Lake Life: A Conversation with David James Poissant
Interview w/ David James Poissant
David James Poissant is the author of the novel Lake Life (Simon & Schuster, 2020), a New York Times Editors' Choice selection, Publishers Weekly Summer Read, and a Millions Most Anticipated Book of 2020. His story collection The Heaven of Animals was a winner of the GLCA New Writers Award and a Florida Book Award, a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize, and was longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. His stories and essays have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, One Story, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, and in numerous textbooks and anthologies including New Stories from the South, Best New American Voices, and Best American Experimental Writing. His books are currently in print in six languages. He teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Central Florida and lives in Orlando with his wife and daughters.
David James Poissant’s novel, Lake Life, is a stunning debut about six family members, the Starlings (and their spouses/partners), that gather one final time at the family lake house before it is sold. Each of their lives are rattled in various ways after they witness a tragedy on the lake, unraveling lots of tension and flaws between the characters.
Cara Lynn Albert: Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me! The chapters in Lake Life are structured by alternating perspective shifts between each of the six main characters. While the book is written entirely in third person, it is a very close third, and we often find ourselves deep within the minds of each of these family members. Was this ever meant to be a specific character’s (or couple’s) story, more so than the others? What were the benefits of writing this novel from all six perspectives?
David James Poissant: This novel began as a short story written in 2005. “Venn Diagram” concerned the parents, Richard and Lisa Starling, newly married, living in Atlanta, and the birth of their daughter, June. June died at one month old. The cause of death was SIDS. The story picks up near the approach of the one year anniversary of June’s death. Richard and Lisa are battling grief in different ways. Lisa has turned to faith, support groups, and community. Richard is isolating himself and suffering in silence. There’s no right or wrong way to grieve, necessarily, but neither respects the other’s choices, and that disrespect impacts the marriage. The story ends with the couple choosing to stay married after a year of considering separation.
I thought I was done with the Starlings. Then, a few years later, I wrote the story “Wake the Baby.” This story picks up where “Venn Diagram” leaves off. Lisa and Richard now have a son, Michael, but they’re fighting about the best way to parent him.
Both stories appear in my first book, the story collection The Heaven of Animals. Again, I thought I was done with the Starlings. But they kept nagging me. I wondered where they might be thirty years later. So, the novel began as an exploration of questions that remained. How had they parented Michael and his younger brother, Thad? Did they ever tell the boys about June? Why or why not? And did they ever find a healthy way to manage their grief?
I thought the novel might be told by the parents, and the first chapter of the first draft belonged to Lisa. But, writing, I also felt at home in the stories of the sons, so I thought the book might belong to the brothers. Soon, though, I became interested in Michael’s wife, Diane, and Thad’s partner, Jake. Who were these outsiders looking in? Eventually, I saw that I had no choice but to tell the story from all six points of view. The only way to zero in on the truth of so many family members’ perceptions and secrets was to give each character’s side of the story and let the readers draw their own conclusions.
CLA: Let’s talk about lakes. It’s in the title, after all. I’m always drawn to stories and books that have a strong sense of place, and that definitely comes through here. Between Lake Christopher, Highlands, and Asheville, the setting is so rich in this novel, in terms of nature, culture, and even the socioeconomic levels of the residents in this region. Asheville and Highlands are real places in North Carolina, and I’ve heard you say Lake Christopher is based on a real lake as well. What about this specific location was so vital to the construction of this novel?
DJP: Yes, Lake Christopher is a composite of several lakes, but mostly it’s based on Lake Toxaway in western North Carolina, not far from Highlands. When I was growing up, my parents rented a converted doublewide trailer home from friends for one week a year. We’d make the drive from Atlanta to North Carolina and spend each week very much like these characters, eating in Asheville, getting ice cream in Highlands, swimming in the lake, hiking to waterfalls, pitching horseshoes in the backyard, and fishing. Those trips ended when I was twenty, but the memories lingered, the impression the place made on me so, so powerful.
I wanted to capture that setting as I remembered it. After a year or more of writing, I visited the area for a weekend and took hundreds of pictures and pages of notes. Being back in the place helped, and it was interesting to see what my memory had gotten right and what it had gotten wrong.
