Jennifer Haigh
Jennifer Haigh
Jennifer Haigh is an American novelist and short story writer...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
CountryUnited States of America
learned performing structure
As a young writer, I learned a lot about grammatical structure from reading plays, from performing the plays. I think that was a wonderful apprenticeship.
characters faith months six spent time
I spent some time, six months or so, ruminating about the characters before I sat down to write 'Faith'.
best book family felt grew hands learned somebody time
I've always felt that writing can be learned but not really taught. The best thing somebody can do for you is to put the right book in your hands at the right time. I grew up in a family where the right book was always being put in my hands.
alice common james remind richard william
William Faulkner, Muriel Spark, Richard Yates, William Styron, James Salter, Alice Munro. They're very different writers, and I admire them for different reasons. The common thread, I guess, is that they remind me what's possible, why I wanted to write fiction in the first place.
both family miner
Growing up, I didn't know anybody who didn't have a miner in the family. Both of my grandfathers were miners.
extremely family fond parochial raised spent twelve
I was raised in a Catholic family, spent twelve years in parochial schools, and had extremely fond memories of my interactions with Catholic clergy.
draw life none
Like all writers, I draw from life as I know it; but it's a refracted kind of reality, and none of it is factually true.
scare similar ways
Working in a prison, is, to my mind, similar in ways to working in a coal mine. It's going to scare away a lot of people.
known
'Baker Towers' is the book I've always known I would write, but it wasn't an easy book to do.
life remember small written
I have written my whole life. I remember writing as a small child.
reading writing practice
Writing fiction, like reading fiction, is a practice in empathy.
mother sacrifice men
That renunciation of human closeness, of our deepest instincts: is it, in the end, simply too much to ask? Good men-sound, healthy men-can't make the sacrifice, or don't want to; has Holy Mother settled for the unsound and unhealthy? Has the Church, ever pragmatic, made do with what is left?
art prayer distance
The human heart: its expansions and contractions its electrics and hydraulics the warm tides that move and fill it. For years Art had studied it from a safe distance from many perspectives...he listened in fascination and revulsion, in envy and pity. He dispensed canned wisdom, a little scripture. He sent them on their way with a prayer.
voice familiar wanted
I wanted only a familiar voice, someone who knew me. Not some earlier, larval version of myself. . .