A couple of months ago I had the distinct privilege of reading and reviewing Felicia Sullivan’s memoir A Sky Isn’t Visible From Here.  Admittedly, it was a difficult read, the subject matter being her extremely hard life painted so vividly in detail, but one that I could not put down.  I felt captured by her words and images and it gave me a really sick feeling.  She leads you down the dark tunnel that was her life in which she battles her family, her environment and herself to get a glimmer of light for survival.

This woman whose understandable influences include Vladimir Nabokov, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Joan Didion and Michael Cunningham to name of few, has created a work of art in attempt to find closure to her past.

A short time after the review I was given the opportunity to conduct an interview with Ms. Sullivan.  In reviewing her responses I was almost moved to tears and those feelings of discomfort and compassion I had felt whilst reading her memoir came rushing back.  It was almost as if she knew how certain elements of the book had hit me. They delve in just a bit deeper into some points on these “scenes from a life.”

I feel a strong connection with Ms Sullivan’s work and eagerly await her next project. Here is what she had to say about her book, her writing process, and what inspired her to write this novel

Growing up did you keep a journal?

I tried – because I had all of this anger and I didn’t know where to put it. I inserted memories into date books. Jotted down lines my mother said on loose-leaf paper; I even tried to keep a proper journal, yet, my mother would always find them and use them against me in some way. Once I found one of my journals with whole chunks of days ripped out – unkind words I’d said about her – the paper tossed in the garbage bin. I realized then that journals weren’t safe, so instead I channeled my anger into fiction. The torrent of short stories began.

When did you decide to write this memoir?

In some way or another, I’ve always written about my mother. When I was eight I published a haiku that likened my mother’s voice to thunder. She’s always been my subject – I can’t really recall a time in which my work hasn’t revolved around her – the one person I couldn’t, but desperately wanted to, understand. For years I was working on a novel of lifeless, unlikable characters that did mildly interesting things. I was writing a safe book because I was afraid to commit my memories, this horrific life lived, this very unsafe book, to paper. I was ashamed of my past, of living in poverty, of a mother who loved and terrorized me. I had lived a life of my own invention for so long, I couldn’t imagine otherwise.

At one point the weight of these two lives – the accomplished, in-control professional and the frightened child who never really mourned the loss of her mother – were becoming difficult to bear. Something had to give. One afternoon a friend of mine and I were trading stories about our mothers and we realized that we had both been shamed into secrecy. We were made to feel shame by our mothers, our impoverished upbringing, and a culture where not loving your mother is unthinkable.

I wrote this book as a testament to my strength, as a celebration of my survival and recovery, to demonstrate that alternative families are possible, and that love – the most sacred of emotions – is not unconditional.

What was your writing process?

I’m not a particularly disciplined writer – I am in the revision process but certainly not in the creation stage. I wrote when I could, when the writing would come – at work, at home, in cafes. At one point I left my full-time job as a project manager to dedicate myself to the book. It took two years to write and two to revise.

Did you find this process healing?

The very best gift you can give yourself when writing a memoir is distance. I think that it’s critical to discern the difference between cathartic journaling (which is integral in documenting and coming to terms with any traumatic or trying period of your life) and creating a work of art from that experience or series of events. I know this is a bit cliche, but for me, it was paramount to see the forest from the trees.  Writing raw is not the best way to attempt writing a memoir. Time allowed me clarity to shape the book, render the characters sympathetic and have a deeper understanding of the events in my life from the vantage point of reflection. So while writing the book allowed me to feel empathy toward my mother, to view our relationship in a more complicated way than when I had embarked on writing the book, it was crucial that I heal (in terms of my feelings for her and the life we led) before I come to the page. She wouldn’t have been a balanced, sympathetic character otherwise.

Was there a point in writing this book that was difficult for you to write about? How did you get through it?

Writing the book from both a personal and craft perspective was incredibly difficult. Personally, I was trying to come to terms with what I had experienced as a child while also struggling with a drinking problem, all the while trying to achieve what writers set out to do – write a good story that is their own. Returning to the past – memories of the years I had spent as my mother’s daughter, my mother’s caretaker – was indeed painful, but necessary. For years I was adamant about not returning to this dark country, but living this way wasn’t necessary healthy because the past consistently crept back in my life and the harder I tried to deny it (self-medicating, living a life of my own invention), the more difficult bearing the weight of these two lives became. Ultimately I knew that confronting the past was the only way I would move beyond it.

So that’s precisely what I did. I pressed on. I wrote. I went to therapy, leaned on my friends, and was honest with myself on how hard this process will be.

Is there a message you want your reader to take with them?

You have this one life, live it for you, not to adhere to someone else’s choices or value judgments, not to uphold societal norms, not to make the words I don’t love my mother go away because they are difficult words to say. Your choices are yours. And if you’ve made every attempt to reconcile a dysfunctional relationship with a parent, it is possible to let that relationship go and forge a new family for yourself. My best friend is my sister, the man to whom my mother was once engaged I consider my father – it is possible to have a healthy family although it may not be a traditional one.

