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<\/p>\nWhen Ruth spots Maria in the line to get clothes for the new school year as a child, she\u2019s immediately entranced. Not for any particular reason, but Ruth, a daughter of Kenyan immigrants living in New England, needs something to latch onto. So begins her life of lightly trailing behind, returning back to Maria even through snowy nights where she may have been kidnapped by their teacher, through college, where Ruth\u2019s artsy boyfriend irritates Maria, and afterwards in Manhattan, where Maria\u2019s confessional art and protective girlfriend Sheila alienates Ruth, who suddenly feels cut out of the only deep relationship she\u2019s had in her whole life. As Ruth navigates the art world in turn, dealing with tokenizing gallery owners and her earnest, supportive husband, she wonders if she can function without Maria before she returns with an intense plea to commit to a life together. Robust, meaningful, and poignant without losing its humor, Stephanie Wambugu\u2019s standout debut Lonely Crowds narrates a complicated friendship for the ages.<\/p>\n
Our Culture sat down with Wambugu to talk about psychoanalysis, entitlement, and friendship.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Congratulations on your debut novel! How does it feel now that it\u2019s almost out?<\/p>\n
I feel good, strangely. I don\u2019t think the panic is really hitting me. I\u2019m sure it\u2019ll come at the most inopportune moment. But I feel happy, and so far people have been very positive and generous about it.<\/p>\n
I saw a Goodreads review that said the novel could be the length of A Little Life, and I agree. Did you ever think about expanding it?<\/p>\n
I will say that my drafting process is that just as much as I keep, I throw out. There\u2019s so many scrapped pages from this novel that never made it, and I\u2019m not very sentimental about throwing out parts of the draft. I think that sort of sensibility will naturally yield shorter books. I will tell on myself and say I saw the same good review. I don\u2019t check my Goodreads anymore, but I used to, because I couldn\u2019t help myself. I wondered, maybe there\u2019s another book out here like this that should be 700 pages, it\u2019s just not my impulse. I can\u2019t see it being anything other than what it is.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tell me a little bit about developing Ruth\u2019s voice. I thought she was entertainingly detached, but very astute.<\/p>\n
I felt there\u2019s something really capacious about a child narrator, which she truthfully isn\u2019t, because it\u2019s an adult woman recounting her childhood. But I think there were a lot of opportunities to use her naivet\u00e9 strategically in order to survey the world around her since the basic mechanics of it were lost on her. Using her as a fly on the wall or something. But then as an adult, she\u2019s very cynical and detached as you say. I like those two extremes \u2014 that she can be at once standoffish and aloof, and also be this sponge and repository for what\u2019s going around her when you\u2019re in the section where she\u2019s a child.<\/p>\n
You write in the acknowledgements that this is a book about friendship, and I\u2019m curious why you chose such a fractured and complicated one to explore.<\/p>\n
The funny thing is the emphasis on it being such a troubled friendship only really occurred to me after the book was sold. My feeling was like, \u2018It\u2019s not that bad!\u2019 I don\u2019t know, especially when you\u2019re younger and your life is so enmeshed with your peers and you spend more time at school than you do sometimes at home, I feel like it\u2019s very common to have these codependent, tense and fraught friendships. As far as the kinds of things I\u2019ve seen, I didn\u2019t even think they were that antagonistic. But of course I reread it and I go, \u2018Yeah, they\u2019re being explicitly cruel to one another.\u2019 But I also think one of the yardsticks for how close you are with someone is how much you can have really intense conflict and this real ambivalence with them. An acquaintance [would] would never provoke these strong feelings. In order to make them seem close, they needed to have what you described as a very fractured relationship.<\/p>\n
Why do you think Ruth falls so heavily into Maria\u2019s orbit? Is she just a respite from the monotony of the town?<\/p>\n
