Dorothy Allison. Sarah Waters. Jeanette Winterson. They are among the few lesbians who have pulled off the trifecta of writing novels that appeal to lesbians, mainstream audiences and critics alike. As British readers already know, we can now add Charlotte Mendelson to that list.
Mendelson recently completed a U.S. tour to promote her latest novel, When We Were Bad. It’s a smart, funny and poignant story about secrets and suppressed passions – including lesbian desire – that slowly unravel a seemingly happy Jewish family.
At 35, Mendelson has earned comparisons to Zadie Smith and has received the U.K.’s two leading prizes for young literary talent, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the Somerset Maugham Award for her novel Daughters of Jerusalem (2003). She lives in London with her partner, journalist and novelist Joanna Briscoe, and their two children.
She spoke to AfterEllen.com about being a Jewish atheist, coming out to her family on Christmas, and her fascination with a certain actress from The West Wing.
AfterEllen.com: You spoke at the York Lesbian Arts Festival recently. What was that like? Charlotte Mendelson: It was incredible. Hundreds and hundreds of lesbians, and they all converge on York, which is a very cold English town. And suddenly lots of very obvious dykes are trotting around the streets holding hands … but somehow it works. There’s a fantastic feeling of sisterhood.
AE: Do you have a strong lesbian following in the U.K.? CM: Well, I’m not sure I’m the right person to answer that question! Put it this way: This is the first time I’d been at this festival, and my books sold out and I had a queue – or what do you call it? – a line. I had a line. It was very gratifying to have a great big line of cheery lesbians waiting to have me sign the books.
AE: What type of lesbian characters do you like to write about? CM: I’m particularly interested in the women who aren’t running around in chaps at the age of six, but start realizing a little later that they might be attracted to women, or at least a woman. That’s something that isn’t necessarily talked about very much, but there’s a lot of it about.
AE: What is it about these women who come out later in life that you find compelling? CM: I suppose it’s that I know it’s only an accident of timing that I’m not in that situation myself; if I’d been 20 years older that would have been me.
At this conference in York, there were a lot of women who I suspect have teenage children somewhere and an angry ex-husband. I find that incredibly moving. Their journey is hard in a very different way to someone who is bullied at school for being gay. It takes courage and horrible sacrifice to think, “Actually, this world I built up laboriously is not the one I wanted after all.”
AE: Are there aspects of lesbian life you feel have not been explored enough in fiction? CM: All aspects of lesbian life – and I’m not even being facetious. It’s incredibly exciting, for example, that Sarah Waters is writing novels that have lesbians in them and are being accepted in the mainstream, but there’s definitely scope for more.
AE: What are your feelings about the terms “lesbian writer” and “lesbian fiction”? CM: One paper here [in England ] referred to me as a “Jewish lesbian writer,” which I hate – it’s so belittling. It’s like saying to Anglo-Saxon, male, straight writers, “OK, she’s won serious prizes and had fantastic reviews, but you don’t need to worry about her.” It makes my hair stand on end.
I don’t want non-lesbians to think my book’s not for them. At the same time, I’m always careful that my jacket copy, without giving away a twist, does indicate to lesbians who might be looking for it that we’re not in Straight Land. You want to find a representation of yourself, don’t you? So I want lesbians to know I’m there, but if it’s a good book, then you want anyone to read it.
AE: It’s challenging, because bringing books into the mainstream is important. But at the same time, like you say, you need lesbians to know your books have lesbian content. CM: I agree, and in interviews I’m more than happy to talk about the fact I’m a lesbian – that I’m very out and that kind of thing. If you’re looking, it’s there. But I hate the idea of being put in a box; it just seems stupid. If anyone called me a “lesbian editor,” I’d hit them on the nose.