The tragedies the characters endure are fiction. I have not lived through most of what I put my characters through. But, when I’m making up characters and plot and points of view, it helps me to have a setting I know. I have to ground the pretend in a place I’ve been. The poet Marianne Moore wrote of “imaginary gardens with read toads in them.” I think of my stories as something closer to imaginary toads in real gardens.
Place is essential to me. I’m attracted to stories I can see. I’m drawn to the work of Rick Bass, Ron Rash, ZZ Packer, and Lydia Millet, among many, many others, for exactly this reason. I love when a story comes to life in my head. When a reader tells me that reading my novel was like watching a movie while they read, that’s one of the best compliments I can get.
CLA: The year that this novel takes place in (2018) is significant as well: two years after the 2016 election, in which Michael voted for Trump (resulting in a heated argument over dinner). You’ve discussed the fact that, when writing this novel, major plot points kept changing in order to stay “current.” Especially now in 2020, events that took place just two years ago feel almost decades old. I did find myself wondering how each of these characters would behave during the Covid era and the current BLM movement and protests. This almost gives the novel a foreboding overtone, like, if only they knew. How do you feel about releasing a novel in the midst of all this chaos? How do you think the Starlings would fare in 2020?
DJP: That’s such a great question!
For starters, I think they’d all wear masks. The Starlings trust science. And, while Michael is a Republican, and selfish, in some ways, I see him as more of a fiscal conservative. He’s affirming of his brother’s sexuality. He does his research and watches more than FOX news, so he’s not a total conservative stereotype. I think he’s savvy enough to know when current events are being politicized and when the science is in.
I think 2020 would be hardest on Thad and Diane, both of whom are so empathetic, they find it difficult, at times, to operate in a world with so much hurt in it. Thad suffers from anxiety and manic depression, and my closest friends with similar diagnoses tell me they’re really struggling right now. It’s a challenging time for a healthy person to thrive in this climate. Such challenges are undoubtedly magnified for those with mental health conditions.
CLA: Something I admired about your previous story collection, The Heaven of Animals, was your ability to create such complex, “gray area” characters: certainly not all good, but also not all bad. The kind of characters you might not necessarily want to be friends with, but you can sympathize with them. I really admire this approach. Humans are messy, and most of us have done something that others would deem us “unlikeable” for. These types of characters have been shifted to this novel (literally, some of them also appeared in your previous collection), and they work just as brilliantly here. What do you hope readers gain from these types of characters? Why do you enjoy reading/writing them?
DJP: I’m not interested in likeable characters. I’m not interested in characters who are pure evil either. All of which is to say that I’m disinterested in flat characters.
The fiction I write is meant to be reflective of reality, and, in reality, no one’s perfect. Morality is awash in gray areas, and those areas deserve to be explored. And, while the news and people’s Twitter feeds may traffic in absolutes, most people, if pressed, will admit that most things are rarely simple.
So, yeah, I’m interested in those messy gray areas. I’m fascinated in the ways that a writer compels us to care for a character on the page whom we’d probably dislike in real life. A few years ago, I saw Emily St. John Mandel at an event for her brilliant, brilliant novel, Station Eleven. When asked whether she liked her character Arthur, who is a womanizer with a shady past, she answered, “Well, I wouldn’t marry him.” She went on to say that she had compassion for him. I certainly don’t speak for all writers, nor does Mandel, but, like Mandel, I have to empathize with my characters, no matter what they’ve done. I have to recognize some piece of humanity in them in order to write them well. In return, my fiction asks the same hard work of the reader.
But every reader’s experience is different. While the majority of readers empathize with most of my characters by book’s end, some find all of them utterly unlikable and unredeemable. I can’t help feeling that such reactions say more about those readers than they say about the novel. Different readers bring different defaults to the books they read. Some come to judge. Some come to empathize. Then, of course, there is all of that gray area in between.