For one thing, why do we fall into anybody\u2019s orbit? It\u2019s hard to find someone compelling until after the fact. Maybe to illustrate what I mean, for the past year, I was in psychoanalysis, and you\u2019re encouraged to talk about the analysis itself in addition to what other material you bring into it. In the final session, I was able to say, \u2018I didn\u2019t like this about our relationship, I found you to be this way,\u2019 etc. And my analyst would tell me, \u2018I found you to be this way.\u2019 It\u2019s sort of like a breakup where you\u2019re able to then apprehend what happened, only when it was over. Similarly, when a relationship starts to disintegrate, you\u2019re able to say, \u2018That\u2019s what their personality was like. That\u2019s what drew me to them.\u2019 In the midst of it, it\u2019s hard to articulate why you even find someone compelling. Ruth is trying to figure out why she finds Maria so compelling; because it\u2019s written in first person, you get all this information about Maria through Ruth\u2019s subjectivity. It\u2019s not totally verifiable that she\u2019s so special and charming. If you were to have another authority come in and say, \u2018This person is ordinary,\u2019 it would really cause Ruth\u2019s narrative to unravel. She insists on her friend\u2019s exceptionality, but it\u2019s unclear whether or not that\u2019s true.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Back to that therapy bit, I don\u2019t think I could handle it if someone said, \u2018Here\u2019s something you did that I didn\u2019t like.\u2019<\/p>\n
I guess it wasn\u2019t stuff that she didn\u2019t like, because they\u2019re not making judgments, it\u2019s more observational. They all go speak to one another to debrief, and I\u2019m sure then there\u2019s opportunity to be judgmental. But I guess it was moreso, \u2018This is what informed the relationship I had with you.\u2019 I think it\u2019s incredible how vulnerable you are when you\u2019re in analysis. These people are incredibly influential over your life, and you don\u2019t really know them from any other stranger. It was such a strange period in my life. I want to do it again, but I don\u2019t know that it has a positive relationship to my writing. It was hard to be generative at that time, maybe because I was metabolizing all of the things I was thinking about so much already in analysis, that by the time I sat down to write, I felt emotionally spent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One explanation for Ruth\u2019s trance may come when you write, \u201cI had the sense to know that if you find someone better or more beautiful, you support them.\u201d Do you think this is true?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know if I would personally put that into practice in my life, but there is a Saul Bellow story, \u201cA Silver Dish,\u201d where he says something like \u201cWe love selfish people because they ask for what we can\u2019t.\u201d And we give it to them! I think people respond quite well to entitlement. Calling someone entitled is an insult, but if you watch how entitled people operate in the world, others are giving them what they want. I\u2019m glad you find it funny, because I think it\u2019s kind of a joke, where you have to defer to special people, but I do think that Maria just behaves in a way that she expects preferential treatment. She found the perfect person to give it to her.<\/p>\n
I thought she was so funny. There was one line where she was counting her woes, and it ended like, \u2018And I don\u2019t even have a cell phone!\u2019<\/p>\n
[Laughs] Well, that\u2019s me. Some people have all the luck and I don\u2019t even have a cell phone. That\u2019s definitely how it feels when you\u2019re licking your wounds and you\u2019re like, \u2018And I don\u2019t have this pair of shoes.\u2019 I\u2019m the most beleaguered person in the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It seems like people are always abandoning Ruth \u2014 Maria one snowy night as children, and later in college, her boyfriend James. Why do you think she remains loyal, or at least hopeful?<\/p>\n
Aw, that\u2019s such a sad question!<\/p>\n
I was getting sad when I noticed it!<\/p>\n
Well, totally. I think you have to have a bit of amnesia in order to fall in love or get close to people again. I think if people really remember the patterns in their romantic lives or childhood and acted accordingly, you\u2019d completely be a shut-in and never try again. She\u2019s trying to be optimistic. And while she can be kind of jaded, that could be a pose to conceal a real hopefulness. I feel she is a romantic person. The book opens with her talking about being a devoted person. Devotion is an integral part of her personality and worldview. I think she does just want to be someone\u2019s acolyte or disciple.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I like that Ruth\u2019s sexuality is always in question, never defined \u2014 she doesn\u2019t reflect much on it until Maria says \u201cEveryone can tell you aren\u2019t attracted to men.\u201d Was it a conscious choice to have her so repressed?