We chat with author Ashley Wurzbacher about her debut novel How to Care for A Human Girl, which follows two estranged sisters and the crossroads they face after becoming unexpectedly pregnant at the same time.
Hi, Ashley! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Sure! I write literary fiction about complicated women. I’m fascinated by relationships between women, whether they be sisters, mothers and daughters, friends, or lovers—I’m drawn to their intimacy and thorniness, their difficulty and beauty and necessity. I hope my writing fosters empathy for women in all their complexity and imperfection. I live in Birmingham, Alabama now, but I grew up in western Pennsylvania. I’m a dog person.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I can’t remember a time when these things didn’t feel central to my life and self. In elementary school, I would write “books” and give them to my teachers or my parents. They were mostly about dolphins or horses. Even before that, I used to cut up my mom’s clothing catalogues and paste the models (just the girls and women, never the men) into “books” where I imagined relationships between them and made up stories about them.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
First book I remember reading: I honestly have no idea, and I suppose there’s a fine line between books my parents read to me and books I read myself. I’ll go with Anne of Green Gables because it’s a book (and series) I read early on that stayed with me.
A book that made me want to become an author: Alice Munro’s Selected Stories, which I read in college while taking some of my first creative writing classes. It was my first introduction to her work, which has been an inspiration to me ever since.
A book I can’t stop thinking about: Girlhood by Melissa Febos.
Your debut novel, How to Care for a Human Girl, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Complicated women making difficult choices.
What can readers expect?
The book is about two estranged sisters, Jada and Maddy, who come together to deal with simultaneous unplanned pregnancies in the wake of their mother’s death. Older sister Jada chooses abortion at the beginning of the book, though she is married and financially stable. Her choice causes turmoil in her already shaky marriage, which is further shaken up by a past lover’s reentry into her life. As an analytically-minded psychologist, she turns to science to make sense of her decision and her relationships while trying to figure out how to live in the world without her mother. Younger sister Maddy is more vulnerable, unstable, and volatile, and her decision doesn’t happen until the end of the book. It’s complicated by a religious experience she has, by an unsettling visit to a crisis pregnancy center, and by her fraught and competitive relationship with Jada.
The book’s POV shifts back and forth between the two sisters, and you learn about their past, their private hopes and fears, and their relationships with their mother and each other. Readers can expect to move between science, spirituality, thought, and feeling—or back and forth between the head and the heart as the sisters’ decisions are made and processed. It’s character driven psychological realism that takes a nuanced look at where our choices come from, how we make them, and how we live with them.
Where did the inspiration for How to Care for a Human Girl come from?
I’ve always been interested in women’s inner lives and passionate about reproductive justice. This book explores the connection between those things. I started writing it while living in Texas during a period of relentless attacks on reproductive rights in general and Planned Parenthood in particular. I felt troubled by those attacks and their implication that women aren’t intelligent or self-aware enough to make decisions about their bodies and lives. I wanted to depict two women who are in very different places doing the hard work of making those decisions, to show how arduous and private they are and how public perceptions bear down on them.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
Since Maddy volunteers at a wildlife rehabilitation center, I got to learn a lot about how those facilities operate and the care they provide, specifically to injured birds and raptors. I visited a local raptor rehabilitation center, interviewed their director, and met some of their permanent residents. That was a really enriching and memorable experience.
What’s next for you?
I’ve started some new projects, but it seems too early to talk about them. By the time they’re finished, they’ll probably be completely different from the way I’m envisioning them now!
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
Sarah McColl’s beautiful memoir Joy Enough was one of the best, most inspiring books that I read while writing How to Care for a Human Girl.
