisco Chronicle, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Elle magazine.

We interviewed Sheila after the recent release of Bluebird.  In this conversation, she tells us about the intricacies of writing historical fiction, what it’s like to write happiness, and her love of the Bronte sisters.  


Your latest book, Bluebird, or the Invention of Happiness, is a historical novel about an 18th-century French aristocrat.  Tell us a little bit about how you chose this subject, and how it relates to the rest of your work.

I lived in France for many years and did a degree in psychology at the Institut Catholique.  I made a great friend there, Jeanette Perrette, to whom my book is dedicated. She was a great help to me with my studies, which were in French and often required oral exams. Years later she visited me in New York, where I was living, and brought a book with her.  “You ought to read this. It’s about a French aristocrat who left France during the revolution and became a dairy farmer in the Albany area,” she said. It was the memoir of the Marquise de la Tour du Pin.  I put the book away in my bookcase, thinking I was not interested in the life of some old French aristocrat.  But years later, having written eight books and used my own life extensively, I pulled the book out and began to peruse its wonderful pages. I was drawn in by the voice and the inspiring life of this French aristocrat who had used every occasion to learn something about life.


Your protagonist, Lucy Dillon, encounters several famous historical figures in the book, such as Marie Antoinette and Alexander Hamilton.  What are some of the special considerations for writing historical fiction?  How closely does your story approximate Lucy Dillon’s life, and how did you decide where to draw the line between history and fiction?

I tried not to falsify history and to stay true to the facts.  At the same time I allowed myself the liberty on the page of inventing thoughts and feelings, dialogue and all the sensations that are necessary to create a live character on the page. I kept thinking of the advice J.M. Coetzee gave me: “Don’t stay too close to the truth.” I was trying to find an emotional truth that the dry facts do not perhaps convey on their own.


You’ve said that while writing Bluebird, “It occurred to me how rare it is to encounter a female protagonist who is not only very capable and self-assured but actually happy.”  Why do you think there is a dearth of successful, happy female protagonists?  Was it important for you, as a woman writer, to attempt to fill that void?  

Life is difficult, of course, for us all; and fiction, or good fiction, often comes from an account of suffering. It is one of the things someone told me when I began to write. “The hurts are good,” she said to me. It is more difficult in a way to make happiness believable on the page.  Yet it exists. Women, particularly, of course, have suffered and have often been forced into passive roles. I wanted to use the life of this brave woman to show women everywhere what is, perhaps, possible – how even in the worst of times we can attempt at least to learn something about life and the human heart.


You were born in South Africa and lived in France for several years before settling in the United States.  How has this global perspective affected your writing?  Do your own experiences factor into any of your work, such as Bluebird, or your short story “Africans?”

Yes, of course. I think all writers use their lives more or less.  We are all searching for a sort of middle distance, a place that is sufficiently far from our own lives to be shared with others, something that will be true for us and also meaningful to other people. I have tried to use my life, the death of a sister who died in dramatic circumstances, which are referred to in the story “Africans,” to say something about everyone’s life.


What kind of literature do you like to read?  What writers have influenced you, either directly or indirectly?  

I have read widely, of course, for my own pleasure and to learn my craft. I began as a small child growing up in South Africa, where there was no television and where books were my only escape from a narrow and somewhat claustrophobic world. I read everything I could lay my hands on, including that old bodice ripper Forever Amber, as a teenager. I was reading to discover the world.  Now I am often reading to improve what I write, but I’m drawn of course to old favourites. At the moment I’ve been reading all the Brontes’ work for something that I’m writing. It was a joy to discover Anne Bronte whom I did not know well.  I love the Russians, of course, Chekhov for the short story and the great French writers as well. Madame Bovary—there’s an unhappy lady—is one of my great favourites.  

 
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