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yeah, in a way, because I think some personalities are more interested in making themselves legible in that way. There are people I know who see coming out as beside the point. Maybe they\u2019ve had relationships with men and women alike, textbook bisexuals, but would never call themselves that. It\u2019s interesting why people do or don\u2019t disclose that. It\u2019s not even necessarily clear that her parents are homophobic, and I think that ambiguity was important. I think she has a strained relationship with them, but I don\u2019t think it would have been so catastrophic to come out. But, like, come out as what? That\u2019s the lingering question, and I\u2019m not really sure what her deal is. When I was re-reading it recently I was like, \u2018Maybe she\u2019s just asexual.\u2019 I guess I wanted it to seem like she\u2019s trying things on for size. Trying to find what it is that she finds compelling, and ultimately I\u2019m not sure if she finds anything.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After Ruth is engaged and she confesses to feeling pressure to say yes, Maria says, \u201cHow would that look? That\u2019s the quintessential question of your life.\u201d Why did you want to write a character so concerned about outside influence?<\/p>\n
Even though this ends up not being the most important thread in the book, she comes from this Kenyan family, and it\u2019s not like they go to a cosmopolitan city or anything, it\u2019s actually very similarly religious and insular. It kind of mirrors the conservatism of her family, even though they\u2019re not the most conservative people in the world. They\u2019re certainly living in a way that\u2019s different from the peers she has in college, or the milieu she enters in New York City. I think in a culture like that, those early cultures she was a part of, optics are really important, maybe more important than what\u2019s actually happening. The things I think artists place emphasis on, like self-expression, pride, individuality, are not things that are celebrated in a culture that\u2019s more collectivist and concerned with how things look. That\u2019s a source of tension between her and Maria, because Maria is eager to be in a world where she can announce who she is and make this fairly autobiographical art. That\u2019s another distinction between the two of them \u2014 Ruth is not really making art about herself. It\u2019s not confessional. Whereas Maria\u2019s work is much more about her personal history, it uses footage from her own life, she\u2019s more comfortable disclosing these things about herself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Maybe this is more about what I observe about being a young American now that has a different first culture, but I\u2019m surprised how little people care about how they come across. Or a lack of obligation. I don\u2019t think I\u2019m uptight, but sometimes I think a little more shame might be\u2026 People are really shameless! Maybe in terms of respectability. I think people are incredibly self-conscious about not wanting to be seen as cringy or have a real fear of being embarrassed. I think about, like, politeness, manners, and obligation. I think about flakiness. This is the most benign example, but I can\u2019t imagine my mother, for example, cancelling on someone at the last minute. Maybe it\u2019s a generational thing. It\u2019s so amorphous because it might be something that belongs to a generation, it might be because of the culture someone comes from, but there\u2019s a social cohesion that is falling apart. But maybe it needs to fall apart for people to enjoy their individuality. It comes at a cost.<\/p>\n
I thought that how Maria and Sheila behaved as a couple was so real and so infuriating, how they both let the affect the other, or \u201ccorrupt,\u201d as Ruth thinks. What was the inspiration for this relationship?<\/p>\n
Should I name names? [Laughs] I was thinking the other day that there\u2019s nothing worse than someone who\u2019s a bit unhinged finding their match in a romantic partner who is also unhinged. Because then there\u2019s no baseline anymore, you can endlessly spiral and see completely delusional behavior as normal. The goalposts keep moving. People can be enabled in the worst way by their partners, and this situation between Maria and Sheila is such a pressure cooker because they also have endless resources. As far as young twentysomethings in the city are concerned, money isn\u2019t really an object, so there\u2019s a certain insularity to the way they live. I don\u2019t think either one is willing to reel the other in. It\u2019s troubling to watch one person being opportunistic or out-of-touch, but when you have a couple, it can be exponentially worse.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ruth drunkenly gets into an argument with an artistic friend who said that her paintings weren\u2019t \u201cAfrican enough.\u201d Ruth says that her paintings will outlive Africa, and America, for that matter. What did you want to explore with that conversation?<\/p>\n
