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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

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Identity and make-believe: The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty & The Life and Death of Sophie Stark

4/2/2016

8 Comments

 
Lately, I’ve been contemplating my identity as a novelist: how, on the one hand, it’s a simple statement of fact while, on the other, it represents an existential anxiety about what I’d be if I couldn’t describe myself in terms of something that sounds like a job. So these two novels exploring identity and make-believe, albeit with reference to film rather than fiction, have come along at exactly the right time.

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Tired and frazzled, a thirtyish woman arrives in Casablanca from her home in Florida. Even before she’s robbed of her backpack, containing her money and passport, as she waits at the check-in desk, she’s regretting having booked into a hotel; the guidebook she didn’t read until boarding the plane advising that the best thing to do in Casablanca is to get out of it. But that’s the least of her worries as a series of chance events has her impersonating first a similar-looking American woman (with the connivance of the local police) whose similar-looking backpack has been found; then a stand-in for a famous American actress; and, finally, an anonymous journalist travelling with a visiting Nigerian politician. Alongside the constant anxiety of being outed as a fraud, she finds a certain freedom in her continual reinventions, taking her progressively further from the woman she was. As she gradually reveals the tremendous betrayal that has prompted her Moroccan journey, the reader can appreciate why an alternative identity might be an attractive prospect.

Narrated with exquisite attention to detail (with around to thirty pages dedicated to the bureaucratic nightmare of attempting to recover a stolen backpack abroad) in the second person (which seems initially strange but then proves perfect for a woman whose identity is increasingly defined by others), the wry humour seguing into the poignancy of her recent past renders this novel a less zany companion to The First Bad Man. The scenes satirising the film world, reminded me of the newly-conscious dogs “performing dogness” in Fifteen Dogs. While never revealing her real name, the narrator shows just enough of herself as the “less pretty” twin, self-conscious about the scars from teenage acne, to make her credible, but leaving sufficient anonymity for the reader to project onto her what we will. As Diana says towards the end of my own novel, Sugar and Snails, another tale of reinvention, it’s “an age-old cliché for young people to inflict themselves on the Third World to find themselves”; I don’t think I’ve come across anyone doing it quite as dramatically as the narrator of The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty. It’s a novel well worth rereading for its lightness of touch and philosophical depth; thanks to Atlantic Books for my review copy.

Sophie Stark is avant-garde filmmaker from Iowa, whose eccentric directorial career is unveiled by those who’ve come closest to knowing this enigmatic woman. Baffled by the unwritten rules of social relationships, she first picked up a camera to try to make sense of how other people function. Or so she says. While her friends, family, colleagues and lovers all note her vulnerability, embodied in those large eyes in a tiny frame, and, in various ways, want to take care of her, they also recognise her ruthless confidence and refusal to compromise for the sake of her art, hurting both herself and those close to her in the process.

Each of these point of view characters has an interesting story of their own which they share with the reader, some of which Sophie has purloined for her films. The first is a documentary about her college’s star basketball player on whom she has a crush which veered into stalking. The second is a version of a tale told at a stand-up session in a bar, and the third a dramatisation of the life of her husband’s deceased mother. But it’s when the reputation that she’s built from the success of these low-budget films heralds her big break, with the chance to shoot a film with known actors and someone else’s script that Sophie Stark starts to unravel.

The Life and Death of Sophie Stark is an unusual and highly engaging novel which questions the nature of authenticity and how much we can ever know another person. It’s also very much about the relationship between life and story, something I’ve been exploring on this blog, particularly in this post on storytelling as personal metaphor, and I’m saving some quotes from this novel for when I come back to this topic again. However, having just revealed another layer of the story behind my own story too, I’m alert to the risks of losing control of one’s story once it’s out in the world. As Allison says about being pushed to the limit in one of Sophie’s films (p29):

I’d gone to such trouble to tell a good story about my life, a story that was exciting and didn’t make me look bad, and now the cast and crew and anyone who saw the movie would see the other story anyway. They would see me letting Peter do something I didn’t want; they would see me fearful and helpless and struggling … Peter was taking my dignity away, and everybody knew it.

Those who haven’t yet given up on
attempting to understand the publication circus might be interested to know that this debut novel first appeared in e-book format only. Thanks to Weidenfeld and Nicholson for my review copy of this year’s paperback release.

For other novels on the enigma of identity, see
In Search of Solace and He Wants. For another on Hollywood, see Lucky Us. For more on documentary makers, see Sleeping on Jupiter and The Tusk That Did The Damage. Also, see my latest author Q&A for the movie trailer I’ve imagined for my own writing career (in response to a great question from Kirtida Gautam).

Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
8 Comments
Norah Colvin link
6/2/2016 06:35:04 am

Thanks for sharing your reviews of these two books, Anne. Your introductory statement intrigued me. I like the way you question the way you would describe, or perhaps consider, your identity if a suitable label such as novelist was not available.It is interesting that we must have a label, or a collection of same, with which to describe ourselves; yet we justifiably cringe at the labels applied in the fields of education, medicine and psychology for example. Why is it necessary to feel that we are a "anything". How else would we describe ourselves to ourselves or others. Identity is an intriguing concept, and I'm sure the explorations of both these books would be fascinating, as was Diana's quest to establish hers.
I smiled at your mention of the need to travel to the Third World to find oneself. It has always amused me, a bit like going elsewhere to get away from one's problems. They usually just tag along like unwanted baggage.

Reply
Annecdotist
7/2/2016 11:32:22 am

I think the travelling bug is a bit like needing to label ourselves to have an identity, which does crop up in my next novel. I used to have that bug and did come back from my travels more confident but, yes, we can’t travel away from our fundamental selves. I met an awful lot of Australians in backpackers hostels – so of course I thought ALL Australians were avid travellers, but happy to have you put me right on that!
I guess there’s a HUGE difference between the labels we claim for ourselves and those assigned to us by others. As I mentioned to Lisa, I think those who don’t need them are several steps ahead of me but, as far as neuroses go, this is a fairly benign one. But it came up to me in the context of how hard I need/want to work at the writing and recognising a need for balance between a laudable desire to progress and getting so obsessed with the next target I forget to enjoy it.

Reply
Lisa Reiter link
6/2/2016 11:32:21 am

Really interesting post Anne and two good book reviews - I might pick Sophie Stark as a read over the suggestion of the detailed narrative of the other.
Needing an 'identity', a label by which others can understand you, comfortably - must be hardwired, don't you think!? I can't shift out of the need, try as I might, to accept that living a life well, ought to be enough. I guess we're descended from pack and tribal beings and there's something in the brainstem which attracts us to 'identify and identify with'..
I happen to 'ghosting' some on-line content for a friend at the moment. It is amazing how after years away from the corporate world I was soon (metaphorically) rustling around in a lined skirt, tights and heels, communication clipped to the bare essentials - an old identity rearing an ugly head (but that was once necessary to survive in a certain environment.) The friend of course bemused as I failed to respond to the social chit chat she had time to engage in (and we normally engage in!) - having been self-employed for a long time to escape some of that.
The upshot is though that I am all too conscious this week, how someone else's validation of a small piece of writing (450 words!) makes me feel much more comfortable in the notion that I could one identify myself a writer!

Reply
Annecdotist
7/2/2016 11:22:59 am

Thanks, Lisa, interesting that I wasn’t thinking so much about describing myself to others (of course that might be merely down to the fact that I don’t get out much) where it can be more trouble than it’s worth to describe oneself as a writer (unless I can give them a business card to flog my book), but to myself – which I think stems from insecurity. I think some people can just be, which is a great gift, but probably unlikely ever to be mine.
I’m smiling about you being a skirt-and-heels writer as the image is more often jogging bottoms and T-shirt or pyjamas – but don’t knock yourself. A new commission is important/exciting/scary and it’s part of professionalism to want to do it well.

Reply
Lisa Reiter link
8/2/2016 09:55:46 am

Hmm perhaps it says something about my own self-esteem, self-worth that I am still externalising how I describe myself.. That it can only be as other would describe me. Still a work-in-progress!
And the mental slip back into skirts and clip-floppy (uncomfortable) shoes is purely related to this particular material which has me time travelling back to days in HR and all that leadership jargon!
Great discussion xx

Annecdotist
8/2/2016 03:16:20 pm

Although inside and outside both feed on each other, so sometimes it's difficult to tell from where the influence comes.

Charli Mills
7/2/2016 06:10:45 pm

I wonder if writers are more concerned with identity than others? It seems to be a theme across writing blog of late, and something often entangled in the writing process. I think it seems easier for those who embrace the output of writing as a job and the process as part of one's self-expression. But who knows? I seem to change my mind often on this topic depending upon the day! Both these books sound interesting in their explorations. The issue of authenticity when the self is explored through the expression of art (film, stories, music, etc.) is compelling. While I am interested in human motivations and character development, I do like to read stories. Would you say they two novels were carried forward by satisfying stories? And I enjoyed your interview at Authorpreneur (and I love that word, one I like to cloak my own self-identity with whether it be authentic or not). Somehow, the idea of an Anne Goodwin Life as Writer Trailer in the Disney version makes me chuckle, but it would allow you to break out in song at various points!

Reply
Annecdotist
8/2/2016 03:24:54 pm

I love that you change your mind on this one according to the day, Charli, but it’s interesting to speculate on separating output and process in that way. I think I’ve been too invested in output lately and need to get back to process – in fact, today was the first time in ages that I woke up bursting to write some fiction.
Good question about these novels in relation to story: although they both certainly gripped me and there was a sequence of events building progressively on each other in both sufficiently to satisfy my own desire for plot, you might need a little more. I did see some reviews on Goodreads complaining about the ending of The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty just fizzling out. I didn’t mind it at all, which is why I didn’t mention it in the review, but some were disappointed.
Thanks for reading my Q&A – and there’s a thought: my writing life as a musical, or even an opera! Better start looking around for a composer.

Reply



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