Lily Brooks-Dalton - Interview

Lily Brooks-Dalton in Conversation with Alex Dannemiller

In mid-October I called Lily Brooks-Dalton to chat about space, time, art, writing, Florida, and her latest novel, The Light Pirate, which released on December 6th from Grand Central Publishing. Lily spoke to me from her home in Los Angeles while she made dinner out of broccoli, peaches, and sausage (it turned out delicious, she said). I was in Portland, watching the night set in earlier. We’ve been friends for some years now, and I’ve interviewed Lily before for Propeller Mag. Our conversation here has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Alex Dannemiller: Would you start us off by describing your new novel, The Light Pirate?

Lily Brooks-Dalton: The Light Pirate is about one family in a small town in southeastern Florida, using the clock of the daughter’s lifetime, as the environment around them—politically and ecologically—erodes. I was really interested in using a scale of time like that because I think something that makes what’s happening to the climate so hard, or historically has made it so hard for us to wrap our heads around, is the speed at which it’s happening, and the underlying assumption that “Hmm this might be a problem, but it’s probably not going to be a problem for me.” So, that’s the framework of the book. It begins in the Florida that we recognize and then it moves into the not-so-distant future, then to the distant future to imagine how such a vulnerable state with such an economically disparate population reacts. I think we’re seeing a lot of that right now in terms of people contemplating how to rebuild after Ian. What is possible for wealthier folks, versus what is possible for folks without resources, and seeing how natural disasters are just making that divide even starker.

AD: You said it begins in the Florida that we know. Does it, by the end of the book, take a more sci-fi or fantastical change? Or does it remain grounded in reality? Our reality?

LBD: No, it definitely takes some liberties as it goes. The family that it follows, the father is a lineman, which is someone who works on power lines. And then eventually the brother becomes a lineman as well. So, it’s really looking at this kind of unraveling of Florida through the lens of infrastructure. And the logistics of keeping the lights on and maintaining the services that we have come to rely upon so heavily that they are often invisible to us until we don’t have them. You know, Wi-Fi, and cell service, and air conditioning, lights, all that stuff. What happens gradually is that it becomes unreliable and then it disappears completely. By then the government has essentially given up on Florida and left it to rewild itself, and whoever stays is on their own. So, that’s the world that the narrative is headed toward, and then there is a little fantastical thread that I won’t get into.

AD: The synopsis on your website mentions that it’s told in four parts: Power, water, light, and time. Does that tie into what you’re saying about focusing on the infrastructure?

LBD: Definitely. I think there’s this interplay between the sort of human-made infrastructure and the more natural version of that, the intelligence of the climate itself. So, the book begins with “power,” and the driving force of that section are the hurricanes, which are becoming more and more deadly, and more and more frequent. When I started writing the book it was 2016 and since then we’ve seen both hurricane Maria and hurricane Ian completely devastate entire communities in ways that it’s really mind boggling how a community would even rebuild from that experience, you know. And who gets those resources and who doesn’t.

AD: Right, like which communities actually get a chance to rebuild kind of thing too.

LBD: For sure, for sure. And so, that’s part one, part two is “water,” which is interested more in the incremental rise of sea level and spans a little bit more time. Part three, “light,” becomes this exploration of both incandescent light and bioluminescent light, so it’s using both the light that we make as human beings and the light that creatures make. Then the final section is “time,” where we’re looking back and kind of charting what has changed, but also looking forward. It’s shorter than the others, a little bit of an epilogue.

AD: That’s interesting because you said you were interested in trying to conceptualize the time aspect of the climate crisis. As something that kind of predates and follows a lot of us, where our scope of time that we’ll be living is within this larger consequence of actions that’s happening, and also will live on after us in a way that will affect people who might not even be born yet. So, it’s interesting to bring that back into focus in the end then and have that presence in mind of time as outside of what we’re usually able to conceptualize.

LBD: Yes, totally. The final section is kind of glancing at what this length of time, this gaze of the book, has done, not only to the characters, but to the landscape during that time. I think this is something that I was interested in doing with my previous book Good Morning, Midnight, of seeing how much of a character the landscape itself could be. And what it looks like if the environment is the main character.

AD: Mentioning your previous book and thinking of landscape as a character, one other thing I was thinking about with the sectioning was that your first book, the memoir, Motorcycles I’ve Loved, was kind of more sectioned off in a sort of similar naming convention, wasn’t it?

LBD: It was, yeah, well each chapter kind of had a theme, like a physics theme it was functioning around and kind of circling in different ways.

AD: This being your third book, have you thought about how your own writing has been developing or how you work as a writer or what you function or lean towards, and like how your previous work builds upon itself or influences what you work on next?