CLA: One of my favorite relationships in the novel was between Diane and Jake, the two “outsiders” to the Starling family. I’m so happy we get the sunset painting scene, to see such a private, important moment unfold between them. Jake and Diane represent different paths we, specifically those of artistic pursuit, may take: the acclaimed, wealthy artist living in NYC, and the humble elementary school art teacher that enjoys her passion but has come to terms with her limited skill level. Clearly, one is much more likely to occur than the other. These possible “fates” for young artists can even be extended to Thad, the wannabe poet who’s received some publications but struggles with ambition, and Marco, the moderately successful sellout. However, these characters’ varying levels of success don’t necessarily translate to happiness and fulfillment. Were you aiming to present a spectrum of possible futures to the reader? What does art, with all of its various definitions, and success in artistic pursuit mean to you?
DJP: Thank you for these beautiful observations! Yes, just as this is, in many ways, a novel about economic disparity, it’s also a novel about work. I hate the way that we talk about work in America, about collar colors, achievement, and success. We should be talking about raising the minimum wage, about a living wage, and about healthcare for all, so that, no matter what work you do, you can thrive in a country where some have so much while so many have so little.
Writing Diane, Thad, Marco, and Michael well was important to me. My wife teaches elementary school, and I taught high school before I taught college. I have absolute respect for teachers. My wife’s work is far harder, and, in many ways, far more important than what I do. I mean that. So, when Diane thinks of herself as a “those-who-can’t-do-teach” elementary school art teacher, that’s representative of her negative self-talk, because she’s in a bad place, emotionally, at that moment. Same goes for the way Michael denigrates the work he does at Foot Locker. That could be a perfectly honorable, excellent job for someone who wants to be do it and strives to do it well. No honest work should be judged. By anyone.
Hopefully, most readers understand that these two characters’ attitudes are reflective of their low self-esteem, in those moments, and not me condoning such attitudes or judgment. This is something I worry about, more and more, as the thoughts of characters in books are conflated with the beliefs of their writers, as lines are pulled out of context and arguments are made via social media. We could all use a refresher on free indirect discourse (voiced close third person) and the distinction between what a book might be “saying” versus what a character is thinking.
So, to balance out Michael and Diane, I was excited to write that scene between Marco and Jake. Some will begin on Jake’s side, labeling Marco a “sellout,” wanting Marco to “make something of himself,” “live up to his potential,” or not “squander his talent.” But “potential” and “making something of oneself” are such American, Capitalist ideas, and I loved watching Marco push back and ask what’s wrong with choosing happiness? Why must success be conflated with someone else’s standard of perceived prestige? Who gets to decide what success looks like, after all?
Thad’s character was hardest to write, because Thad is not being honest with himself. Unlike Marco, he’s not working hard. He’s not doing what he loves. He loves the idea of being a poet, but he’s not writing. Much of his complacency is wrapped up in his drug use and his mental health condition, but, by novel’s end, he’s definitely coming to terms with the fact that, to be blunt, he needs to shit or get off the pot. If he wants to be a poet, okay, but he shouldn’t pretend he’s a poet just because he walks around with a Moleskin notebook in his back pocket and jots down lines every once in a while.
And, of course, extend that metaphor to all art forms. My dear friend, the poet Terry Thaxton, when asked by a well-meaning student whether they’re really a writer, will ask the student, “Are you writing?” If the student answers yes, she’ll answer, “Then you’re a writer.” I wish I’d met Terry twenty years ago, as I could have used that advice.
Figuring out Thad, on the page, was like being in conversation with my early-twenties self. I wanted to be a poet. Then a fiction writer. But I rarely wrote. At some point, I had to be honest with myself and ask myself whether I was serious, and whether I was seriously willing to put in the hard work to learn the craft and build my skillset, or whether I was all talk. I think that’s the point that Thad’s reached in this book. Unlike Diane, Marco, and Jake, Thad doesn’t yet have a sense of his ability, however stellar or limited, because he hasn’t really tried just yet. He hasn’t put everything he has into the enterprise of becoming a poet. He’s holding back, I think, because he’s afraid to risk failure, which is a very human response. I empathize. I held back for years, operating, however unconsciously, under the delusion that if I didn’t try my hardest, then I wouldn’t have as much to lose if I wasn’t successful. Which, again, depends on your definition of “success.” Success based on whose model?
