The Tamesis
In Larissa Pham’s precise and engaging new novel, disciplineAn artist named Christine begins touring to promote her debut book while continuing to ponder the story on which it is based: her affair with a former professor, which caused Christine to stop pursuing painting. This thorny relationship is both gripping and maddening, forcing readers to think: How do you separate your art from the people and painful experiences that helped create it?
This week, Fashion Van talks with Van about navigating the artistic dynamic between mentor and mentee, distinguishing yourself from your narrator, falling in love with the Maine landscape, and drawing inspiration from visual artists like Helen Frankenthaler and Jennifer Parker.
Fashion: how to write discipline Unlike the process of writing your first collection of essays, pop songs?
Larissa Fan: I think the main difference is pop songs is a collection of essays, so I was able to study it in sections in a non-chronological way, whereas disciplineone of my graduate advisors for my master’s degree at Bennington encouraged me to try writing a novel chronologically. “I don’t want to read anything that’s not in chronological order,” she said. [Laughs.] Writing fiction is really about trying to stay in the world you’re creating, whereas I think writing nonfiction involves a lot more interaction.
When you began to conceive of the character of Christine, what were the first elements that came to mind?
Kristen came to me primarily through her choice. I think because she is [written from the] First person, it’s really about following her and seeing what she’s doing and what she decides to do. The first chapter came out almost in complete form, and it was like stuck in my brain, setting it in an airport, and I was like, oh, this is a woman who is used to traveling. She travels with just a suitcase that contains everything she owns. She hated having it out of her sight. She doesn’t like sweets and doesn’t listen to much music. I think probably the biggest thing about Kristen early on was that she was taller than me. It helped me distinguish myself from her before she had a name, when she was just a nameless first-person narrator. It felt important to separate myself from her so that I could truly understand her as a character.
Your novel and another—roommate By Emma Copley Eisenberg – Got me thinking about mentorship in the creative arts, and the potential for it to go wrong. What do you think it means that mentorship in the arts seems ripe for complexity and even potential crossover?
I think for better or worse, especially in the United States, there isn’t really a robust arts education that covers all aspects of life as a creative person. Sometimes you go to school and there’s a lot of conceptual work, but there’s no actual writing of an artist statement, or applying for residencies, or trying to get representation, and then maybe you go to an MFA writing, and there’s a lot of workshops and whatnot, but very little focus on the practical aspects. These are just two examples, but that’s where coaching comes in.
When you’re in a creative field, the work is often deeply personal, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, autobiographical or non-autobiographical, representative or non-representational. In this very intense environment where people are making something really personal and working closely with mentors who are responsible for providing all the information about what it means to be on this path, I can totally understand that this is a space where signals can cross. I am now friendly with many of my graduate advisors in the MFA program. We text and stuff, but I’m also like, There was no way I could have done this when I was a student.