LBD: Yeah, for sure, I think, in a lot of ways, the seed of the next book is planted in the preceding book. One book kind of leads to the next. Something happens where I’m doing a lot of research or ruminating on something and a lot of it goes into the book that I’m working on, but then some of it just doesn’t have a home there. And when I’m done with the book, I’m still captivated by some element of it. It often makes its way into what I want to do next. It’s not always a straight line.

AD: Are there things about your writing or the way that you work that you’ve noticed has changed over time?

LBD: In terms of craft, I think I’ve definitely gotten better at finding a way forward when I’m stuck.

AD: What is that way for you?

LBD: Oh, there’s no one answer to it. The other piece of that is knowing which action is most suited to the moment. Because I think there’s some ways of being stuck where it’s like, you need to do something else for a while, maybe even for like an hour, or a day, or a week, you need to remove yourself from this project so that you can see it clearly. And then there’s another kind of stuck where like, nope, you need to really dig in and parse out what the question is here. Asking the right question of the work is something I think I’ve gotten better at.

AD: Do you think that knowing when to do the right thing is something that becomes almost intuition through practice?

LBD: I do think so. I think intuition is a big part of it for me and making space to listen and then taking my own advice when I hear it. And also, knowing when a project isn’t working. That’s kind of where I was before I started working on The Light Pirate. I was working on something else, and it wasn’t right. I kind of rushed into it without really envisioning the project fully, which is something that I’ve found that I do need to do, and I know a lot of writers kind of like to let the characters tell them what happens next, but I don’t work like that. I need to understand what I’m doing and what the book is about and what it’s trying to say and where it ends. Some vague vision of where it ends. I need that. Knowing when to give up sounds sort of depressing, but I don’t mean it that way, it’s just when to move on.

AD: It does sound depressing, but I think at the same time, it’s something that I feel like everyone kind of needs to do in their life. Like when you’re stuck in a rut or something.

LBD: And I guess yeah, it’s okay that it’s depressing! It’s sad when that happens! It’s really sad. You’re like, “Oh my god, I spent so much time and energy on this thing.” Whether it’s a book or a relationship or whatever. It’s sad when you realize something isn’t working and you have to just let it go and move on.

AD: Do you think though, obviously with some things in life like a relationship it might not be true, but with a book, do you feel it’s something that you could maybe return to later?

LBD: I do think so! Actually, that same abandoned book I’ve been kind of ruminating on how I could execute it, and I can sort of see a way forward. I’m not sure if it’s the next book on my docket. But it’s been on my mind lately. And, yeah, I did not have the tools to execute that book when I first imagined it. Maybe I still don’t, but I have more of them certainly than I did then.

AD: I was talking to someone, and they were lamenting about not making progress on a project of their own. And I said you can always come back to it. And they said, or maybe they went past the moment in which the book had been best suited for. And I think that that’s probably a pretty common feeling, like you feel like you’ve missed your opportunity or moment with a piece of material.

LBD: I just want to understand what you mean by that. Do you mean in an external way? Like there was something about the book that was of the moment societally, and that moment has passed? Or do you mean, more personally, like inspiration visited and then it left, and I didn’t finish the thing in time?

AD: I feel it could apply to both instances. I could imagine someone certainly feeling the social or cultural moment has passed or their own personal moment has passed too. But I agree with what you’re saying where there is always opportunity to come back to material with a new set of personal tools that we have or a new perspective. And I think that could apply too to even books that are either socially or culturally sort of trying to be in a certain moment or not.

LBD: Yeah, I think that’s true, but you can’t come back to it unless you know when it’s time to step away also. That resting period. Like resting a steak before you cut into it, or a loaf of bread, you know, it’s gotta cool down a little. I feel that way about drafts as well. Drafts that are working. Drafts that I’m committed to. And yet, I need to not look at this for a month at least. I think there’s a lot that happens in those periods of grace that we give ourselves.

AD: Yeah, and I think too, sometimes it’s just a matter of thinking of your own material in a way that you start to understand it better. Which goes with what you’re saying. I’ve been working on something for a long time, and I just recently started picking it up and going back through it. And within that time, it is a matter of understanding what you’re trying to accomplish with it, or who the characters are, or where the story is going. For the bread to rise or for stuff to foment or whatever. Yeah. So, circling back to The Light Pirate. What is your relationship to Florida? Or what does Florida mean to you and how did that influence setting a story there?

LBD: My parents live in Florida and they’ve lived there for a long time. They live in a little town that’s kind of modeled after the town of Rudder in The Light Pirate. I didn’t grow up in Florida, but they moved there shortly after I struck out on my own, and so that’s been a home base for me for my entire adult life, even though I’ve never really lived there. I think when they first moved there, I felt really bummed. I was not a fan of Florida.

