We sat down with author Virginia Pye to talk about recent historical fiction, writing habits, her new novel, MARRIAGE AND OTHER MONUMENTS!
The novel takes place in the summer of 2020 in Richmond, VA and follows two estranged sisters as both of their respective marriages hit a breaking point while in their city, a major social upheaval rises up as the Confederate monuments of old come down at the hands of the social justice activists.
Kait, Book Nerds Across America: How has the tour been so far?
Virginia Pye: Very fun! I've done events around where I live in Cambridge, MA, but I've also gone down south, which started with Bethesda, MD. There's a writers’ center there and that was a very fun event. Then several events in Richmond, where the novel is set, then down to Flyleaf Books in North Carolina. Now more events around the Boston area, then I go to the Virginia Festival of the Book in a few weeks, which I'm excited about, and several more events down there. It's been very, very fun sharing this book.
BNAA: Can you tell me a little bit about your personal connection to Richmond and how that helped develop MARRIAGE AND OTHER MONUMENTS?
VP: My husband and I and our two children moved there in 1998 and ended up living there for close to 20 years. It's where we raised our kids, and I had set down pretty deep roots there. My mother's side of the family is Southern. I grew up in the Boston area, but when we moved there, it felt familiar because of my extended family being Southern. So I ended up loving it. I was very happy to be there.
BNAA: You describe the novel as historical fiction, and I agree, even though it only took place 6 years ago. When you saw the events there, did you know right away that you wanted to write about that time and place?
VP: The story around this is I had written another novel in 2007, 2008 that was, like MARRIAGE AND OTHER MONUMENTS, about two estranged sisters whose marriages implode around the same time and how they then have to turn to each other in different ways. That novel was set during Occupy Wall Street, which nobody remembers and it feels like an awful long time ago. [Laughs.] And that novel tried to capture Richmond. We had been living there a long time and I wanted to capture this city I really love, and in particular the different classes living in the city. There was the wealthy patriarch and the unhoused kids living on an island in the middle of the river, and everything in between. Anyway, we didn't succeed at selling that.
I set it aside and went on to write other books. And then in the summer of 2020, soon after the death of George Floyd, I was in lockdown up in Massachusetts while my son was down in Richmond, along with some of my really close friends. Things immediately heated up down there, the way they heated up everywhere. There were riots, there were protests, there were nighttime skirmishes between protesters and police. And I was so drawn in because I cared so much about the people and the city, that I stayed up late nights watching videos as people were posting them in the midst of this action.
At the time, I wasn't thinking “Oh, this is good novel material.” I was just worried about my friends and my son, who was living very near to where this all was happening. But I was really engaged in watching, including the action that was happening around the Confederate monuments. The crowds pulled some of them down and then the mayor declared that they were going to be taken down, professionally.
I just kept wanting to be there, is really what happened. I didn't start writing this novel until half a year later, maybe a year. But I suddenly realized how much my mind and heart had been with everybody during that time. I was fascinated by it and the history of the monuments that I circled back to the earlier novel, resurrected some of those earlier characters, wrote new scenes in a new time frame, now in the summer of 2020.
BNAA: What is difficult to toe the line between recent past and present?
VP: I think there’s this way these days where time has speeded up and what happened yesterday feels like history, practically, because so many dramatic things have happened in such a short period of time. If I hear the word “unprecedented” one more time, I’m going to scream. [laughs] But it is true, it’s all very unprecedented, what we’ve all been going through. So when I decided to circle back to the summer of 2020, I had enough distance and enough hindsight, I thought, to put characters in that setting and imagine how they would respond to it.
You have to have suspension of disbelief, so you have to get things right. You have to not make it seem unreal to the reader. And so I did research, like you would with a historical novel. I did research on the history of the monuments and the history of Richmond and the history of certain neighborhoods, the history of prominent citizens there, particularly black citizens. And I realized “Oh, I’m treating this like a historical novel.” That’s all woven into the book.
BNAA: Were you researching anything on protestor networks or community activism networks to help bring the story to life?
VP: You know, I actually avoided that. I was aware of it and I did follow, on social media, different activists and the way those people were on social media. But I purposely chose characters who were not on the front lines. They were not the leaders. There’s one out of the four main characters— It’s a novel about two married couples— and there’s only one of those four who’s even repeatedly at protests, and she considers herself a foot soldier, not a leader. I didn’t want to presume, for a number of reasons. One is I didn't have the expertise. I hadn’t been there. Also, most of the protests were led by black people of different ages, so that wasn’t exactly my story to tell. But I could tell the stories of some marriages that were on the rocks. That I felt like I could tell.
