First Law of Holes: New and Selected Stories brings together the best of Meg Pokrass’s flash fiction from over a decade of her career. Families reel from losses, doomed couples devour buttered popcorn, the daughter of a famous clown tries her hand at circus life; domesticity grows indistinguishable from the absurd. Of the collection, Bob Hicok writes: “The people in these stories need Meg Pokrass. Their lives are tough but her imagination is the fire-lasso that can save them, save us.” Where else but in flash fiction can we experience such an acute sense of being saved, even while life stays tough? It wasn’t until I first read Meg’s work that I saw the full power of storytelling through fragments. First Law of Holes tends the fantastical and the true, not as a pair of opposites, but as one force that rattles through slices of life-dreams ranging from four lines long to four pages. I was very lucky to get to interview Meg over email, where she delved further into the lives of her characters, her puzzle-like writing methods, and how what’s said on the surface can teach us about what lingers beneath.
Mia George: The first story in the collection is “The Producer,” about a young woman’s affair with a much older, married man. It ends with the very delicate line: “He was so weightless, I could have carried him home in my arms.” How did you arrive at this closing sense of weightlessness?
Meg Pokrass: That’s a great question. The concept of “weightlessness” came out of the idea that The Producer was a projection of what the narrator thought she needed rather than a reality. He wasn’t a father or a savior. Instead, he was an elderly, shaky lover who enjoyed the look of her breasts. All of the men in the narrator’s life, prior to meeting The Producer, had let her down. This was her pattern. She wanted this “fatherly man” to bring some ballast into her life, and unfortunately, in the end, he’s very much like the others.
MG: There’s something twisted and endearing about your narrator’s infatuation with The Producer—a man who has never produced anything, presumably including children of his own. Many of the stories here are swarming with fathers, or maybe utterly devoid of them. Can you tell me more about how family, and projections of family, figure into your work?
MP: My mother left my father when I was five, and I never saw him again. Back in the ‘70s, this was a significant factor that made my childhood feel different, and made me feel like a fish out of water. I was dealing with the lack of a second parent as well as the stigma that came along with growing up in a family of divorce. So fathers (or lack of) is one of my obsessions for obvious personal reasons. I believe I write stories as a way to make sense of my life. I’m not surprised that fathers pop up everywhere, and yet I never sit down to consciously write a father story.
MG: It’s amazing how writing can bring out these lingering preoccupations, or questions—it does seem to me like your stories are often attempts to respond to questions of upbringing, companionship, and commitment. When you look back at your work, especially in this collection, which spans over a decade, do the responses given by these stories still resonate with you? What is it like to have this document of your sense-making?
MP: Making sense of my life is only one of the reasons I write stories. I am in love with language, and this goes back to my years in theater and studying great plays. The best part is that I never know what will come out when I sit down to write. It’s wonderful to read my earlier stories now with a bit of detachment.
Most of my stories are not directly autobiographical. Rather, they are informed by themes and obsessions. I like to think of it as one would the work of a visual artist—for example, Marc Chagall. Eroticism, love, and tradition come together in Chagall’s paintings, which represent a colorful, poetic vision that came from a very personal place. I think of my stories similarly. Fathers, ex-husbands, dogs, overworked mothers, unusual sister relationships, rebellious childhoods—all of these are themes that make up a crazy quilt of my own life experience.
MG: Yes! I’m so glad you brought up your theatrical background, along with the role of detachment in revisiting your work. It’s a bittersweet thing—when I look back on my writing, I want it to feel as immediate as it did when it was written. I’m usually seeking some validation of the time I spent with it and its urgency to my younger self. However, I’ve more and more recognized that I’m grateful to encounter old writing with the gift of detachment; the work can gain a new life that way.
You’ve spoken now of two different disciplines—theater and visual art—that inform or articulate your approach to writing. Can you give an example of how these other art forms might give you direction as you compose a piece?
MP: A few things I learned in acting have helped me immeasurably as a fiction writer. The key to writing interesting relationship stories is the odd, unknowable interactions between people. Writing dialogue is a lot of fun when you understand that people hardly ever say what they really mean. We humans are geniuses at hiding behind the words we say, and as readers, it’s vital to be trusted to suss out the real meaning beneath what is being said.
The parts of ourselves we attempt to hide the most are the most important parts to draw on when writing, just as they are in acting. Because in theater we are trained to reveal ourselves at all times, this becomes a learned skill set in actors’ training rather than something to feel ashamed about. Writers should always be willing to expose who we are through the life of our fictional people.
In terms of painting or sculpting, I do think of story drafts as canvases in various stages of development. I will return weekly or monthly to stories in progress and add new layers of paint that will heighten and develop the themes inside my stories. I help them to shine as I clean them up and fill them out.
My first drafts often feel sketchy and minimal, but knowing that I’m going to add more color and depth and that this is part of the process takes a huge amount of pressure off writing a highly imperfect first draft.
MG: I appreciate this idea that writing people as they are—hardly ever saying what they mean, diverted by shame—requires a release of shame on the part of the author. My hunch would be that, as an actor, you can enlist the physicality of your body and the stage to facilitate this release. In writing, the need for physicality can be hard to reconcile with the simpler act of putting words on the page. I know you teach workshops, as well—how do you encourage your students to reveal themselves when they write?
