She's prolific.
She's popular.
Her readers adore her books.
One of those readers once ran a BIG book club....
Pressed, she'll confess success costs you in literary circles.
Best-selling novelist Elizabeth Berg was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on December 2, 1948.
Her father was a career military man who moved the family from base to base. Berg’s pain over the various dislocations and relocations as a self-described “Army brat” became the foundation of Berg’s first novel, Durable Goods (1993).
That novel introduced Katie Nash, whom Berg would write about in a subsequent book, Joy School (1997). Berg’s third, and, she says, final novel to be narrated by Katie is True to Form, which was published by Atria Books in late May, 2002. The novel concludes Katie’s saga, Berg said, with a final hard lesson in “self-betrayal” and the sense that the young narrator has found her true calling “as a writer.”
Katie’s creator attended the University of Minnesota where she majored in English. “She switched her majors to humanities,” after the first year, according to her official biography, “and went to work.” Berg’s ensuing string of jobs ranged from hotel clerk to rock singer to actress to waitress.
Still searching, she returned to school and earned a nursing degree. She worked as an intensive care nurse until 1985, when, at the urging of friends, she began submitting (and having accepted by major magazines) essays and short stories.
Following Random House’s publication of her first novel, eight more closely followed — a book a year — each to a growing readership. Three of her works reached the New York Times bestsellers list.
Her novel Open House (2000) was selected as a featured Oprah Book Club selection; the author has appeared on Oprah’s show three times, further widening her already substantial audience.
Berg has received numerous awards for her writing, including two American Library Association Best Book of the Year awards, a shortlisting for the American Bookseller’s Book of the Year, an AMC Cancer Research Center Illuminator award, a New England Booksellers Association award and honors from the Boston and Chicago Public libraries.
Berg now makes her home in Chicago, from which she spoke with the interviewer on May 29, 2002, a day after her new book was released.
BERG: Oh yeah. It’s like the Old Lady who lived in the shoe with all of her children....
McDONALD:Okay....
BERG: She probably got all excited when she had another one. (Laughing) But, maybe not, either....
McDONALD: I don’t remember that from the tale....
BERG: (Laughing) Well, maybe I’d like to change the story....It’s not the just unbelievable excitement of the first one, but it’s always birthing the new baby and it’s always exciting and you always hope the best for it.
McDONALD: This new book, True to Form is a sequel to your first novel, Durable Goods....
BERG: It’s actually number three in the series, Joy School was the second one. So this is the third and last in what has become a series, I guess.
McDONALD: There is a kind of finality in the dedication page blurb in the sense that you said this book would give readers a sense of what has become of the character — the narrator of the three books. So you do feel this is a closing down of this particular character?
BERG: Yes....
McDONALD: This is your tenth novel, I believe. What brought you back to her?
BERG: It was a couple of things. One was that I moved from Boston to Chicago and everything was very unsettled. For the first time in my life, I was not just diving into the next book. I was really unsettled as to what I wanted to write next. I would start this and then start that and nothing was sticking. So, I remembered this woman, to whom the book (True to Form) is dedicated, coming up and saying, “You have to write another about Katie — I have to know what happens to her.” Well, I thought, maybe I’ll see, and that book did stick.
McDONALD: That’s interesting. I’ve read some prior interviews you have given and you had sort of dismissed the notion of writer’s block, which I guess this wouldn’t quite necessarily equate to....
BERG: No, not in the sense that I was writing, I just wasn’t sure what I wanted to write — what I wanted to stay with. Nothing was feeling like I was really into it and ready to get going and let it take off. But I kept all those notes for the other ones.
McDONALD: Just prior to writing — I understand you have had various jobs from your teenage years on up — you were a trained nurse. Was Durable Goods — your first published novel — was that the first novel you actually wrote?
BERG: Yes.
McDONALD: I would have anticipated that first novel might have had a nursing angle. What led you to write Durable Goods with that young narrator?
BERG: I actually began writing nonfiction. I wrote for magazines. I never thought that I would write fiction, but then I did begin doing short stories. The novel came about because I was thinking one day about how it felt as an Army brat to leave a place. How it felt when we left a place to be sitting in the back seat and not being able to cry when you wanted to cry. It was just really a haunting experience. And I was remembering that for some reason and I wrote a little snippet about it which actually ended up being in the novel. I had begun work on another novel which later became a different one. But I wrote this little piece and it was so powerful for me. There was so much in it for me emotionally. It struck such a deep chord that I wanted to get at surrounding that notion of living with somebody that you were really afraid of and someone who had so much authority that you didn’t even cry when you needed to. So that started it. I gave it to my agent and she said, “Yes, I think there is really something here, this is really powerful so just go ahead and do it.” So I did.
McDONALD: You mentioned the father figure who continues throughout the three books. In the very first, you have what I thought to be a somewhat ambiguous dedication “To my real father.” Given the somewhat volatile, remote nature of the father in the book, your dedication intrigued me. Did you dedicate the book to your “real” father in order to put some distance between he and the character you created? Or, is there a biological or spiritual inflection in that dedication?
