FEBRUARY MONTHLY: INTERVIEW with CLAIRE HOPPLE
From the first sentence of Claire Hopple’s latest novel, Take It Personally, you know you’re in for a ride—in this specific case, you’re sidecar to Tori, who has just been hired by a mysterious and unnamed entity to trail a famous diarist. Famous locally, at least. What sort of locality produces a “famous diarist”? One whose demonym also includes the nearly equally renowned Bruce, made so for his reputation of operating his leaf blower in the nude, of course. And that’s just the beginning. Take It Personally follows Tori as she follows the diarist, Bianca, determined to discover whether her writings are authentic or a work of fiction. At least, until Tori has to go on a national tour with her rock band, Rhonda & the Sandwich Artists, who are, as Tori explains, right at the cusp of fame. It is a novel as fun as it is tender, filled with characters whose absurdity only makes them more sincere.
Claire Hopple is interviewed by E. Ce Miller.
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FWR: It seems like much of your work begins with absurd premises. The first line of Take It Personally is, “Unbeknownst to everyone, I am hired to follow a famous diarist.” This quality is what first drew me to your fiction, this sort of unabashed absurdity. But then you drop these lines that are absolutely disarmingly hilarious. You’re such a funny writer—do you think of yourself as a funny writer? What are you doing with humor?
CH: Thank you! That is too kind. I’m not sure I think of myself as a funny writer, or even a writer at all––more like possessed to play with words by this inner, unseen force. But I think humor should be about amusing yourself first and foremost. If other people “get it,” then that’s a bonus, and it means you’re automatically friends.
FWR: In Take It Personally, as well as the story we published last year in Four Way Review, “Fall For It”, many of your characters have this grunge-meets-whimsy quality about them. They seem to have a lot of free time in a way that makes me overly aware of how poorly I use my own free time. They meander. They follow what catches their attention. They are often, if not explicitly aimless, driven by impulses and motivations that I think are inexplicable to anyone but them. They seem incredibly present in their immediate surroundings in a way that feels effortless—I don’t know if any of them would actually think of themselves as present in that modern, Western-mindfulness way; they just are. In all these qualities, your characters feel like they’re of another time—unscheduled, unbeholden to technology. Perhaps a recent time, but one that sort of feels gone forever. Am I perceiving this correctly? Can you talk about what you’re doing with these ideas?
CH: I’ve never really thought about them that way, but I think you’re right. And I think my favorite books, movies, and shows all do that. We’re so compelled to fill our time, to make the most use out of every second, and it just drains us. There’s a concept I heard about recreation being re-creation, as in creating something through leisure in such a way that’s healing to your mind. We could all stand to do that more. Hopefully these characters can be models to us. I know I need that. But reading is an act of slowing down and an act of filling our overstimulated brains; it’s somehow both. So maybe it’s just a little bit dangerous in that sense.
FWR: Are you interested in ideas of reliable versus unreliable narrators, and if so, where does Tori fall on that spectrum? She’s a narrator presenting these very specific and sometimes off-the-wall observations in matter-of-fact ways. I’m thinking of moments like when Tori’s waiting for the diarist’s husband to fall in love with her, as though this is an entirely forgone conclusion, or the sort of conspiratorial paranoia she has around the Neighborhood Watch. She also “breaks that fourth wall” by addressing the reader several times throughout the book. What are we to make of her in terms of how much we can trust her presentation of things? What does she make of herself? Does it matter if we can trust Tori—and by trust, I suppose I mean take her literally, although those aren’t really the same at all? Do you want your readers to?
CH: All narrators seem unreliable to me. I don’t think too much about it because humans are flawed. They can’t see everything. For an author to assume that they can, even through third-person narrative, achieve total omniscience in any kind of authentic voice seems a little bit ridiculous. But I’m not saying to avoid the third person, just to not take ourselves too seriously. I hope that readers can find Tori relatable through her skewed perspective. She views the world from angles that give her the confidence to continue existing. They don’t have to be true in order to work, and I think a lot of people are operating from a similar mindset, whether they realize it or not. We can trust her because she’s like us, even––and maybe especially––because she’s not telling the whole truth.
FWR: Take It Personally is a novel I had so much fun inside. I read it in one sitting, and when I was finished, I couldn’t believe I was done hanging out with Tori. From reading your work, it seems you’re having the time of your life. Is writing your fiction as good a time as reading it is?
CH: It means so much to me that you would say that. Seriously, thank you. Yes! Reading and writing should be fun. I’m always confused by writers who complain about writing. If they don’t like it, maybe try another hobby? I secretly love that nobody can make money as a writer in our time because it means writing has to be a passionate compulsion for you in order for you to continue.
FWR: You’re the fiction editor of a literary magazine, XRAY. Does your editing work inform your writing and publishing life? How do you see the role of lit mags in this whole literary ecosystem we’re all trying to exist in?
CH: Lit mags are crucial. They’re some semblance of external validation, which everyone craves. But what we’re doing, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is creating a community. We’re only helping each other and ourselves at the same time.
FWR: It is a strange time to be a writer—or a person, for that matter. (Although, has this ever not been the case?) As we’re holding this interview, parts of the West Coast of the United States are actively burning to the ground. Other parts of the country are or have very recently been without water. I know you directly witnessed the climate disaster of Hurricane Helene last year, which devastated many beloved communities in the mid-Atlantic, including the wonderfully art-filled city of Asheville. How are you making space for your writing in all this? How are you able to hold onto your creativity amid so many other demands competing for time and attention?