Typically if she were sober, she\u2019d take it on the chin and not say anything, completely internalize it. She\u2019s an incredibly porous person and up until that point you see her taking on the judgements of other people as fact. Primarily from Maria but also her parents; she completely accepts the characteristics that are assigned to her externally. She has this evening where she\u2019s a little bit loose because she\u2019s taken these drugs and been drinking. I mean, she\u2019s ranting. It\u2019s a ridiculous, grandiose thing to say. Basically, she\u2019s saying, I\u2019m above those constructs. There was a whole cultural moment where a lot of rappers would say, \u2018I\u2019m not a rapper, I\u2019m a musician.\u2019 And I think it\u2019s people not wanting to be ghettoized or marginalized in a genre they see as not universal. Saying someone is an African artist maybe implies their work is not as universal as a European artist. I think now in our generation, those questions are kind of besides the point, and I can\u2019t imagine someone asking, \u2018Do you see yourself as a Black writer, or a writer?\u2019 It seems like those have been put to bed, but I think that\u2019s what she\u2019s trying to express. These identity markers are not meaningful to her, and she\u2019s raging against them. She has many moments like that, and I wonder where she ultimately lands. There\u2019s also a moment later where a Black student comes up to her and says, \u201cIt\u2019s so wonderful to have a Black professor that cares so much about us,\u2019 and Ruth doesn\u2019t know who she\u2019s talking about. Looking around like, \u2018I don\u2019t know what you mean.\u2019 So maybe those are linked moments, her rejecting that categorization.<\/p>\n
In the 90s, Ruth spends time with gallery owners and curators who are in the process of collecting Black and African art, because they say, \u201cBlack artists are really hot right now.\u201d I was wondering what you thought about the overlap between appreciation and fetishization.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Part of the reason I set the book when I did was because I think a simpler book could have been written about the moment after Black Lives Matter, and I\u2019ve said this before, but art has so many parallels in response to the kinds of state violence. It was first Trayvon Martin, but even moreso, after George Floyd, there was a huge boom in the market for Black artists, and it\u2019s very similar at the time this novel is set. There\u2019s many articles written about that now \u2014 paintings that were selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars can\u2019t be sold at all. I think then, like now, you can\u2019t know if someone wants your work because they want to tokenize you or if they want your work because of its merit. You have to decide on your own if your work has merit. I don\u2019t think people are going to leave money on the table. On one hand I think there\u2019s something cynical about feeling like an artist selling a painting or a writer selling a book is a recourse from the violence that\u2019s done to the poorest members of their racial group. But at the same time, people need a livelihood. I think she has to deal with both of those things.<\/p>\n
By the time the novel opens, you see she\u2019s had real success; she has this sold-out show, she has a job teaching, all the trappings of a successful artist. I think her bitterness is because of a feeling that her success is unearned, or came at the cost of certain kinds of integrity, or her work is framed in a certain way she\u2019d preferred for it not to be framed, and the interpersonal sadness about the relationship that maps onto her career with her friend who had the same trajectory, but didn\u2019t seem to care about cashing in and making the money that was available to her. And the novel opens with someone telling Ruth, \u2018It\u2019s a really good time to be an African artist.\u2019 I guess the other side of it is, if there\u2019s such a thing as a good time to be an African artist, is there a bad time too? What happens when everyone packs up their things and goes on to the next thing? It\u2019s not really a sustainable model to collect people on the basis of identity and then abandon them when it\u2019s no longer lucrative.<\/p>\n
Finally, what\u2019s next for you as a writer?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m working on a second novel, and I\u2019ve been working away at it since I was in grad school. It\u2019s about a young writer, she\u2019s lovesick, in a bad romantic situation. I\u2019m reluctant to say more because I think tomorrow I could scrap it and change it drastically, so I don\u2019t want to be wedded to what I say. What I do know is that I\u2019ve titled it No Use, which I\u2019ve had since grad school. That, I feel certain about. More soon, I hope!<\/p>\n