From his home in Saratoga Springs, New York, the late author Russell Banks spoke with me about character development and The Darling‘s narrator, Hannah Musgrave.
I wrote this one a long time ago, but I keep it up because, to this day, I appreciate the way Banks talks about his protagonist — as if her complexities are beyond even him.
Here’s an excerpt:
SP: I found the way she talks about giving herself over to the farm’s time schedules interesting. I couldn’t help thinking about my friends who have family and say the very same things about motherhood. She seems to have that instinct, the instinct to give yourself over to something, but I know that she abandoned her children, her family, and the chimps – there is a real complexity there.
RB: Oh, yeah, and she’s not easy. She’s telling you the story, and she’s pretty honest and tells you what she knows about herself, but she doesn’t know everything, so, in some sense, she’s is an unreliable narrator. And she’s a little difficult. Some readers have had problems with her because they want to idealize and romanticize her on the one hand, if their politics are similar and, on the other hand, they want to judge and dismiss her if they don’t agree with her politics or they think she isn’t a good mother. I hope that I’ve managed to create a character that is believable and intimate enough that you can’t idealize her and you can’t throw her out. She’s like the rest of us; she’s a human being. Full of contradictions, complexities, and failings as well as strengths.
[Appeared in the San Antonio Current. Photo credit Jill Krementz.]
Pagani & Co. 