CH: Completely agree with you here. Things are a mess. Our climate is barely hanging on. There were several weeks where I couldn’t really read or write at all; the whole thing felt like some ludicrous luxury. I was flushing toilets with buckets of creek water. But now that my head has finally cleared, I’m able to realize their importance again. Great suffering has always produced great art and hopefully points us to a better way of living. It just might take time, recovery, patience, and perspective to develop that. Some of my favorite paintings and books were a direct result of artists’ personal experiences at the bombing of Dresden in WWII. How weird is that? We have to make time for art, but not in some sort of shrewd drill sergeant kind of way. We have to fight for it, make space for it, recognize that it’s just as important as whatever else is on the calendar. Recognize that it’s a form of therapy. And we have to feel so compelled to create that it’s happening whether we even want it to or not.
- Published in Featured Fiction, home, Interview, Monthly
FALL FOR IT by Claire Hopple
After they escort us out, we are told to wait here. The here being a square of sidewalk.
If you could see the two of us on this sidewalk square. Trying to maintain appearances. It’s a delicate operation. A heavy quiet.
Some convenience store employees switch off who gets to peer out the window at us. They take turns and they take their time having a look.
Ben is carrying around his old fourth grade science project. He refuses to set it down. It’s a standard volcano, but he never quite finished the eruption part. The magma reservoir’s empty. It won’t be petrifying any ancient civilizations anytime soon. When he showed it to me, I told him my school had an arts and science fair (not exclusive to science), and that my project had been a short story about a giant blob overtaking a city, and he said that was just typical. The course of history changed on that fateful day of the Heritage Elementary Arts and Science Fair— probably! I think I got third place in my category. I don’t think there were more than three people in my category.
Now I sit here on the concrete and I see it all coming. I know how things will turn out for us. But not Ben. He appears caught unawares at all times. His face looks like a damp sandwich. There’s no other way to explain it. I guess his face is stuck like that. He’s forever cornered.
You wouldn’t say his volcano is dismantled per se. More like lethargic. Painted rivulets of what must be molten lava punctuate its sides.
We exchange information about the comings and goings of passersby on the street while we wait. I scootch away, tapping the sidewalk.
“Hang on a sec. Maybe there’s a trapdoor under here,” I say.
Ben shrugs, in all likelihood too busy pondering his next move to respond.
“Call the embassy. They’ll sort the whole thing out. Write this down!” I start shouting.
No one knows what to say. And by no one, I mean me.
So that’s the situation.
He can’t let go of his science project, yet he insists on continuing his errands. Turning the whole day into an expedition of sorts. A sad one. Can there be sad expeditions? They seem part of our destiny. Which adds up. Because otherwise, we’d be unstoppable.
We sit and blink like everyone else. When really, we are untamed animals.
They let us go. This teenager wearing a polyester vest walks out and says, “You can go.”
The whole escapade is very anticlimactic. There’s nothing they can do. No charges they can press for carrying around your childhood science project. There they go, attempting to press charges like you can press a button. I imagine a big red button with the word CHARGES on it, and there’s some old white guy in a suit sitting at a large desk swiveling around in his chair, caressing the button and laughing. That can’t be how it works. Or can it?
Admittedly, he looked vaguely threatening in there, hauling the volcano in a nearly somnambulant state. But come on. Who isn’t a threat?
We leave. Ben drives his car like a movie prop. His steering is all over the place. Somehow, I’m noticing this for the first time. I check behind me for a projector screen with a phony background playing on it just in case.
He gets panicky about yellow lights. You never know if he’s going to accelerate really hard or hit the brakes or sort of waffle around and make these timid little mewling noises while going the exact same medium amount of speed.
Earlier, in the store, I asked him why he was doing this, why he felt the need to carry this thing around, and he said, “To get the blue ribbon.”
He seemed a bit mysterious to me after that. I liked the feeling and wanted to leave it there. Knowing what he meant would ruin it in a sense, and so I didn’t ask any follow-up questions.
“And now it’s time for Amelia’s piano recital,” he finally says, tapping on the steering wheel with the volcano nestled in his lap.
“That won’t do,” I say.
“What do you mean? I can’t go alone.”
“Yes, but I can. She’s my niece.”
“What are you saying?”
I think about reaching over him to open his door handle, then ejecting him and his failed project out of the vehicle and onto the pavement. Somehow making it look like an accident. Corralling the car into a parking spot without moving from the passenger seat.
To get the blue ribbon. The blue ribbon of murder. An art and a science.
I stay buckled. I stare at my seatbelt and say nothing— but one of the many rewarding tasks of camaraderie with my fellow humans.
“This is really important. I don’t know when I’ll see anyone again. I’ve booked a trip and I’m not sure when I’ll return,” Ben says.
“Oh yeah?”
I feign interest to throw off suspicion. To have him at my disposal. I’m not used to it though. I’m always interested. Even when I shouldn’t be.
“Yeah, I’m going to visit the real Bigfoot. Prove his existence and all that. Develop a pact with him. Maybe even a secret language, who knows.”
“A commemorative plaque,” I say.
“Huh?”
“You should get him a commemorative plaque for the occasion. That’d be a nice gesture,” I say.
I can tell he’s waiting for more from me. So I cup his kneecap in my palm. Nice and snug.
“These things happen,” I say, not really knowing what I’m saying.
“Anyway, I wanted to tell you first,” he says, glancing down at his knee and back up at the road a few times.
My hand is still cupping his kneecap and I squeeze it firmly. With my grip strength, I could pop that cap right off.
I release my hand. That was close. Too close.
I open his sunroof and lift his project up through it, showcasing his handiwork for the whole town to see. This paper volcano is part of my life now. That’s the main thing.
I examine Ben’s damp sandwich of a face, awaiting a signal.