You recounted the scenes in your life going back and forth through time instead of in a sequential order. How do you feel that particular style affected/enhanced your story?

I don’t think there is any other way that I could write this story. It never occurred to me to write this book in a linear way because I knew I could never write this book and the events that happened in my life in chronological order. The past is very much the present for me and vice versa. My mother is still very much a presence in my life, and sometimes I shiver when I look in the mirror because I resemble her more with each day’s passing. I’ll remember a certain word she always used brazen, a certain tick of hers smoothing flyaways while I’m at dinner or on the subway coming home from work.

Additionally, the structure speaks to memory fracture, disorientation, and the constant feeling of unrest all the things I’ve felt for the great period of my life and feel sometimes still. The story of my life is a great puzzle and this book was about trying to assemble the pieces in a way that makes sense to me.

In a sense, the book is also a conversation with her, one that gave me closure.

There seemed to be a strong presence of the color white in the later years of your story.  Did this represent a yearning for cleanliness, newness, and purity you did not have in your past?

Ah! I hadn’t quite noticed this. I’ll have to go back and re-read the book! What a terrific question. I do indeed associate colors with moods. I’m drawn to white because it represents calmness, a certain kind of sterility I didn’t have in my home (keeping a home clean didn’t interest my mother) and the people that inhabited my life. White also means quiet, a sort of peace that I always find myself consistently seeking.

Have you tried or will you ever try to find your biological father?

I have a father, Gus, who has been present and supportive in my life since I was twelve. I’m not interested in locating my biological one.

What feelings do you have for your mother now?

Writing this book has made my view of her and my upbringing more complex. When I started Sky I viewed my relationship with my mother in definitive black and white terms – I didn’t love her and I was never going to forgive her for stealing my childhood from me, for always putting herself before me, for choosing men over me. Meanwhile I had also been drinking heavily, continuing my decade-long affair with alcohol. However, over the past year, I got sober and have had the advantage of clarity that sobriety can bring, to wholly understand our relationship in a way that I couldn’t have before. It was as if I had been sleeping for a long time and I suddenly woke up.

I don’t forgive my mother for the choices she made but I now understand why she made them.  As an addict your choice will always be the drug. And part of me feels an unbelievable amount of sorrow for her – a single parent who never had it easy, a woman who lacked role models and support. It was us against the world, and it was a war she always had to win, but soon grew tired of fighting.  Drugs made the landmines, and their inevitable explosions, easier to bear. However, my refrain is this: before the drugs she had a choice and she always chose her over me.

And as I grow older, I get a twinge of sadness when I hear friends talk about their meddling, overprotective mothers – stalwart, loveable women who are their very best friends. I ache for that maternal figure and guide, and although professional mentors, a terrific father, and friends who have served as my surrogate family, comfort me, there is nothing like that intimate mother-daughter relationship. So while I don’t miss my mother, I long for the idea of one.

Who were your literary influences?

Vladimir Nabokov, Yukio Mishima, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Marguerite Duras, John Cheever, Tim O’Brien, Joan Didion, Amy Hempel, Bret Eason Ellis, Michael Cunningham, Kazuo Ishiguro, Primo Levi, Frank Conroy, Victoria Redel, Paula Fox, W.S. Sebald, and the list can go on.

Were other authors’ memoirs influential to your work?

Absolutely. Throughout the process of writing Sky, I turned to Joan Didion, Lorna Sage, Caroline Knapp, Paula Fox, Vivian Gornick, Virginia Woolf (Moments of Being, specifically), Maggie Nelson, among others, as guiding lights. These were women who elevated their stories to art. Their memoirs weren’t confessional journal rants or chapters of “over-share” – these were women who exercised restraint, told their stories in a spare, elegant way, and while you read their memoirs, you felt something larger than the story they were telling. You felt less of the “me” and more of the “us”, if that makes any sense.

Two other books that had a profound influence: Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s Random Family & Nick Flynn’s Another Bullshit Night in Suck City.

What’s your next project?

I’m working on a novel, yet I think it’s a bit premature for me to talk about the bones of the story. Although I can say that it will be a novel focused on technology and how it disconnects people, a character will have Asperger’s – that’s as much as I can say right n

Interview by Vanessa Mesia

Photo by Marion Ettlinger, 2006

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Related Post

• Book Review: Felicia Sullivan’s The Sky Isn’t Visible From Here
• Interview: Novelist Katie Crouch
• Interview with Al Doyle of Hot Chip
• Know Your LA Bands: Repeater
• Music Interview: The Morning Light
• Know Your LA Bands: Amy Kuney
• Warped Tour Interview: The Briggs