BERG: There was a lot of truth in Durable Goods. There often is in writers’ first novels. I had some fear about publishing it. In fact, I gave it to my mother before I published it. I knew I could publish it if I wanted to. I knew Random House wanted to publish it. But I wanted to make sure that it wouldn’t hurt my dad. So I showed it to my mother and asked her to read it and to tell me whether or not she thought it would hurt him. She said that she thought it would hurt him more if I didn’t take advantage of this opportunity. If I let this go. He read it after it came out and it, more than anything in my life, made us closer than we ever were. It had a really profoundly healing effect. It didn’t happen instantly. He read it and it made him think a lot about what he was like as a father and what it was like for us as kids growing up with him. He asked my mother some questions about how he was. Certainly, it was exaggerated in the book. The father in the book is not literally my father. There’s lots of fiction in there. But we were afraid of him. I also knew about him that he acted tough, but there was a lot of tenderness in him and extraordinary sensitivity. I wanted to find a way to bring compassion to my real father through a fictional character finding it within herself for her father.
McDONALD: Durable Goods was the first novel and the new one is True to Form and there are a number of years and a number of books in between. Now, the assumption would be that there was a difference in the way you approached the actual writing of the two novels.
BERG: Well, yes and no. Yes in that the driving force is different. But the approach has really always stayed the same. It’s better the more I can be like I was with the first novel. I need to lose myself in what I am writing and it gets harder, frankly. It really does get harder. I’d be naive to think that what I was writing might not have a chance of being published at this point. I know, pretty much, that whatever I write is going to be published and that puts a certain kind of pressure on you. It takes away some of your freedom. I actually like the idea of writing without a contract. But, now, in these economic times, especially, there is something appealing about knowing that it is sold before it is finished, too. I’m kind of debating what I’m going to do about the next one. There is a wonderful sense of freedom when it is only yours. For me, I always have to try to be as true to that notion as I can — that I am not writing for anybody but me. I’m not thinking about who is going to read it. I have to move away from that as much as possible and just enter into whatever the thing is trying to become.
McDONALD: The first book with Katie you have acknowledged had some biographical elements. Are you into the realm of pure invention now that you are three books in with this particular character and her story?
BERG: Oh, no. Things always become transformed when you write fiction, even if it is based on a real event. For example, I had a sofa bed when I lived in St. Louis, and I was too lazy to pull it out and make the bed every day, so I would just sleep on my little sofa. I had my routine: I would get the pillows and blankets all ready, then I would put my transistor radio on top of my ear so I could hear it and my parents couldn’t and make me turn it off. So that was a real thing that I did, but it reads differently, and it probably feels differently, that little thing, in True to Form. And, I didn’t have a friend like Cynthia, but I certainly knew what it felt like to be a nerd and to have that anguish. I think it was in third grade when these two very popular girls, Ruth and Deanna, ran into the girls room because they were having a little fight. It was very dramatic and they ran into the bathroom to make up. I had nothing to do with them — they wouldn’t look at me twice — but I, too, went flying into the girls room because I wanted so much to belong to that kind of thing. So, they were in the stall, weeping and consoling each other, and I was sitting outside, pretending that I, too, was involved in it. So I know all about what that is like. I know how careful you have to be not to lose yourself to other people’s values and to what other people’s standards are. I know how hard it is even at 54 to pay attention to the true voice inside you. It’s always a challenge, but particularly when you are pubescent like that and your heart is on your sleeve and you’re so full of longing and you’re just dying all the time of something or another.
McDONALD: Katie’s voice seems to come up through the heels. It is remarkably consistent, given the fact that a number of years separate the various books. Do you find yourself falling right back into that voice, because, adolescence is further and further away with each novel.
BERG: Boy, you’re not kidding. I’m not sure why I am so attracted to that time of life, but I am. I think part of it has to do with how true it can be. With how honest kids are. That seems to be the last time of life before you start faking it quite a bit. When you ask little kids, they really tell you the truth, most of the time. They can be devious, too, as we know, but for the most part they just say these things that are so full of feeling and so honest and so vulnerable and your heart just breaks sometimes at what little kids say. Then, when they get older, it’s about this longing, this longing to have something or be something, or be loved. Whatever it is, it is longing. I guess I just feel that it is such a rich field. And I do remember a lot about being like that. In terms of the language, it really does just come back. Her way of talking, and her translation of the world.
McDONALD: Did you read earlier books, as you sat down to write the next, in order to try and recapture that voice?
BERG: I looked at a little of both mostly because she is not that much older from book to book and to make sure I was consistent with facts. In terms of capturing the spirit of her, I think it is just somewhere within me and hangs around there in a latent sort of way, and when it is time for it to come out, it comes out.
McDONALD: What gives you the notion, with such finality, that this is the last book with this character?
BERG: Because when you are through, you know that she really will become a writer and that she’ll be okay. And she has learned a really good lesson about betraying yourself and others whom you love. I feel like you know the end of her story. I can’t imagine writing about her again.