Key West, 2016

AD: Why?

LBD: That’s a good question. I think it was sadness around losing my roots in Vermont, which is where I did grow up, and the northeast. There was just nothing about Florida that really interested me. But then I started visiting and spending more time there. I think there’s also a cultural snootiness that we have about Florida in which we have this morbid fascination with “The Florida Man,” and we have this kind of collective vision of Florida that is really colored by agism, poverty, and drug addiction. Then there’s the spring break vibe, the whole Disney World thing. That’s Florida to people who don’t have a more personal relationship to it. A place that’s nice for a vacation maybe but is a shithole otherwise. And the more time that I spent there, the more upset I started to feel about that judgement of Florida, and the reaction that I would get when I mentioned it to people who didn’t know anything about it, or maybe hadn’t even been there, or had been there once on spring break. It felt really unfair to me, and it also really interested me. Like what is it about this place that makes us so eager to not take it seriously? To write it off? That had been something that had been on my mind for a number of years. And then, I ended up in Florida for two writing residencies, kind of coincidentally, I mean, not coincidentally because I did apply to them both, but I applied to a lot of residencies for this one season in late 2016, and I got two, and they were both in Florida. One was for three months, and the other was for one, and I was traveling around the state in the interim, staying with my family for a while, camping in state parks. I ended up spending the longest chunk of time in Florida that I ever had up to that point and feeling like I had lived there for a moment. I found myself feeling really captivated by it. I think the climate of Florida is really special: the Everglades, the Keys, the panhandle, there’s so many little pockets of Florida that are incredibly special.

AD: Thinking of your parents, you told me once that you wanted to write books for people that you know. Like writing books that people you know would read. How do you think about those kinds of books? Or how would you describe them? Or how do you see yourself sort of achieving that goal?

LBD: Well, I think, for me, reading a book should be a pleasure. I want that experience to be a joy. I’ve read a lot of hard books that are really good on a craft level and also felt kind of brutal to finish. Though I think it’s terrific that they’re out there. I want to write books that are interested in plot and pacing. I want to write books that propel you forward, and I also want to write books that are good on a craft level. That you’re like, “Oh god, that sentence is really beautiful, I never would have thought to describe something in that way.” I wanna do both, and it’s really fucking hard to do both. It’s a tall order. But that’s what I aspire to. I don’t know how successful I am at that, but that’s the goal.

AD: Yeah, I think you do accomplish that. In thinking about that, are there things that you’ve been captivated by that give you that same sort of feeling? Whether it be another book, or a tv show, or a video game. Are there things that you feel have really accomplished those goals that you’ve been thinking about lately?

LBD: Well, you mentioned video games, so I can’t not talk about how much I love The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Maybe that’s just because you and I have talked about that not so long ago. But, I think about it all the time. It’s a stunning piece of art, and it’s also addictive, it’s incredibly entertaining, it’s a pleasure to play that game. And I admire that so much. In terms of books, right now I’m reading Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet, and I’m really enjoying it. I think that she’s doing both of these things of giving us a piece of really compelling craft and also a really compelling story at the same time.

AD: When you play a video game, or read a book, or watch a show, are there things that you, because I feel like I do this, and I feel like a lot of other writers do this too, where you notice things that the, whatever you’re indulging in, does really well, and you think like, “Oh that’s a good move,” or, “Oh that’s a good technique,” and then try to extrapolate from that some sort of lesson to use in your own writing?

LBD: Yeah, that’s interesting. That makes me think of Todd Field, who’s a director I’ve recently become enamored with.

AD: What has he directed?

LBD: His latest movie that just came out is called Tár, with Cate Blanchett, in which she’s an orchestra conductor. It’s an extraordinary film, and it made me really eager to watch his other two films, Little Children, and then his first one was In The Bedroom. So, I had a little Todd Field week, and I was so taken with the way that he uses morality and the absence of moral judgement in his films and the way that he uses titles as this really important lynchpin for the piece. And also the way that he takes his time letting things unfold . . . yet, his movies are not boring. On the surface it seems like this might be a boring movie. You know, some Oscar bait shit that is just not that interesting while also being really beautiful. But they are not boring at all. Things happen in his films, but also there are moments of inaction that he doesn’t rush, and I was so impressed with some of the things that he was doing and was thinking how can I bring this into my work. I think some of it might pop up in something that I do. But I think some of it might not, just like, that’s not really what I do. That doesn’t really apply to what I’m interested in. But I’m so glad that he’s out there doing it, for me to enjoy.

