February 14, 2008
Four questions for Ehud Havazelet
Last month, I wrote a review of Ehud Havazelet’s “Bearing the Body.” I was so intrigued by the novel that I decided to follow up with the author to ask a few questions about how he writes and about the experience of writing such an emotionally laden book.
Mr. Havazelet kindly answered my questions via email. Here’s the full exchange:
Steve Pollak: It’s an emotionally draining book to read. You really poured a lot into it. Was it exhausting for you to write “Bearing the Body?”
Ehud Havazelet: No simple answer here, so I’ll give several.
Yes. Both the book’s subject matters and the structure I laid out for it—non-linear, shifting points-of-view—made for an arduous, often exhausting trip. I became quite ill midway through the process, which made it even harder.
Yes. All novels, I’d say, all writing, is, should be exhausting; meaning if you haven’t put everything you have into it you haven’t finished.
And no. Though it was draining, at times terrifying, at many times felt impossible, there’s a difference between creating and entering into your characters’ lives and troubles and the act of imagining them, ordering them into language and image, making something you hope will be art. While the first part can be harrowing, and the second part frustrating and terribly difficult, it also is exhilarating, eye- and head-opening, and there’s nothing I’d rather do.
SP: What can you tell us about your writing process for this book? Did you write it on a schedule? In the mornings or evenings?
EH: As mentioned above, whatever schedule I had was disrupted pretty hard. I teach full time, have a fulltime wonderful six year old boy, so my schedule tends toward disruption. When I am writing, undisrupted, I aim for 5 or 6 mornings a week. I like to get at it as early as I can, before my brain has been sidetracked by other concerns and before I’ve fully woken up. I like nothing more than to wake up to my characters.
SP: Where do you do most of your writing? Do you have a favorite place? At the office? At home? What’s it like there?
EH: For years my wife encouraged me to find an office. I thought this was sweet of her since I had to work in our older boy’s bedroom (he’s at college) or sometimes at the dining room able. So I told her I thought she was sweet. She said, No, I want you to find an office. I want you and your books off the dining room table, out of their stacks all over the house. Go find a damn office. Not so sweet, maybe, but she was right.
I found a small, wonderful office in one of the town’s older houses, bookshelves, a porch looking onto huge old sycamores, shelves for my books and no one to scold me about my stacks all over the place. I love it, and thank my wife every morning.
SP: What are your plans for your next book?
EH: Mostly, to write one. Publishing a book is many things, some terrific, some not so much, but if it’s anything, it’s a distraction. I’ve learned (again) that whatever excitement or despair publication brings, what I prefer, what I really enjoy, and what I miss when I’m away from it is the writing itself.
I’ve written about 50 pages of what may be another novel. I haven’t been able to get at it recently so I’m unsure.
I have some stories and a novella, plus a chunk of Bearing the Body I took out which is novella length though such a mess I wouldn’t call it anything much yet. So maybe a book of shorter work.
I keep having and delaying plans to write about the illness and what we all went through, an anti-self-help book.
I like the responses to your excellent questions. I love the serious, yet humorous answer regarding his wife and having his own office. LOL.
Good show, Steve!
i’m glad you liked it, JewWishes. i plan to do more author interviews in the coming months.
I was intrigued by the author’s name, Ehud Havazlet. Is that a pseudonym, after one of Ya’akov Orland’s translated children’s rhymes?
Rachel
Havazelet’s book of short stories — “Like Never Before” — is one of the finest works of Jewish fiction in many years. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
If you’ve not read Havazelet’s other books–What is it then between us? and Like Never Before–rush out and buy them now. He’s a tremendous writer, and one who captures, like no other, the pain of sons and daughters and families trying to make themselves whole again after life has broken them apart.