AE: When We Were Bad details the life of a liberal Jewish family called the Rubins. What intrigued you about exploring that particular cultural group? CM: It’s very strange being a Jew in England. We’re not seen as quite English, and in England, foreign isn’t a good thing. But I thought, damn it, English Jews are just as different and peculiar as Bengalis or West Indians or any other ethnic group, and what they have in their fridges or what their humiliations were at primary school are just as interesting. And that tension and feeling of not belonging is fascinating to read about.
AE: Can you explain how life is different for English versus American Jews? CM: It doesn’t apply to all of America – obviously, nothing could – but I think if you’re a Jew in America, in a reasonably Jewish area, you can wave your hands around and you can say “schmuck” and you can expect to buy a good bagel. And you don’t feel shy about being Jewish, whereas in England, unless you are one of a very, very small number of Jews, you find you have to self-edit all the time.
I’m the only Jew at a very mainstream, liberal publishing house. There are 80 of us. The only Jew and the only lesbian, actually. My God. And I don’t say “schmuck,” because people will look at me strangely. American Jews have no idea what it’s like to be their English cousins.
AE: You said you have to curb your Jewishness at work. Do you also have to curb your lesbianness at work? CM: That’s a very good question. I think I do, but less painfully, because everyone knows about me. I hadn’t been there for very long when we had a child, and the people who didn’t know, knew pretty quickly. Everyone has been as cool as I’d expect them to be. I don’t hide that I’m Jewish either, but I don’t refer to the Old Testament as often as I refer to my girlfriend.
AE: You’re culturally Jewish, but I understand you’re also an atheist. CM: I am. I’ve tried very hard not to be. I gave God a good shot, but I just can’t make the leap. I think God would be a great comfort, actually, but I just can’t believe in Her.
AE: You haven’t even made the leap to being an agnostic? CM: No, I’m too all-or-nothing. There’s either a big fat God or there’s nothing at all. So, no, it just doesn’t work for me, but having said that, I’m much more open to Jewishness than I was. I’m a very proud Jew, and I’m culturally increasingly Jewish; it’s just food without the faith.
AE: And returning to that poor Jewish family you pick on in When We Were Bad … CM: [laughs] I’m allowed to. I made them.
AE: You did make them, and you just seem to revel in torturing them. CM: I love them as well, though. I really do. I write about people under pressure. And families are the most interesting thing to write about, as far as I’m concerned, because that’s where everything starts, isn’t it? That’s why we are who we are – the weird, troubled people we are – is because of our families.
Going back to the Rubins, I do slightly torment them because I want to ramp up the pressure, which is why I made them the children of a rabbi. Who could be more prodded and looked at than children of a rabbi? They are under the spotlight, but it’s fun that way … at least for the reader. I wanted them to be in a situation where they had to choose how to be happy, which might mean trying to escape their family’s expectations. That’s obviously a classic lesbian dilemma, and one reason I initially wanted to call it Fifty Ways to Leave Your Mother.
AE: I wouldn’t want to be the eldest daughter in one of your books. CM: No. … It’s not easy, but it works out for them in the end. You may not have noticed, but I am actually on the side of the elder children. I give them the hardest time, but then I also give them happiness. Frances and Leo are the ones who it’ll be OK for. The only ones in that book.
AE: You’re the elder of two daughters, right? CM: Mmm. Are you an elder child?
AE: No, and I’m a little upset because you don’t give the youngest children in your books as much attention. CM: No, well, they don’t deserve it, because they’re more charming and charismatic. We elder children who grew up conscientious and square need a break, so I’m here to give us one.
AE: Have you sorted out what your role was in your family? CM: Yeah, I was definitely the tragic, adult-pleasing, conscientious swot. I still am, really – just with much better hair.
AE: But the family you come from is, of course, completely healthy and not at all dysfunctional. CM: Er … yes. Entirely functional, and I love them all very much, and they’re very proud of me.
AE: [laughs] That’s good. I understand your dad liked your latest novel most out of all your books. CM: Yeah, my father loved When We Were Bad, which I’m very thrilled about because he’s a very clever man. He thinks it’s the English Portnoy. He would say that, but I’m very proud he does.