AD: You can admire the craft even if it’s not your style.

LBD: For sure. I wish it was my style. It just doesn’t fit into what I’m up to.

AD: When you said really boring but good movie, I thought of, have you ever seen Barry Lyndon, by Stanley Kubrick?

LBD: No, I haven’t.

AD: It’s a very long movie and it’s set in, gosh, I forget when, like colonial times [18th century England]. It has really long shots where nothing’s really happening in the frame, but it’s still interesting. It’s still a pleasure to watch.

LBD: Yeah. And just to be clear, when I say long boring movies. I’m not saying, those are bad. Boring is kind of an unhelpful word. What I mean is long slow movies in which not that much happens, and a lot of the story is the space between minor moments.

AD: Yeah, like contemplative.

LBD: Mmhmm. And those are great. Not always in the mood for that, you know. This is what I’m talking about with books. I remember reading Concrete by Thomas Bernhard in grad school and just thinking like, “God, this is really interesting on a craft level, and, on an enjoyment level . . . I am not enjoying this experience.” I think that’s what I mean also about wanting to write books for the people that I know and the people that I love. What I mean by that is that I want to write a book that my dad can enjoy, who, you know, isn’t a big reader. And it’s not that I want to pander to him, I just don’t want to make art that excludes. That’s something that feels important to me.

AD: People often talk about it in terms of making it “accessible,” but there’s something I don’t like about using the word “accessible.” Because it makes it seem almost like it’s uh . . .

LBD: Like you’re dumbing it down. And it’s really the opposite.

AD: Yeah. Right. Because making something that works for people . . . I don’t know if maybe like “inclusionary” or “inclusive” . . . but something that works for a lot of people and that’s enjoyable and not like, Ulysses, or something that’s not this Gordian Knot that you have to figure out to read, is difficult. It’s difficult to make that work.

LBD: Well, just to go back to Concrete, that book feels like the point is for those blocks of text to be impenetrable and to exclude readers who are not willing to get in on the message. I think to me, there are a lot of things that take a little bit of delight in being exclusionary, and I’m not here to say that’s a bad thing, it’s just not my thing.

AD: I think that’s fair. Are there certain craft concepts or writing concepts or things that you’ve been mulling on or really thinking about lately?

LBD: The first thing that comes to mind is an interest in asking a lot of great questions and not offering any answers. Or any easy answers.

AD: Do you mean to the reader? Like bringing those questions through the writing and making them apparent to the reader in the text?

LBD: Yeah, I do. My partner is a conceptual visual artist, and so a lot of her work doesn’t rely on narrative, it’s about presenting ideas and putting forth questions. And I think, she’s been rubbing off on me a little bit lately in terms of my interest in offering up within the text, within the narrative, offering up questions I don’t have answers to, but that are interesting and that kind of click together and stack on top of each other.

AD: That’s definitely present in a lot of other art forms too. There’s not an explanation for the question that creates the artwork.

LBD: Yeah, not always, some art is more self-evident than others, but often my experience is like you go look at an art show, go to a gallery, go to a museum, and you are like, OK, I see what the artist is thinking about and I see some things that they’re suggesting with this work, but it is not their job to tell me how they feel about it or what their answer to it is, what their takeaway is, what the treasure at the top of the mountain is, they’re just showing me this mountain. And it’s up to me to choose how I engage with it. I think there’s something really exciting about that and also really challenging to do that within a narrative form where I’m both taking care of the reader, and their expectations of narrative, and also stretching that a little bit. I think it ties in to this question of exclusion vs. inclusion.

AD: Yeah, as you’re talking about this I’m thinking that one of the things that becomes really difficult then, and one thing that you often hear from people who aren’t of the art world but still go to a museum is that sometimes art is too pretentious in being inaccessible because it is too, not complex or complicated, but it’s too obfuscated or obstructed in a way. And so, as you’re saying, it does tie back to that question then that I think is even more difficult both of art that does this and of text that does it, where like how do you accomplish a similar feat while still maintaining that level of inclusive form.

LBD: Totally, it is a tightrope. And, falling off one side or the other does not equate failure. It’s kind of an impossible task. But that is the line that I’m interested in.

AD: Thinking of craft, is there a form or thing that you have tried to do or want to do, but found that you can’t really do well? Comedic writing is something that I always wish I could do better, but any time I try it, it doesn’t work out so well.

LBD: I totally agree. I’m not a funny writer. I wish I had that ability. I still would like to try a little harder at that, but it’s not really in my toolbox right now. I’m a really earnest writer . . .

AD: What do you mean by that?

LBD: What I mean is kind of not leaning into humor or irony or cynicism or satire.

