Zee JLF: The fact that I was a ‘failure’ for nine years, also made success mean less to me: Eimear McBride

Eimear McBride's debut novel A Girl is a Half-formed Thing took nine years to get published and then went on to win the the 2014 Baileys Women's Prize, Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award, Desmond Elliott Prize, 2013 Goldsmiths Prize and Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. In her first visit to India at the 2015 Jaipur Literature Festival, she talks to Shraddha Panicker about her changed perceptions of success and failure as well as why it's important for writers to have the conviction to stand up for their work.

The protagonist in A Girl is a Half-formed Thing deals with her complex relationship with her family as well as rape, something that Indian society is currently grappling with and still struggles to talk about. How difficult is it to write about graphic violence?
As a writer, one often has to explore difficult topics. Sexual violence, especially, is not an easy subject to write about. People often intellectualise and speak about it from a distance, which sometimes tends to sanitise it and make the crime appear less horrific than it is. So it’s very important for women to speak explicitly about these experiences, so that no one is in any doubt about the terrible, terrible impact that rape and sexual violence can have.

What prompted you to choose this as the theme of your book? 
I didn’t particularly set out to choose this theme. So I didn’t understand how interested I was in the subject until I started writing about it. In the society where I grew up, rape was hidden or seen as something that the victim should be ashamed of and punished for, rather than the perpetrator. I realised that the subject was something I cared deeply about. 

Your book faced rejections for nine long years. What was the craziest thing a publisher asked you to do?
I was asked to say it was a memoir. But how can you claim to have any integrity if you lie about the very nature of your own work? I think the idea of a memoir is becoming a kind of monster in the literature world and publishers seem to feel it gives an extra authenticity to the book. I don’t necessarily feel that’s true, because most memoirs are also written in such a subjective way.

So how did the book finally get published?
My husband happened to walk into a bookstore in Norwich, in the east of England, where we’d moved to and the owner said he was looking to set up a small press with some friends. Although the venture was still in its early stages, they asked to read my story. I didn’t really expect anything to come out of it because I’d gone through the routine before. But they actually got back, saying they loved it and eventually published it in 2013! 

The book then went on to win several awards. Did you ever think it would do so well? 
No, never. Even when I wrote the book nine years ago and was full of dreams of success, I never thought I would be sitting in India and talking to someone about my book one day. (laughs) 

Is that the ultimate validation then? To prove all those who turned you down, wrong?
Well, I think that by then it had been so long, that when it finally did come out, it was more of a relief than anything!

What do you think made you persist through all the years?
Well, ofcourse there were times when I thought I had given up. But I always felt the book was 'right'. I didn’t know what people would think of it, but I knew that it had a certain integrity of its own and that I would stand by it no matter what.  

Did the story change along the way, over the years?
I’d done three drafts of the book in six months when I first wrote it and didn’t look at it again, until nine years later, where I did a little revision. 

What’s one thing that aspiring writers should hold on to or learn from your experience?
The important thing is to be able to stand behind your writing. Don’t write in the hope of success or any other outcome. You must write what it is that you write, and do it as best as you can. So then, no matter what happens later, at least you’ve done your job as a writer.

Has the whole experience altered your definition of failure and success? What do the two mean to you now?
I think the fact that I was a ‘failure’ for such a long time, also made success mean a little less to me. I now understand that those things exist outside of who you are as a writer. So it’s very nice to achieve success, but it’s not everything. I wrote the book when I was 27, so maybe if I had been successful then, I would have been much more excited. But at 38, I’m stuck in my ways. (laughs). I came to realise that failure was on the outside, and not on the inside. It’s the same for success. Admittedly, I struggled with these thoughts, but it was an important realisation, in order to keep writing. 

Did you always want to write, growing up?
Well, I originally trained as an actress, but I did always write. Acting wasn’t for me, but it was certainly a useful thing to understand in order to create, develop and understand characters. You have to try understanding the internal workings of someone, in order to make it real. 

Do you follow any writing routine?
I think most writers do. I wake up early and now that I have a child, I have to work around any free time. The important thing is to write. It really isn’t about inspiration at all. If you wait for inspiration you’ll be waiting forever! For me it’s work - about sitting down every day and getting the words on the page and getting up the next day and cutting most of it down and starting over.

Can you talk a little about your writing style? Was it a conscious choice to employ what can be categorised under the ‘stream of consciousness’ format? 
It used to be called that. I don’t particularly think it fits what I’m doing, but I understand why people call it that. James Joyce was the starting point for me and sure, I was interested in that style, but I wanted to see if it could be made to do more, to work better and serve the character. I wasn’t really interested to imitate Joyce, the inspiration was really that he dared to do what he wanted. So I thought, why shouldn’t I?

Will your next book use the same style?
I used it as a tool in the first book to serve the character's voice who's gone through several intense experiences. The characters in my next book (It’s about love, that’s all I’ll say!) are different, so the style won't be the same. 

Would you call yourself a feminist?
Yes, absolutely. But I’m not interested in feminist academia. I’d rather make an effort to speak up about the world we live in and the injustices in it. A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is about becoming, a girl trying to become a woman, away from her childhood and family. It’s about becoming your own person in a world that treats women like objects.