AE: Frances, the eldest daughter in your novel, finds being a mother extremely challenging. Were you playing out your own fears on the page at all? CM: I think all mothers worry about being bad mothers – or the good ones do, anyway. We’re all terrified of it. The more aware we are of our own damaged psyches, the more concerned we are. But I’m never going to leave my children. They’re safe. They’re doomed to me forever, basically.
AE: With Frances and other characters in the novel, you seem to walk a difficult line between farce and really perceptive, hard-hitting character studies. Can you talk about that a little bit? CM: Well, I think real life is quite melodramatic, so I believe in taking things to extremes. That’s what happens. I mean, my God, the things that go on in a small farm in Oxfordshire … although I don’t think I write farce. I think I write drama.
AE: Right, “farce” is too strong a word for it, but you do take your characters to extremes. CM: Leo certainly gets into slightly farcical situations, but he’s a schmuck. He’s being led by his erection. And that’s another thing. Writing about him from a lesbian point of view, he’s great to write because he’s basically in love with a sexy older woman. There’s lots of love for women in that book. I don’t think I would have written them like that if I’d been straight.
AE: That’s interesting. CM: It wasn’t exactly conscious, but it was nice being able to write about women from a non-lesbian point of view, because I don’t want to write endless books about what it’s like to be in love with a woman as a lesbian. That’s not the whole of lesbian experience. Every lesbian who’s ever sat through a film and wanted to be those characters falling in love with a woman – that’s what I was doing. It’s a form of ventriloquism.
AE: You lived at Oxford and were a student at Oxford. That’s not an easy place to be a woman, is it? CM: That’s true. My mother found it very frustrating because it was quite drab, and being the finest mind of your generation is all that matters. And I found it difficult as a student there because, I suppose, the same applied. It’s very dry and it’s intensely competitive. And all the famous people who went to Oxford are men. That’s all you hear about.
AE: What helped you survive Oxford as a student? CM: Sex.
AE: [laughs] CM: It’s true! But really it was just about growing up. Not being a child anymore was wonderful. Not being a teenager anymore was really wonderful.
AE: You came out fairly late, at least by today’s standards. Was there a particular moment for you when you just knew? CM: No, I didn’t come out late. I became a lesbian quite late. I came out pretty quickly afterwards. I’m political about it with a small p. I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was in the closet for years.
AE: Right, sorry. It’s just that you were in your 20s when you became a lesbian. CM: It’s actually quite simple: I was straight, and now I’m gay, and there was a 10-minute crossover. I can’t explain it, and I don’t know anyone else who has had the same experience, but that really is what happened to me.
AE: You didn’t grow up with secret crushes on women? CM: Not. At. All.
AE: Really? CM: Really. I know, I’m a freak. It’s always slightly embarrassing. Actually, I think that if I’d been born 50 years ago I would’ve been a pretty convincing heterosexual woman, and then I would’ve run off with the village postmistress or something. It was always in me; it was just a question of timing.
AE: Because it happened a little later in life, did it come as more of a shock for your family? CM: They didn’t like it. I told them on Christmas Day, which is fantastic for a Jewish atheist, isn’t it?
AE: It is. CM: It was terrible, actually. It was terrible. Classic coming-out disaster. But, you know, 12 years later they’re settling down.
AE: So you were like Leo, the eldest son in your novel, walking into the seder with his mistress. CM: [laughs] Yeah, I was. That’s very, very true. That’s a very good parallel, actually.
AE: Do you recall your first crush on a woman? CM: Well, I’m trying to think. It’s not really that straightforward. I had a teeny one when I was straight, but it was so tiny it doesn’t really count. Basically, I just … oh. Do you mean the one that changed things?
AE: Yes. CM: Right, sorry. I remember her. [laughs]
AE: It wasn’t too long after you came out that you met Joanna. CM: It was a couple of years, which is a long time in lesbianism.
