Our June Book Club pick is The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs. (Click here to read an excerpt from the book.) Not only will you fall in love with this character-driven story, but it may also motivate you to pick up the knitting needles. We chatted with the author about girlfriends, British Columbia and (of course) knitting.
Canadian Living: What pushed you to move from magazine-writing to novel-writing?
Kate Jacobs: Well, fiction came first. I always wrote stories when I was young and growing up in Hope, B.C.; I remember, when I was eight, outlining 300 characters for a novel I planned to write. Of course, that project never went very far because I was too busy naming all the people who were going to be in it! Fast-forward a few years later and journalism seemed a good approach: I could make my living as a writer and learn some useful skills. So I focused in that direction and went to Carleton University in Ottawa. It was there that I became interested in the magazine industry and, after graduation, moved to Manhattan to attend NYU. New York was so different from Canada! It was a demanding transition and I worked very hard to get my foot in the door of the publishing world. Internship by internship, I did so. Then I was a magazine editor and writer for several years, and I continue to freelance today. But always my private intention was that I was making my way to novels. And isn't it amazing how things can come full circle? For example, I was recently at my parents' home and I found part of a story I wrote when I was about 12; the main character was named Georgia!
CL: How different was the writing process?
KJ:The most significant difference is really one of scope -%u2013 it is daunting to contemplate going from working on magazine pieces that are a couple of thousand words to writing one long work that runs almost 120,000 words! It takes a lot of focus and a lot of writing. Some days the pages aren't as good as you'd like them to be, but the trick is to just keep at it. And it's through the writing process that I discovered the characters, really got to know them and learn new things about them, and in that manner developed the story. That's how it all comes together.
CL: You didn't job-shadow or attend a stitch 'n' bitch as research. Why did you want to keep your subjects completely imaginary?
KJ: As a journalist, you're trained to interview and listen and then report. You're a reporter. When you write fiction, your goal is to create, to invent, to imagine, to build the story. So I didn't want to job-shadow a yarn shop owner in case that experience would curb some of that creative process. Similarly, writing dialogue was so amazing -%u2013 I didn't have any notes to check or tapes to play to ensure accurate quotes. I simply listened to my imagination and to the personalities of the characters, who feel very real to the writer, I can assure you. That said, I did take a research trip to Scotland -%u2013 fun fun fun! -%u2013 and I very diligently and very seriously researched the medical issues in the novel.
CL: You've said before that people have a tendency to assume first novels are semi-autobiographical. Tell me about the process you went through to develop your main characters.
KJ: Don't we all read a book and then wonder where the writer is talking about him or herself? In fact, readers I've met at signings have asked me if I had dreams of opening a yarn shop, or if I'm Georgia. (No one asks me if I'm Anita, though, which I think is because she's older than I am.) And the truth is that I am all of the characters and none of the characters. A writer doesn't exist in a vacuum and so aspects of myself, my personality, or of people in my life do appear in FNKC. Sometimes it is intentional and other times it was unconscious; my friends particularly like to tease me about occasional bits of life philosophy in the book. They call these the "Kate-isms" because they are things I've said before in my real life. Sure, I tucked in some of my ideas on certain issues. ("Be your own safety and security" is what Dakota and Georgia tell Cat, and what my own brother told me when I was leaving for university.) For my part, when I go back and re-read, I have moments when I'm shocked that I've revealed so much about myself! It makes me feel quite vulnerable. So yes, I poured little bits and pieces of myself into the characters, but that doesn't make the story semi-autobiographical. The characters are fully their own people. And that's because, even as much as I had an idea of the characters when I began writing, I truly discovered them -- really got to know them -- through the actual, physical act of writing. Sometimes their back story changed, sometimes their personalities changed. Writing is where the story happens, in those long hours alone at the computer. But, because I'm often asked about it, I'll point out some of the links to me. Darwin, for example, is near and dear to me because when I was a teenager, I had a tremendous suspicion of domesticity and what it implied for feminism. It took me a long time to understand that rejecting traditional skills doesn't translate into modern empowerment. Also, I was lucky to have a grandmother called Nanny who was a great knitter and with whom we would sit and play cards at the kitchen table and talk. She lived to be 99 and she had much to say about everything; just a great lady. So I could draw on this wonderful personal relationship in my own life to explore Georgia's rich relationship with her granny. My sister-in-law is a devoted single mom in New York, and yet she's quite different from Georgia. That said, admiring her helped inform how I developed Georgia's story. There's more, and yet my personal story still isn't a direct parallel to any of the characters in the FNKC. Mine is a story I have yet to fully write.
CL: Where did you get your parenting cues from to develop Georgia and
Dakota's relationship?
KJ: Well, I'm not a mom. I have a beloved springer spaniel, Baxter, but no kids. Maybe someday. However, I do take the role of Auntie Kate quite seriously. I love to spend time with my nieces and nephews -– I'm happy to go to kid movies, play imaginary games, get manicures with my almost-a-teenager niece. Just be around. And I have one niece in New York who is near Dakota's age -– she was a little younger when I was writing -– but she and I spent a lot of time simply hanging out and that gave me a tremendous insight into the tweenage world. Even though the character of Dakota is very different from my niece; my older sister and another close family friend have pointed out to me how similar Dakota is to how I was at that age. (For someone devoted to avoiding domesticity, I baked a lot -– because my mother encouraged independence by having us make our own cookies and brownies and she wouldn't buy goodies from the store!) Also a factor is that I am a youngest child -– and Georgia and Dakota's relationship has a certain type of sibling camaraderie to it. It made sense to me that a young mom would feel the push-pull of sisterliness as well as the joys and challenges of being the parent.
CL: Why was it important that Dakota be biracial?
KJ: What I tried to do was reflect some of the real New York in the novel. It's an amazing, energetic city that draws people from all parts of the U.S., from all parts of the world. And that meant it wouldn't make sense to me if every character was the same –- I didn't want everyone to be like me, for example, a married white woman in her 30s -– and so there are characters of different ethnicities, different religions, different races, different ages, and different socioeconomic groups. Dakota being biracial is part of that: Her mother, Georgia, is white, and her father, James, is African-American. Occasionally a reader will ask if their relationship mirrors my own, but that's not the case.
CL: As a British Columbia native, do you feel this book reflects Canada?
KJ: What a great question -- I'm more interested in your take on that! Being raised in Canada had a tremendous influence on me, and I feel a strong sense of identity about my background. It has defined me. But there are no Canadian characters in the book, which is something intentional. I do have some Canadian characters in my head that may appear in another book. That said, I think there are some influences in FNKC, some of which have more do with the impact of Canada on me rather than me trying to put Canada into the book. One is what we've already discussed: the importance of creating a multiracial story. That's a very Canadian sensibility. I think the issues about searching for personal identity, or of changing identity. And I think I have a very Canadian sense of humour. Plus there is an aspect in FNKC about Georgia and Cat coming from a smaller place to the big city, and I keenly felt different when I first arrived in Manhattan. I remember walking into a seminar in grad school and the prof and my classmates were discussing "Kate's quaint accent." I was mortified; they thought it was cute. (Let me tell you, a person can recite "Let's go out and about" only so many times in a day.)
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