Among fake Instagram pages, long-buried family secrets, and the horrors of middle school, one suburban mom searches to find herself in a heartfelt and thought-provoking novel from the author of Minor Dramas and Other Catastrophes.
We chat with author Kathleen West about her new novel Are We There Yet?, writing, research, and much more!
Have you always wanted to be a novelist?
I remember wanting to be a writer beginning in fourth grade when I wrote a long story about pirates and treasure. Two years later, my teacher took me to McDonald’s for lunch to discuss the possibility of publishing a travel memoir I’d written about my family’s semester in Xi’an, China. I felt incredibly special sitting there with her in the Ronald McDonaldland section of the restaurant. After that, I definitely viewed myself as a writer.
Writing novels came much later, though. I started writing in earnest in 2015. Before then, I was distracted by teaching, parenting, graduate school, and just living. Once my children were a little older, I decided to give fiction writing my concentrated attention.
How does your career as a teacher influence your writing?
One of the greatest gifts of teaching is the opportunity to know so many families. I am a partner as people traverse all kinds of transitions and troubles and celebrations. When I was younger, I was much more judgmental about parenting choices, but as I’ve aged, I’m more open. My friend Jennifer told me once that every parent acts out of two motivations: fear and love. Now, when I’m having a hard time connecting with someone (or fleshing out a character in one of my books), I think about those two parallel motivations. They’re universal! And, if I can tap into them when I’m working with people, either real or fictional ones, I’m much better at my jobs.
What was the best part about publishing your first novel, Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes?
I still can’t believe that people walk into bookstores, pick up my book, and then read it. It’s wonderful and surreal! At 40, I was itching for a bit of a change, and I can’t believe this is the midlife jolt I got. I’m endlessly grateful. Now, when I’m sitting at our kitchen table working on a scene or revising something, my husband might say to me, “I can’t believe this is just your job now.” I can’t believe it either.
What is it like to write a second novel? Did you know what you wanted to write about?
I picked away at Minor Dramas for more than three years before I found a literary agent and a publisher. When I started writing Are We There Yet?, I knew it would be due within twelve months. I was pretty nervous about that timeline. Lucky for me, I have a partner who carries our health insurance, so I could leave my full-time teaching job for a year and just write.
In the beginning, I thought it would be more clearly a sister story. But as I explored the characters and their motivations, I became increasingly interested in the conflation of kid and adult reputations. If our kids do something great, it’s tempting as parents to share credit. Similarly, if our kids make mistakes, we tend to internalize these as our own. And, other parents may begin to wonder what’s wrong with us, as well. That’s really what the book is about: that borders between pride and culpability and agency across generations.
What are some of the other themes of your second novel?
The novel is about reputations, impulsivity, forgiveness, and the legacy of secrets. Of course, it’s also about suburban competitive parenting and how that impacts kids and adults.
How did you choose the setting for both of your novels?
Both books take place just outside of Minneapolis. I am a lifelong Minnesotan, and I’m intimately familiar with the Twin Cities and their suburbs. I also like the idea that Minnesota is considered by outsiders to be “nice” and wholesome. There’s some tension there because those descriptors often mask a classic kind of midwestern passive aggression that’s practiced by many of my characters.
Tell us a bit about your writing process.
In the drafting stage (my least favorite), I usually set word-count quotas and mete out my days by these. Write two hundred words, and I can make myself a coffee. Another two hundred, and I can check Twitter. Make it to a thousand, and it’s time to walk the dogs. In revision, I have a much longer attention span. In each of my books so far (I’ve just handed in my third), I’ve reached a point in my process where I have to throw away large chunks of text and “start over.” I’m putting that in quotation marks because by the time the pages go in the garbage, the characters have been solidified. That hard work of learning the inner workings of the people is done, but something about the plot and pacing is wrong.
The garbage moment always makes me cry, but so far, the rewrites have been worth it.
Do you do any special research?
My first book took place in a school, an environment I know intimately. I hardly had to do any research. For the others, I have characters with jobs I know nothing about, and in situations I can only imagine. I needed experts in all kinds of topics: interior design, psychotherapy for adolescents, synchronized skating, fashion (I have no personal sense of style), athletic coaching, USA Hockey, medaling in the Olympics. I love doing interviews with people who know about the things my characters know. It always fires me up for writing, and I’m so grateful for their expertise.
You write about teachers, school administrators and moms—are any of your characters inspired by real people you’ve worked with?
All of the school characters and all of the parents are amalgamations of lots of people I’ve known. I recognize bits of myself in all of them, but no one is a A-to-B facsimile of a real person.
What was a book or books that you loved as a child that you keep going back to?
I am not a re-reader in general, but the books from my own childhood that I most enjoyed sharing with my kids are the Fudge and Peter Hatcher books by Judy Blume. Blume is hilarious, and yet, her stories are poignant and meaningful and say something about kids, parents, and families.
What is the best writing advice you ever received? The worst?
The best writing advice I’ve internalized is to keep your eyes on your own paper. In publishing, there are constant opportunities to compare yourself to others—who has a bigger deal, with a more prestigious publisher, with a more robust marketing campaign, etc. etc. While I’m not perfect, I resolve to keep my focus on what I can control. I can control how much I write and how nice I am to other people in the business.
I can’t think of a particular piece of bad advice, but it’s definitely true that different methods work for different people. Some people are morning writers, some evening, some every day, some weekends off… there’s no right or more virtuous path to “The End.” Find what works for you.