AE: But then you moved in within a couple of minutes. CM: Less than that, yes.
AE: [laughs] Anytime you work in the same field as your partner, as you and Joanna do, it can be advantageous or difficult. CM: I think it’s both, exactly. As a writer, she’s helped me enormously. I think she’s as good as it gets – so obviously that’s thrilling, but also it helps. I never have to think, “Yes, darling, that’s a wonderful cliché.”
AE: At those moments, when she’s helping you or you’re helping her, and the writing doesn’t work … CM: I tell her, and she tells me. Absolutely.
AE: I’m curious about your writing process. You’ve said inspiration is an excuse. Can you explain? CM: Yeah, I’m quite evangelical about this. I think a lot of women think, “Who am I to think I should be a writer?” Certainly I thought that. I thought I had to be Keats, and if you walk around looking ruffled and brilliant, things just come to you. I think that’s crap, actually. You just have to work really, really hard. I would’ve never written a word if I’d just thought, “I’ll just wait until I’m inspired.” People with office jobs, and I speak as one, don’t just come to the office when they’re inspired to do so. You’ve just got to sit there, and it’s horrible, but you’ve got to do it.
AE: What’s your advice for women who want to write? CM: I really think any woman who even vaguely wants to write should just try it and not think she has to be different to do it. There’s no secret. There is no secret. You just sit on your bottom and you type words into the computer. That really is all it is. And you work and work and work until they’re less rubbish, and you work some more and they’re less rubbish, and eventually they might be quite good.
AE: You’ve said your writing is influenced by soap operas. CM: It is. In my day job [as an editor and publisher], I read thousands of manuscripts. A lot of people can string a sentence together, but creating a plot that makes people think, “Oh, just another page, just another page,” that’s an entirely greater achievement. It’s easy to laugh at soap operas. It’s easy to laugh at Dickens. But they keep you going; you think, “What’s going to happen next?” That’s what writing’s all about. I don’t care about a detailed description of the sunset, unless it’s a sunset that briefly arrests the protagonist when she’s on her way to sleep with her math teacher. I’ve read too many static manuscripts not to believe in plot.
AE: Are there authors in the U.K. whom Americans probably don’t know about but should put on their lists? CM: That’s interesting. Jackie Kay is very good. Ali Smith. Of course, Joanna. I would say that, but it’s absolutely true. Carol Ann Duffy’s poetry is very good. I’m an enormous fan of Iris Murdoch, who, I know, isn’t exactly current. But I think she writes fantastically queer books. I’ll tell you another book: Rose Tremain, who’s one of my favorite authors, wrote a book called Sacred Country.
AE: Isn’t it amazing? CM: Oh, good. I agree. I don’t know how many other people know about that. Also, Restoration is another great gay book. And she’s straight. She’s a totally brilliant author, and those two books are required reading. I wish they were, anyway.
AE: I understand When We Were Bad may be made into a film. CM: Well, hopefully. You can’t be sure until you actually see it on the television, but there’s a possibility because Andrew Davies, who is kind of the king of the adapters for British television, is interested, and things are developing. The fact that he’s interested is incredibly exciting.
AE: I want him to be excited about Daughters of Jerusalem, your second novel, too. CM: Thank you. I do, too. I think that would make fantastic television.
AE: And remind me why Alison Janney needs to be in the film? CM: Because I really fancy her. Actually the funny thing is when you asked me before about my first crush, I didn’t think of her, but I realized something recently when I was watching The West Wing. I think in some unconscious way I loved her when I was a child. I don’t recall what the show was, but somehow she has a place in my heart from long ago. I think she’s fantastically sexy. Don’t you? Doesn’t everyone?
AE: Well, no, I’m not sure. … CM: Ah. Well, there we part company, I’m afraid.
For more about Charlotte Mendelson, visit www.charlottemendelson.com and buy When We Were Bad here.
