ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN DE MODE OF LITERATURE JUL-SEP-OCT 2022 (Vol V, Issue XXVII) | Article Published on: 03 FEB 2023 | www.demodemagazine.com
'YOU'LL BE FINE' - BY AUTHOR JEN MICHALSKI
"Writing a novel that opens with the death of a parent is not exactly a comedy at heart: “Although Michalski says this is a family comedy, there is a tragedy at the heart of it. What she found in writing this novel and the one on which she's currently working is that you can’t separate levity and tragedy, just like in real life. You might be at the funeral home, but something funny happens there, and you laugh and your family laughs and it’s a moment you’ll share, one that will warm your heart during those gutting periods of grief. She wanted to capture that duality, even if it meant the book is difficult to characterize as one way or another.”
After Alex's mother dies, she takes leave from her job as a writer for a Washington, DC, lifestyle magazine to return home to Maryland’s Eastern Shore. There, she joins her brother Owen, a study in failure-to-launch, in sorting out their mother’s whimsical and often self-destructive life. Alex has proposed to her editor that while she is home she profiles Juliette Sprigg, her former high school fling, owner of a wildly popular local restaurant, and celebrity chef in the making. While working on the story and trying for a second chance with Juliette, Alex meets Carolyn Massey, editor of the town newspaper. Matters get complicated when Carolyn begins to show more than a professional interest in Alex, and Alex’s Aunt Johanna, who has transitioned to a woman, comes from Seattle and reveals a family secret. Alex may have to accept her family for who they are rather than whom she hoped they would be, and just maybe apply the same philosophy to her heart and herself. Named a “Best Small Press Book” by Buzzfeed, You’ll Be Fine “has plenty of heart” according to Kirkus Reviews and is “[A]n enjoyable story about an adult trying to grow up.”
Michalski admits with 'You’ll Be Fine' she was determined to write a family comedy and not a family tragedy, as in her previous family novel, The Summer She Was Under Water: “I’d noticed over the years, at readings or wherever I’d meet people who’d read my work, they always seemed surprised that I was funny in person, I mean, so much so that they’d tell me! And it bothered me that if you’ve only read my previous novels, you’d think I was this serious person when I don’t see myself that way at all. I love laughing and making people laugh.”
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THE JOURNEY OF AUTHOR JEN MICHALSKI
Like most writers, as soon as Jen Michalski started writing, she couldn't stop. She remembers when she was seven her mother folded a piece of paper into quarters, making her a "book," into which Jen wrote about her birthday party. It was her first novel, and she's been writing them ever since---on the backs of discarded office memos from her mother's work (which she brought home for drawing paper for Jen and her twin brother, Scott), into spiral notebooks she kept on a box on a shelf in her closet, and eventually on hard disks and USB files. The most important part of writing for Jen growing up was examining her sexuality. Writing, she explains, was her "emotional test kitchen," wherein she wrote about teens coming to grips with being gay the same way she was also a teen, coming to grips with being gay herself. In the late 80s, she notes, there were no novels about gay youth, nothing to make her feel like she belonged, was understood, or even existed. So she wrote her novels. Now, having turned fifty in May, Jen is the author of three novels, three short story collections, and one couplet of novellas. Her novels The Tide King, The Summer She Was Under Water, and You’ll Be Fine run the gamut from magical realism/historical fiction, family comedy, and family tragedy and have won The Big Moose Prize and Somerset Awards and a finalist for USA Book Awards. Her stories have appeared in numerous anthologies, and she’s been nominated for the Pushcart Prize six times.
OFFICIAL WEBSITE OF AUTHOR JEN MICHALSKI - www.jenmichalski.com
Read Author JEN MICHALSKI's interview with DE MODE & about her upcoming books in the JUL-SEP-OCT 2022 GLOBAL ISSUE (MAGAZINE).
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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR JEN MICHALSKI
Q: What was your first thought when you started writing and when?
A: When I was seven, my mom folded a piece of paper into quarters to make a “book,” and I wrote a story about my birthday party. It was my first book, and I’ve been writing ever since. I remember feeling at the time that it was so natural but also like being gifted a superpower.
Q: What do you like to write about the most?
A: I write about things I want to understand—why people act the way they do, what makes a life worth living, and what our authentic selves look like. Human nature interests me a lot, and it’s unavoidable when writing about, well, anything. Whether it’s science, history, or travel, the human condition is irrevocably intertwined with all of them.
Q: What does your book emphasize?
A: You’ll Be Fine is about accepting the family you have, rather than pining for the family you wanted or the family you lost. An important right of passage as an adult is forgiveness and acceptance, especially how it relates to one’s past. Can we accept our parents are merely people, too, imperfect and fumbling around just as we are?
Q: What book or childhood author had the greatest impact on you?
A: Reading Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy when I was eleven or twelve was life-altering. Reading about Harriet, a bright, slightly irascible girl, and her very real pains of friendships and growing up made me realize I wanted to write in an honest way about relationships and people and their faults.
Q: What is the most unethical practice in the publishing industry?
A: It’s not an unethical practice, but there’s inequity in the publishing industry, which will pay a million-dollar advance for some reality star’s ghost-written memoir or a pedestrian thriller while passing on lesser-known smallerplatform authors with quietly good novels. Sadly, like many industries, it’s not a meritocracy.
Q: What have been some of the most exciting changes you have seen with regard to support for LGBTQ youth and what do you hope to see in the future?
A: The Young Adult (YA) market has exploded with books for LGBTQ youth, and I’m a little jealous —I wish I had seen myself represented in books when I was younger! I hope to see more adaptations for film and streaming and LGBTQ YA writers able to sustain themselves in the industry.
Q: We hear stories about exclusion, harassment, bullying, and other struggles of LGBTQ youth. How do you deal with the critics?
A: Fortunately, I haven’t had many experiences with this—I just try either not to read Goodreads reviews, and I also remind myself that not every book is for everyone, just as not everyone’s journey is the same. I do think, however, we should be unapologetic about our experiences as LGBTQ people and write as honestly about them as possible.
Q: Do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?
A: You have to write for yourself, I think, not others. If we’re willing to write books we think people want, we’re not really saying anything —we’re just regurgitating what’s already out there. I want people to walk away from my books thinking about something they may not have thought about before, or at least in a different way.
Q: Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly?
A: No. You have to be honest with yourself to write authentically, and that means being in touch with yourself. Part of being a writer is putting yourself in other people’s shoes, and you can’t examine another point of view without being aware of your baseline feelings and beliefs.
Q: How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?
A: It made me realize that writing is a marathon, not a sprint, and that hopefully, each book you write is an improvement on the last in some way—your plots are stronger, or characterization, or at the sentence level. Writing is difficult to learn and impossible to master—one is forever a student. I work harder.
Q: How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?
A: I have two unpublished books—one a coming-of-age mystery in 1970s Rhode Island and a YA LGBTQ book about a psychic girls' school. I’m proud of them and would buy them if I saw them in the store, but sometimes it’s just not the right time for a book or doesn’t resonate with the right people.
Q: What does literary success look like to you?
A: I think getting a book published is successful. The icing on the cake is when someone reads your book and takes the time to email/DM you to tell you they responded to it in some way. Making a connection with other people gives me the greatest satisfaction, although I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want a movie adaptation!