BNAA: You said the story has always been inspired by two sisters and their marriages. Was that inspired by anything in particular or did these characters just kind of come to you?
VP: I have a sister, but it’s not inspired by my relationship with her. I think I really just wanted— I’ve been married a long time. My husband and I started dating in 1980 when I was 19. I won’t tell you how old I am now, but it’s been a looong time! Part of my thinking with this book was that I’ve managed to have a good marriage for a really long time. That is something I know something about and I would like to share something about that. How does that happen? How do you have a marriage that works? The best way to delve into that territory was to do what you do with novels: You show people where things aren’t working. You show people walking on shaky ground and there’s confusion between two people. Their communication is off. Can they work their way forward to where that marriage can make it or not?
In terms of siblings, it’s the same sort of thing where it’s another type of relationship that can go off so easily, and just how to try to get it back on track. That’s interesting to me. That’s the territory for me in fiction that I find fascinating.
BNAA: Of the four characters, did you have a favorite or least favorite point-of-view to write?
VP: People have asked me this! It’s genuinely like people asking which of your children do you love more. I really like all four of the characters for different reasons. I like their arches. I like where they end up.
I almost like the two male characters… I don’t want to say “better,” but I’m very pleased and proud of the two husbands. I think their arcs are very interesting. One is a man who is born with a silver spoon and really doesn’t know what to do with it and is pretty lost. The other is a very hardworking man who’s never been given anything. He’s always had to fight or work for something. I like both of their stories especially, I guess.
BNAA: On a technical note, what is your writing process like?
VP: When I start a book and I'm getting into it, I'm at my desk a lot. I write at a desk, on a desktop computer, not a laptop— I'm very old school in that way. Then I write the book before the beginning or the middle or the end. And I… It’s really crazy but I use 3x5 cards, and I turn them length-wise. I use color-coded 3x5 cards, a different color for each of the four point-of-view characters. And then, as I'm thinking of the storyline, I mark down for the chapter who the main point-of-view character is, what's happening to that character, what they’re thinking, what they’re doing or what their major moment is. Just in a very cursory way, not into detail. And then I tape it to a string that I hang up on my bookcase.
BNAA: I love that! I love it when author's storyboard.
VP: It’s a storyboard, exactly. Everyone I know uses Scrivener and they're like “Ginny, it's so much easier!” No, I love my little dumb strings and my 3x5 cards in different colors! I hang them up and then I sit down in the morning and I know I'm on Chapter 12 and oh, right, it's a Bobby chapter. “Bobby is at the river and…” and then I start to create the scene. And then when I finish that chapter, I get the sheer pleasure of ripping that card off the string. There are fewer cards hanging up and that's how I can view my progress. [laughs]
I've mentioned it to so many people and they're all like “Uh huh.” Nobody is ever like “Oh, I'll try that!” [laughs] Don't, there are so many other ways of doing it.
BNAA: But I love the physical representation! It's like you're giving yourself a little treat every time you finish something.
VP: Right? That is my huge reward! I start to pile up the used ones and I'm like “Ah, I'm getting somewhere.” By the way, I switch them around. I start to think “No, it wouldn't be Bobby's chapter here, it would be Cynthia's chapter and move them around. It's a way for me to visually see everything outside the computer, outside just paper. It works for me!
BNAA: I won't ask what's next because I know everyone hates that and you're still enjoying this one right now, so my last question is: What are some of the books you've enjoyed recently?
VP: I just finished listening to— which I believe is allowed—
BNAA: Yes!
VP: — Ian McEwan’s last novel, which is called WHAT WE CAN KNOW. Really beautiful, really smart, really a good one.
For a different conversation, I read ON BEAUTY again, by Zadie Smith. Someone asked me, in connection to MARRIAGE AND OTHER MONUMENTS, to name another book that I thought in some way resembled it. And I couldn't think of an exact comp, but ON BEAUTY is about two families where race and politics play a big role. Also, the contrast between the older generation and the younger generation is easy to connect. Maybe that's the best one to mention because I would love to be compared to Zadie Smith. [laughs] But just in terms of the different elements we see too in MARRIAGE AND OTHER MONUMENTS.
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MARRIAGE AND OTHER MONUMENTS is available now wherever books are sold!
