Author Q&A: Part 2

The Good Husband
by Gail Godwin

(Page 5 of 6)

JMG: Do you feel that any of these couples resolved the disconnect of being mated but not matched?

GG: I don't think that either of the couples became mated and matched. When Francis threw Magda's ashes overboard, he said, "Now I'm going to do what I want." So he was, in a sense, declaring his freedom. Although many people have written me and asked why they didn't get together, Alice and Francis were certainly not destined for each other. They were there for each other to help them get on to the next stage of their lives - whatever that will be.

JMG: Sort of transitional, in a way.

GG: Yes. There are two mates in this book, and they're married. The mates are married, and the matches are married. And then there's a lot of crossing: Alice feels she could be mated with Francis because she's attracted to him and passionate about him, and Hugo admires Magda's fire. There's this dynamic here, like an X. In a way, they're like one whole person.

JMG: Do Magda and Francis have the secrets to what makes a marriage happy and successful? Does their unconventional arrangement work for or against them?

GG: It certainly is a satisfactory, cozy, successful marriage. The question is, what did it do to the potential of each of them? If they hadn't met each other, would Francis have become a perfect priest? Would Magda have become a literary star? And is that so important?

Maybe they are enviable because they were comfortable and they enjoyed their lives together, even though she complained that he was obtuse and would never go in for self-examination. I think their marriage was satisfying. She loved traveling with him. As she writes to the woman who wants to interview her - the letter she never writes, because she's unable to do so - she loved seeing him go out in the morning when they were traveling, knowing that he just could be serendipitous all day. She writes that he looks like a cross between her gigolo and her archangel. I think sensually - all the things about the senses, eating together, traveling together, sleeping together - it was a very good marriage, and mysterious in that sense to both of them.

JMG: The most well-adjusted couple in the book is a single-sex one. How is Laurence and Cal's relationship a more traditional "marriage" than the other pairs in this book, in particular Magda and Francis? Did you deliberately make the most unconventional (by society's standards) partnership the most functional one? Why?

GG: I always work from inside my characters, and I try not to plan ahead for them. Hugo faces the worst thing he could imagine, that his son is gay. This becomes a point of growth for him, because the only way that he can start facing it is to pretend he's writing a story. And then I had to create these people - Cal, and then Laurence, and figure out why they would have been attracted to one another. They have this thing in common: They are providers - there are some in the world. They both want to provide, on a large scale, to people, especially children, who have had a hard time. They complement each other in that Cal is desperately energetic because he's found something he cares about, and the older man is more thoughtful and laid-back and has lots of money. As far as the fact that their marriage might be more well-adjusted - remember: They've just gotten together!

JMG: They haven't weathered the storms yet.

GG: I'm sure that if we imagine them ahead, there will come a time when they have arguments about building one of the shelters. Or Cal is going to get annoyed with some habit that Laurence has - who knows what. They're a new couple. I think if they survive, they'll do a great deal of good in the world.

JMG: In The Odd Woman, one of your previous books, a charac-ter said that "teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater." How is this exhibited in Magda's behavior in the classroom and through her interactions with friends and loved ones? Do you think her flamboyant approach in all things serves to erode her scholarship, or to augment it?

GG: Her personality is flamboyant. Her personality is self-created, and she likes you to know that. She chose her own name. She picked subjects to study that would shock and arouse people. Of course, this is going to arouse envy in some of her colleagues, and I never felt that theater hurt in the classroom. It could hurt, perhaps, if you let it cover your lack of preparation. This quote is from The Odd Woman, my other university book, from another professor. If Magda were reading this in a book, she'd probably say, it's three-fourths preparation and three-fourths theater - and then let everybody figure out the mathematics!

Because she did prepare. She adored the summer research she did for the love of it, collecting things she could challenge and arouse her students with.

JMG: In The Good Husband, Hugo compares the stages of writing a novel to the stages in a marriage - with a beginning, middle, and end. For you, what is the process of writing a novel like? Is it similar to Hugo's, or much different?

GG: For me, character is first. In some instances - for example, in The Good Husband - problem is equally important to the character. The problem here is, you're going to die. How do you do it, and how does it look to those around you? What does it teach them?

Then I have the characters. When Hugo is writing this shipboard lecture about novels being like a marriage, he's also sending a message to his wife, saying, "It's all right. I know that we've gone through the beginning, we're now in the middle, and we're probably going to have one of those open-ended ends." It's a spoken letter to her.

I go for this for my own writing, too. Hugo says that in the beginning, you're attracted to something, and there's a summons. You're so attracted that you want to go wherever this story promises to take you, and wallow in it, and get to the bottom of it. At this point, if it's going right, you fall in love with your material.

When you're in the middle, this is really the hard part. I'm quoting him now, but also me: The middle of your book begins when you know pretty much the kind of thing you've committed yourself to. You've gotten into the rhythm; you know who's going to be in the book, who doesn't belong in it. You know what kind of book it's not going to be. And you still know what you hope it can be. And this is the same with marriage. The honeymoon is over, but the middle of the novel has arrived when your excitement has faded, and you soberly face the limitations and the difficulties of what's ahead.

So the first part is attraction, the middle point is chosen. So now you have to choose. And you're going to find things in it that irritate you, just like with a married partner. And you're either going to take them out or say, well, this is what I chose.

Then the end. There's the closed ending, the more conventional kind where everything gets wrapped up, and the open ending. That's exactly what I know I'm going toward in my new book, Queen of the Underworld. In an open ending, you're going to get something different from what you anticipated in the beginning. And that's because sometime during the middle of writing it, you realize that the reality of the story just can't make a match with those old anticipations. The story, as I've been writing it, has made me see the necessity of going off in a new direction. Then you get another little jolt of passion when you realize that the new direction is exciting you - even if it's scary or bittersweet. And this isn't going to be a satisfying, wrappy-up brand of outcome; it's going to be going off into a new direction.

JMG: No happily-ever-afters?

GG: Maybe not. And instead of wrapping up, you see that your characters have somewhere else to go that is right for them. And this is going to be more powerful to you and to the reader than the old satisfaction of seeing them safely home in each other's arms.

Yes, I subscribe to that. I would nod if I were in Hugo's audience, on the ship, and say, "Yes, that's it."

Copyright © 1995 by Gail Godwin.