CLA: Near the end of the novel, there’s a conversation between Richard and Lisa wherein Lisa ensures Richard that she’s only known about Diane’s pregnancy for a day, which threw me because it felt like so much more time had passed since Diane told Lisa about her pregnancy. This is, of course, a testament to your ability to control pacing in the novel. It also reminded that you once mentioned you enjoy stories that take place within a short amount of time, a day or even just a few hours. The events in Lake Life take place over the course of a weekend—also relatively short for a novel. It works so well here because we’re given snapshots of these characters’ lives during crucial turning points, which are all set in motion by the boy’s death in the first chapter. What do you believe are the benefits to writing a narrative that occurs within a limited time frame?
DJP: I’m a fan of compressed timelines. I love circadian novels that take place over the course of a day, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway being my favorite. I thought for a time about condensing this novel into a day. There was no realistic way to fit it all in, and the pacing would have been wrecked, though I did manage to cut the book down from four days to three. I think that compression is particularly powerful in a narrative concerning an unexpected tragedy, like the drowning that launches this novel. In Mrs. Dalloway, there’s a suicide. Similarly, Salinger’s “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” ends in a suicide. Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” ends in multiple homicides, while Julie Orringer’s “Pilgrims” ends in an unexpected death. All of these stories take place over the course of a matter of hours, and the compression absolutely fuels the tension leading up to, and surrounding, the tragedies.
CLA: Honestly, I was expecting the ending of this novel to go very poorly for all six main characters. Everything was set up to result in an unhappy ending. However, while things aren’t totally resolved, and many of the characters still have much to work on, the overall tone of the final few chapters is profoundly hopeful. This feels almost unheard of in contemporary literature, especially literary fiction. Everything’s terrible. Everyone’s depressed. But in Lake Life, the characters forgive each other. They’re given second chances. This novel could’ve had a much more heartbreaking ending, but it seems like there was a deliberate attempt to avoid that. What brought you to this decision, and why do you think we’ve become so conditioned to expect unhappy endings?
DJP: I think that we sometimes conflate “literary” with “tragedy,” but numerous works of literature disprove this theory. Hopefulness abounds in fiction, and while one early version of the ending of this novel spelled disaster for one of the three couples, I ultimately decided I’d put these six characters through enough by book’s end.
Also, the hopefulness of Lake Life’s ending, like the likeability of its characters, is being debating by readers, and I welcome the conversation. In the case of Michael’s alcoholism, just because he’s made a commitment to get sober doesn’t mean he can or will get sober. I certainly don’t want the ending to read as naïve. Alcohol use disorder is a medical condition, and willpower alone is not a cure. I hope that Michael will get the help he needs, but the ending is no promise that he will.
Likewise, Thad and Jake are going to have to have some frank and difficult conversations. They have mismatched sex drives and different expectations for their relationship. While I believe that they truly love one another, I don’t know that their relationship can survive long-term, just as two people might love each other deeply but aren’t a good match because one partner wants kids while the other doesn’t. The conflict isn’t a question of who’s right and who’s wrong. Rather, it’s a question of whether these two are right for each other.
For me, though, the novel’s ending isn’t about answering these questions or seeing each relationship through to the end. The ending is about getting all of these characters’ secrets into the open. No more open secrets. No more secrets of any kind. What feels like hopefulness isn’t necessarily the guarantee of a happy ending for all, it’s more the relief a reader feels seeing that these characters no longer need to lie to one another. They’re free to be themselves, which is something too few people can do in a family. Feeling safe, and free from judgment, among parents and siblings, and knowing that the love you share in unconditional—that is hope.
CLA: What’s the plan after this? With the current state of the world, are you developing any new writing habits? Has your process changed at all?
DJP: I recently finished a second story collection, and I am deep into work on a second novel, one set in Florida, where I’ve lived for the past nine years. I’m even more excited about these books than my first two. I think I’m improving with every book. I hope I am. For me, that would be the definition of success, to write the best books I can, and to hear readers say: “He just keeps getting better and better.”
Cara Lynn Albert is a writer and educator from Florida, and she is currently completing her MFA degree in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Baltimore Review, Puerto del Sol, Superstition Review, and elsewhere. She serves as the Creative Nonfiction Editor at TIMBER.
Fall 2020