AD: Kind of like trying to be sincere to your reader?

LBD: Yeah. There’s a sincerity that I feel for my characters. I don’t ever make fun of my characters. I’m just figuring that out as we’re talking. There’s another word that I’m looking for and I’m annoyed that I can’t quite, get to it . . .

AD: I get what you mean though . . . there are certainly some writers where it feels like, I don’t know if being cruel to their characters is the right way of putting it, but it feels like they are either toying with the characters or using them in a way that is meant to sort of toy with the reader’s emotions in a way.

LBD: Yeah, and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing at all, I love it. For me the flip side of being an earnest writer is I think sometimes my writing can veer into melodrama or taking itself too seriously.

AD: Two things that made me think of comedy. One is that I read Sirens of Titan by Vonnegut. And it was good. People say he’s a comedic writer, and I don’t argue against that . . . but also his comedy is so, it’s not like Douglas Adams. It’s such a different style of comedy. And then the second thing that I have been ingesting is George Carlin’s comedy. I’ve been watching all these specials that he’s done and seeing his comedy evolve over time is really interesting.

LBD: I bet. I mean, what a career to chart, you know?

AD: Yeah. I had never watched anything of his before until I watched a documentary about him. And it’s interesting. It got me trying to do more comedic writing and it’s interesting how difficult it is. Like you’re saying, tone wise, I feel like it’s more of a tightrope walk than dramatic writing because you don’t want the tone to wiggle too much one way and you just sound like an asshole or wiggle too much the other way and you like . . . I don’t know.

LBD: It’s hard. It’s interesting, I was really, really in love with Vonnegut when I was a teenager and I haven’t read any of his stuff since then. Maybe that’s something to revisit.

AD: One last thing that I wanted to ask you about is, obviously being kind of a space nerd, have you been following the NASA and James Webb space imagery stuff?

LBD: Mmhmm, for sure.

AD: What have you thought about that? DART was pretty cool.

LBD: Yeah. One hundred percent, super fucking cool. Honestly those images coming back were kind of the thing that made me start thinking about circling back to that novel that I had kind of abandoned, it really stirred something up in my imagination. So, yeah, I’ve definitely been really interested to watch all of this unfold. What about you?

AD: I think the images have just been stunning. Earlier today NPR had on William Shatner.

LBD: Oh, fun.

AD: Yeah, I guess he has a new memoir coming out where he talks about his brief space flight experience. He was talking about how it made him incredibly sad that he, I won’t be able to paraphrase it perfectly, but basically that he looked at Earth and then looked out to the stars and just how empty it was, and how Earth is just kind of down here . . . Similar to what you’re talking about with The Light Pirate where it’s changing and melting and doing all of these things. It made him realize how fragile the Earth is. For me, all this space stuff is interesting in that it’s hopeful but also it does make you realize just how expansive everything is.

LBD: Are you familiar with the overview effect?

AD: Is that the one where the astronauts go up and look at the Earth and it makes them have a profound realization kind of thing?

LBD: Yeah! I think it’s so interesting that it’s so predictable to feel that that there’s a term for it, you know. That that shift in perspective has its own language to describe it. I think that’s fascinating. It just sounds like that’s what William Shatner is describing.

AD: Yeah. I’ve also been reading the second book of The Expanse series [Caliban’s War]. It’s interesting to think of the context of space travel that we’re not experiencing but like observing compared to space travel as covered in The Expanse where it becomes this more normalized thing that they go through.

LBD: Yeah! I mean it doesn’t seem that far off at this point. I’m just thinking of all the civilian space flights we’ve been watching happen. Did you? Oh my god, wait, OK, I recently saw an article about the fact that in Tom Cruise’s new space movie he’s going to be the first non-astronaut to do a spacewalk.

AD: Woah.

LBD: It’s just like, OK. We’ve entered like another phase now . . . if Tom Cruise is filming a spacewalk for a blockbuster movie, space travel has changed. It’s not accessible exactly but, it’s available.

AD: It’s wild to me that he’ll be the first non-astronaut to do that. I don’t know why I feel like there should be someone else. But I guess it makes sense that nobody else has done it. I think that . . . Tom Cruise is just such a . . . I don’t know, he just keeps going. You know.

LBD: Yeah.

AD: He just keeps doing whatever he can to one-up himself.

LBD: He’s not competing with anyone except himself at this point.

AD: Yeah. What’s he going to do? What can he do next?

LBD: I don’t know. I don’t know that you can top the first non-astronaut spacewalk. I mean, honestly. Maybe some kind of deep-sea shit? I don’t even know. I don’t even know where you go from there.