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Helen, the mononymous narrator of Marissa Higgins’s new novel, A Good Comfortable Lady, isn’t something that by-the-book feminine protagonists are “supposed” to be. She’s not perky, good, “adorkable,” or straight—and it’s that real complexity that makes her probably the most thrilling literary characters in current reminiscence. A lawyer-slash-foot mannequin, Helen struggles in solitude with the outsized weight of against the law dedicated by her dad and mom, whilst she strives desperately for connection (most notably with Catherine and Katrina, a pair of married ladies she meets on-line and begins courting). Her need saturates the novel fully, making for an all-consuming learn that by no means permits you to neglect in regards to the important, not-always-palatable humanity of its characters.
This week, Vogue spoke to Higgins in regards to the technique of crafting a three-person relationship in fiction, the hustle required to get her e book into folks’s palms, the modern writers who encourage her most, and extra.
Vogue: First off, how does it really feel to see your e book out on this planet?
Marissa Higgins: Truthfully, I by no means imagined it might occur. I’m not likely a visualizer, however seeing photos of the e book now in bookstores in Ohio or Texas…it nonetheless doesn’t even really feel actual. I’m simply so grateful, and I really feel like if all of it disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn’t even have something to be sad about, as a result of I achieved one thing that I by no means conceived would occur.
I’m so within the idea of a poly or three-person relationship as a story system. Are you able to speak a bit about writing the connection between Helen, Katrina and Catherine?
Early within the draft, the Catherine and Katrina characters felt like sort of a unit, and fewer like particular person characters. One factor my my agent helped pull out of me was, did I wish to lean into that? Or did I wish to make them and their relationships a bit extra distinct? I ended up attempting to construct them out a bit extra, however actually, and this feels bizarre to say, I fell so deeply into Helen’s voice from the start—the fashion of her voice and the motion of it. I struggled to see whether or not it was a lone individual Helen was courting or two, as a result of I had a tough time imagining Helen as something apart from that: barely hanging on to actuality. I really feel like if it had simply been one individual she was seeing, it in all probability wouldn’t have learn the identical approach, by way of what she was in search of in caretaking and a sort of household. Nonetheless, I don’t know that they might have gotten any extra room on the web page than what Helen permits, as a result of I think about Helen telling somebody the story of her life actually close-up—like, speaking actually near you.
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