EP 226: Book Review: Philip Roth’s “American Pastoral”

Today, co-hosts Fortunus Games (a.k.a. Imelda) and Tete DePunk talk to artist and writer Carrie Knowles about her novel, “The Inevitable Past,” which I, TeteDepunk, and R.N. Roveleh have had the pleasure of reading.

Check out episodes 211, 212, and 213 for Carrie’s first appearances on this podcast, where she talked about writing fiction, writing non-fiction, and the link between visual art and writing, respectively.

Here’s Carrie’s bio: Carrie Knowles is a prolific award-winning author and arts advocate.

Along with her nine books, she has published short stories, newspaper and magazine articles, and received numerous awards for her writing.

She was named the North Carolina Piedmont Laureate for Short Fiction in 2014.

Carrie has published five novels: Lillian’s Garden, Ashoan’s Rug, A Garden Wall in Provence, The Inevitable Past, and A Musical Affair, as well as Black Tie Optional, a collection of 17 of her short stories. Her memoir: The Last Childhood: A Family Story of Alzheimer's, has been described as a “must read” for family members caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s.

During her time as the 2014 Piedmont Laureate, conducting writing workshops across five counties in North Carolina, she wrote a writing workbook aimed at providing the basic tools a new writer would need to get started: A Self-Guided Workbook and Gentle Tour on Learning How to Write Stories from Start to Finish.

She writes a personal perspectives column for Psychology Today, Shifting Forward, and has recently published a collection of the first 50 stories from her column titled: Shifting Forward: Fifty Reflections on Everyday Life.

To learn more about Carrie, go to her website: www.cjanework.com

As for her novel, “The Inevitable Past,” which is the focus of this podcast, it was published in 2020 by Owl Canyon Press. It is a story of two women: a grandmother and a granddaughter who never knew her, and a timely look at women’s right to vote and have a voice. It challenges the notion of who we are and what compels us to make life-changing decisions.

Tete and I asked Carrie the following questions:

1. How did you develop a ghost as a strong interactive character? Most stories with ghosts are “ghost stories.”
2. How did we, the readers, feel about the grandmother’s ghost?
3. How was it like to publish a story that is out of the “normal” realm of what is popular in publishing today? Did it make it harder to pitch your work?
4. Balancing a multiple-perspective story can be daunting. Especially when working first-person POV. How did you tackle that challenge?
5. Tied in with the previous question: how would you advise writers, if they’re writing a multiple POV story, to keep each voice consistent? You did an amazing job keeping each voice of the granddaughter, the grandmother, and the Matron, respectively distinct from each other, yet unified these narratives into a complete story.
6. The pacing is well-balanced, too. How do you know when to focus on a chapter, and when to move on, for pacing?
7. What type of research did you have to do to create this story? When is it appropriate to research to incorporate historical facts into fiction?

Buy “The Inevitable Past” from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B088JQYJ7G/ref=x_gr_bb_amazon?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_bb_amazon_ca-20&linkCode=as2&camp=15121&creative=330641