Writer Jill McCorkle has published four short story collections and six novels, five of which were New York Times Notable Books. Her stories have been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, New Stories from the South, and the Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Her latest novel, Hieroglyphics, will be released in Spring 2020. A North Carolina native, she currently teaches in the M.F.A. program at N.C. State University and is a Core Faculty member at Bennington Writing Seminars. She previously taught at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Tufts, and Brandeis and was the Briggs-Copeland Lecturer in Fiction at Harvard where she also chaired creative writing.
On a drizzly November day, McCorkle graciously shared thoughts about her work and craft while enjoying a classic southern vegetable plate lunch at a cozy restaurant in downtown Mobile, Alabama. She was excited to try L.A. caviar, a Lower Alabama specialty made with black-eyed peas, which reminded her of Hoppin’ John that Southerners often eat on New Year’s Day for good luck. After lunch, she returned to her historic hotel to prepare to lead guest writer workshops with undergraduate and graduate creative writing students later that afternoon and evening.
KD: Several of your works, including your most recent novels Hieroglyphics and Life After Life, explore the theme of memory, particularly when people are left with only memories or start to lose their own cognitive ability. What gave you the idea for the elderly character Sadie in Life After Life to cut people from photos and glue them into other pictures to alter or create new memories for the residents of her assisted living facility?
JM: I believe that each of us is a composite of all of the memories that have shaped us, and that enables us to make sense of the past and to keep moving forward. While visiting my own mother one day, I noticed that she had added someone to a group photo taken during a beach trip years earlier. She had used scissors to cut out the man who was the photographer for the beach group shot from a different photo then pasted him next to his wife—her antiquated version of photoshop. When I asked my mother why she had done that, she just said, “because he should be there.” That gave me the idea for Sadie to do something similar to make people happy.
KD: Life After Life focuses on the residents of Pine Haven, an assisted living facility in a fictional small town in North Carolina, but features characters who range in age from 12 to 85 and are experiencing some sort of transition in their life. Which character was the most enjoyable for you to create and why?
JM: I especially like characters who are at the younger and older ends of life when there is more honesty and truth in what they say and do. In the middle of life, people tend to be too busy and self-absorbed with all that they have to do every day to be able to find enlightenment or acceptance in the ordinary moments.
In Life After Life, Stanley was the most fun because he could be outrageous while pretending to have dementia. My editor had me tone down his obsession with professional wrestling that came from my own experience taking my son and his friends to WrestleMania events when they were younger. However, Sadie is my favorite character in the novel because she is an ideal that I would aspire to. During her eighty-five years, she survived difficult things but remained positive and kind. She also provides an example of a “good death,” peaceful in her sleep after a long life.
KD: Why do you think it is important to use humor when addressing difficult subjects such as dementia, death, loneliness, and divorce?
JM: Regardless of the circumstances, people still say and do funny things. Humor connects people and helps us push through dark moments. I couldn’t write about those subjects without using humor.
KD: Hieroglyphics is also set in fictional Fulton, North Carolina. Do any of the characters from Life After Life appear in the new novel?
JM: Yes, a few are mentioned but they are not the central characters. The new story features an eight year old boy and his single mother whose lives intersect with a retired husband and wife who moved from New England to North Carolina.
KD: You have been called “one of the South’s greatest writers.” Do you consider yourself a “Southern writer,” and if so, what does that mean to you?
JM: When people see me and hear me speak, it is obvious that I am from the South. I love the language, food, and culture in the South, but not all of its history. There is a sense of guilt and responsibility for loving such a conflicted place. My childhood roots have influenced my writing, especially the longer way that Southerners tend to tell stories. My grandmother and others relied on oral history to record family relationships and events.
Having lived in New England for many years, I see more differences between urban and rural than Northern and Southern in many ways. Small towns in Maine have a lot in common with small towns in North Carolina. Both are a smaller world with a strong sense of community, emphasis on lineage and family, and sense of place.
KD: What writers have influenced your work?
JM: I especially enjoy writers who use humor and comedy. The list would include Barry Hannah, Amy Hempel, Lorrie Moore, Ann Tyler, Lee Smith, Eudora Welty, and Flannery O’Connor among others.
KD: As a creative writing professor, what advice do you offer students working on their first short story collection or novel?
JM: When you start writing, just let yourself see what happens and lands on the page—sort of a free for all of ideas. Let your mind take you places because you will never be as smart as your subconscious. The magical part of writing is that you will start to see the connections when you put the words out there. You then trim and add during the revision process. Sometimes writers overshoot the ending and should have slowed down or ended the story earlier. Often ambiguity can work and not everything has to be happy and tied up with a neat bow.
If you’re stumped, put the draft away and work on another project for a while before coming back to it. I tell my students that it’s almost always about the mother, or sometimes the father. However, sometimes you just need physical time to be able to write the story.
It took me more than sixteen years to write Life After Life, although I wrote short stories during that time. When my father passed away, I took notes about the process and the hospice care. I knew I wanted to write about the intersection of time when someone leaves this life and those who are left behind, but I didn’t have the characters ready yet.
KD: What do you miss most about New England now that you have returned to live in North Carolina?
JM: It might be hard to believe, but I miss winter in New England. But only until early March when everything starts blooming in North Carolina.
KD: It has been a pleasure to spend time with you during your first visit to south Alabama. You will receive a copy of a special recipe for L.A. Caviar to try back at home soon.