A Room of One's Own—both Virginia Woolf's essay and the Madison bookstore it's named after—looms large on the author Melissa Falivenohis life.
She keeps a copy of Woolf's 1929 book, An Argument for Physical and Cultural Space for Women Writers to Create — on her desk as inspiration. And Faliveno, who was born in Mount Horeb, was a frequent visitor to the bookstore when she was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an Isthmus author and rare book dealer.
“I first went there to get books for a class, and I had no education in feminism other than my mother's version of feminism as 'bra burning,'” Faliveno said. “And then I went into my own room and said, 'What is this magical place?' It was just a place that was a very important part of my life in Madison.”
[Madison Public Library bundles books for CSA-style pickup]
Faliveno used to dream of someday publishing a book and holding a launch event at the bookstore. He did the seemingly difficult part. “Tomboyland,A collection of essays exploring her relationship with the Midwest and her own identity, is published Tuesday, Aug. 4 by Topple Press, an imprint started by “Transparent” creator (and UW-Madison alumna) Jill Soloway.
Scheduling the bookstore event, on the other hand, turned out to be tougher than expected. With in-person events canceled due to COVID-19, Faliveno will be taking part in a virtual discussion with author Melissa Febos (“Whip Smart”) at 6 p.m. Wednesday via Crowdcast. The event is free, but registration is required.
Blending personal essay and cultural reportage, her essays examine gender identity, motherhood, and the Midwest, often exploring the perceived contradictions and complexities she sees in both herself and the place she grew up. Faliveno, who teaches in the graduate writing program at Sarah Lawrence University, talked about the origins of her writing.
When did you start writing about the Midwest?
I don't think I really started writing about Wisconsin or the Midwest until I left it. You know, when I was there, I was writing about everything else, but also I think mostly because I found everything else more interesting. And I did a lot of traveling and writing a lot about World War II and Europe.
And then when I moved to New York, I don't know. Something happened. It just felt like this really strong pull towards home. And I'm sure some of it was nostalgia. A lot of it was like being in New York among New Yorkers and very educated people, some of whom were saying disparaging things about the Midwest, especially during the 2016 election. I got defensive about where I was from and started to really want to interrogate Midwestern identity and Wisconsin in particular because it is such a unique place. And I love it and still call it home.
[MMoCA to reopen galleries, restart Rooftop Cinema series]
Did you look to other works of Midwestern fiction or non-fiction as a positive inspiration or a negative inspiration that you wanted to correct?
Completely. I definitely looked to literature as an inspiration, you know, like reading Bonnie Jo Campbell and David Rhodes and Jo Ann Beard, who I actually worked with at Sarah Lawrence for my MFA.
I think the kind of anti-inspiration was some of the journalism that was coming out, views and political commentary, especially in the wake of the election. People who write about midwesterners voting against their interests and how they can do that. There are such gross generalizations going on in the way reporters from the coasts write about the Midwest, like we're this wonderful shapeless people who don't know what we're doing.
I wanted to interrogate those things that I find very complicated and for which I don't think there is an answer. Like growing up with people who are gun people, and loving those people, and what it meant to love gun people when you're staunchly anti-gun.
I don't see your book as political in the sense that you're trying to answer these questions, but you're trying to expand the definition of what it means to be Midwestern.
Absolutely. I have a bunch of questions and wanted to write on those questions. And I think all I thought was more questions.
[Bingeworthy: NBC’s Peacock site struts into the streaming wars]
Did you write about Wisconsin first or yourself first or both?
I think I was writing about Wisconsin first. I was writing these individual essays and they were really focused on place. I didn't know how they connected, other than the Midwest was a stream running through the project.
After the 2016 election, I went to a self-made pen in this artists' colony just north of the city. You can pay to live in the barn that Edna St. built. Vincent Millay. And I took a week off work and went to live in the barn, and I said, “I'm just going to write about whatever comes to me.” I realized that I had this essay in me about gender and sexuality, but also about the ways in which our identity can be so inextricably linked to place and where you grow up, and how that can define and complicate sense of identity and self.
Somehow, in a mad fever, I wrote a really messy version of what would become the near-title essay in the book, “Tomboy.” And that's how I got an agent. From that, I began to focus these other essays. I know I'm running circles around something, but I don't know what. I was trying to find these connections between the body and the earth, sort of what I kept calling “the geography of identity.”
It seems that in many essays you focus on something very specific and specific, and then use that as a way to start talking about something that is unspeakable. I kept seeing the word “darkness” appear in at least half of the essays. Not like the evil dark, but where you don't know what's in there.
Right, this darkness we inhabit. Everything is in the murky in-between. It's not one thing or the other and we're all kind of finding our way through it. I think it's all very much about inhabiting that space and allowing yourself to be there and the mystery of it and asking the questions and maybe not having the answers.
[Don’t abstain from seeing sweet teen comedy ‘Yes, God, Yes’]
Did the act of writing these essays help you get rid of the darkness?
Dwelling in this darkness and in this darkness is just life's work, perhaps. I think I gained some clarity from the process of writing the book. Even if it just means being okay with not having clarity.
I went through a period where I really struggled to define myself and fit into some community or space. A lot of it had to do with leaving home and being in this new place and feeling disconnected from both places. I had this very close, very close, wonderful community in Madison and I still have them, and then I'm in this place where I felt like such an outsider and still do in a lot of ways. So I just felt like I was between these worlds, between these communities and kind of drifting.
I think writing the book helps me realize that I can. I can inhabit many spaces at once, in many communities at once. And I don't have to be one or the other. None of us do.