MP: I remind writers that it is the pieces which are told in specific, highly personal ways that readers identify with. As an editor, I point to what feels most true. With flash fiction we’re asked to reinvent the form each time. This involves letting go of our preconceived notions of what a story should look like, and allowing the emotion inside each story to call the shots.
A writer must trust the reader implicitly. My aim as a teacher is to show a writer what works instead of what doesn’t. It’s like edging a plant toward the sun.
MG: That’s a very compassionate approach, both to your students and their readers. I’m so enamored with the thought of affirmational revision—that’s definitely something I’ll be thinking about going forward!
Running with this comparison to plant cultivation, along with the idea of drafting as painting, I’d love to take a closer look at one of my favorite pieces in First Law of Holes, which is “The Missing Link.” You’ve called the quintessence of a story its “aha-ness,” which sometimes takes multiple drafts to coax out. Or coats of paint, or new leaves unfurling—I know we’re not supposed to mix metaphors, but these images are so delightful!
In “The Missing Link,” it seems to me like that aha-ness had to have been present right out the gate, with the opening lines: “Carny running the break-the-plate game won’t tell you you’re a winner, but you know when you are. Chimp Girl and her orange-green complexion, silky long hair, daisy of a dancer. I’d rather move my feet next to her than eat.”
Immediately, I’m transported to a sly new reality, buoyed by the voice of this uniquely Pokrassian narrator. Would you mind telling me about the life cycle of this piece?
MP: I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed that piece. I developed a circus obsession after watching the older TV series Carnivale. A slew of circus pieces evolved. I researched the stories of circus artists from the early 1900s and spent time thinking about the inner lives of those brave, misunderstood and exploited early performers. Chimp Girl and Alligator Man are very loosely based on the lives of Percilla and Emmitt Bejano.
The atmosphere of a carnival has always deeply intrigued me. I find those personal stories to be deeply relatable in this modern world in which many people, due to technology and the rising cost of living, are chronically isolated and displaced.
In terms of drafting that particular story, there were twelve or more versions. The first lines you mentioned were buried in the middle of the story in earlier drafts.
MG: A few individual words stand out to me in this piece, as well: daisy, noggin, vats, digits. Especially in a briefer medium like flash, these cradle a lot of power. It can be hard to pin down exactly how word choice works, but if possible, could you describe the feeling you get when you’ve unearthed the right word?
MP: I believe “daisy” and “vats” were random prompt words I assigned myself. I always grab seven words before I start writing. I can’t tell you how freeing this puzzle-like constraint is for me. “Noggin” came from watching a few circus documentaries and making notes of the common words and lingo. I also listened to an archived podcast called Ballycast, the Podcast of the Carnival.
MG: That’s fantastic! “Noggin,” of course, has so much personality. Your stories always tread a peculiar tonal tightrope—melancholy, full of curiosity, usually with humor at their hearts. Do you think it’s helpful to generate ideas for a piece with humor as a guide? What is that relationship like?
MP: I’m partial to naturally funny people and funny/sad storytelling. This is what I live for as a reader and a writer. I’m always hoping to cultivate and nourish that comic/tragic edge. I don’t believe it’s a conscious choice, the use of humor in a story. At least it isn’t for me.
MG: We’ve made it this far without addressing the reigning motif of the collection, which is of course holes. It was fascinating to approach these stories, for all of their fullness, with absence as a framing device. “Holes have their own logic,” you write. What is this logic?
MP: That’s a simple answer! The first law of holes is to “stop digging”… And of course I’m drawn to characters who don’t follow that sage advice.
MG: Returning to my question about sense-making, if I may—I think I was searching for a way to ask about the wisdom in this collection. Life is full of uncertainty and absurdity, but in your stories, absurdity starts to feel like certainty.
These pieces are often anything but conclusive, and yet there’s something about the conviction with which you write—especially in the charged compactness of the micro and flash fiction space—that frequently leads me to leave your work with a sense of dawning understanding.
Do you also experience this dawning as you write? Is it fair to search for a kind of final understanding or lesson in these stories, beyond “stop digging”?
MP: I didn’t mean to simplify, but there is something so deadpan funny to me about that “law.” The idea that one needs to stop digging, as it is an impossible thing to do. Life, as it’s being lived, hardly ever has a discernible narrative arc, and even if our day-to-day lives seem to be moving confidently in one direction, this can change in a moment. I lived in earthquake country for many years, which is a constant, daily reminder that life is imminently changeable. There are holes that open up and the trick is in learning to adapt.
“Stop digging” is absurd advice in many ways. Who can stop digging when inside a hole, or trap? And when one theoretically stops digging… what’s next? Better advice might be “enjoy the hole you’re in when possible.”
I love what you say about a dawning understanding. I don’t necessarily feel this when I’m writing, but when I step away from the pieces, with some distance (a few years later) I can see what I was going through, and why a particular story evolved. The dawning understanding comes with detachment as the writer. For a reader, it may evoke a different and more immediate reaction.
I often feel my pieces are like mood rings. Some readers feel my saddest stories are funny, and vice versa. I love the way each reader has a unique sensibility, and am happy to know that the stories can be read differently each time by the same readers.
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Mia George is a writer of eclectic forms based in Louisville, Colorado. His first chapbook, Eatless Restling, was released by Denver School of the Arts.