McDONALD: You wouldn’t revisit her in the 1970s, ’80s or so forth?
BERG: (Pausing) I don’t think so. I have said before after each book, I wouldn’t write another, so you never know, but there are absolutely no plans. But, the first was about finding compassion for her terrible parent. The second was about first love and the third is about setting off on your path and finding yourself. That’s enough mission.
McDONALD: Were you attempting to write at Katie’s age?
BERG: When I was 9-years-old, I sent off a poem to be published in American Girl Magazine which was promptly rejected and then I didn’t submit anything for 25 years....
McDONALD: Damned rejection letters....
BERG: (Laughing). I loved writing. I loved writing assignments. I wrote a play when I was in junior high. It was quite long, and I called my friend and said, “I wrote a play. Do you want to hear it?” And then I started reading it! Oh, this poor girl. She had the good sense to put down the phone and walk away and just let me talk into the phone. She got busted because I said, “Don’t you think that’s funny?” Long, long pause. God, what a terrible thing to do to your friend.
McDONALD: From both directions, actually.
BERG: Well, anyway, I always loved writing.
McDONALD: You had been trained as a nurse. I read somewhere where you were at one point misdiagnosed and told you were terminally ill —
BERG: Yes.
McDONALD: — and you were given a period of time....
BERG: Yes, five years.
McDONALD: How long did you live under that particular misconception? (Note: Elizabeth was diagnosed with mycosis fungoides.)
BERG: Oh, man, that was...well, first of all, when you get a diagnosis like that, and particularly when you’re in the health care profession, it can be really even more powerful, because I went to the hospital library and read all about it. Saw these horrible pictures. At the same time I was looking very carefully at numbers and graphs and charts and listening to what this guy told me — which was, by the way, completely inaccurate, because, even at that time, they were saying some people live twenty years — I also had a separate belief. That is that we are profoundly ignorant, all of us, particularly about how science works and how the body works and what attitude and what hope does...what has a catabolic effect on our body and what has an anabolic effect on our body. And, what does it mean if somebody gives you a percentage? It doesn’t mean anything. For you it means zero or a hundred, it doesn’t mean anything. I was just trying to put all this together and what I really bought into was nature. The closer I could get to nature the better I was. If I concentrated on land and trees and the movement of clouds in the sky and understood that everything is cyclical and understood that in the end, a death isn’t so important, it made it easier. I read Black Elk Speaks and I just carried that book around with me. That helped more than anything. And then, as it turned out, I did very well. I was diagnosed in 1985 and I’m still here. I read some literature recently that said it does not always progress. It is not always fatal, and this is information that, I hope, is now out there.
McDONALD: I didn’t know which year or when you were given that diagnosis. So you have had an entire literary career with this sword hanging over your head?
BERG: In fact, I don’t like to talk about it, because I don’t want to be that “writer with cancer,” but as long as we are, I have to say one thing: You know, if you’re prolific, you get a lot of heat. A lot of people really don’t like you. I always feel like saying, “Well, I’ll tell you what: Why don’t you go sit in a doctor’s office and have him tell you that you have five years to live and you see how quickly you get into gear." That was a big part of it. The other part of it is that I just naturally write very quickly. I love writing and I don’t have writer’s block. It’s not a problem for me. If ever a day comes that I don’t feel like writing, I don’t write. I go shopping, or make lasagna, or something. I don’t worry about it. It’s never been hard for me and I don’t think it has to be hard for everybody.
McDONALD: There certainly is that bias by some toward prolific writers.
BERG: Once I got really pissed off about it. I was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and there was an introduction of me and two other novelists. When it was my time to be introduced, she made a big deal about how prolific I was, and “if you don’t hate her for that, then you can hate her for this.” So when I came up, I said, “You know, I’m really sorry I’m so prolific, it’s just that I think I’m going to die soon.” It was very quiet. I thought it might be a little joke, but it didn’t go over that way. But that’s kind of the truth, and it’s the truth for all of us. We’re not here for very long, even the healthiest of us.
McDONALD: No....
BERG: (Raising her voice) So, eat the dessert and write the book!
McDONALD: The only thing that might be more devastating than being prolific might be being chosen by Oprah Winfrey to be featured in her book club....
BERG: Well, these days, after....
McDONALD: Yes, after the most recent episode with the not-so-grateful recipient....
BERG: Yes, Mr. Bad Manners (laughing).
McDONALD: I suppose the obvious effect would be you sold a ton more books?
BERG: Oh my God, yes.
McDONALD: Beyond that, did it have an effect for you that was palpable?
BERG: No. I had done a lot of books already. I think if my first novel had been chosen, it might have really screwed me up. As it was, I had done a number of books and I was building up an audience on my own. I didn’t sell in the numbers that she does, and let’s face it, people buy Oprah Winfrey, they don’t buy the author. They are buying the book because she has told them to. I think that some people who got picked by Oprah assumed that every book they wrote afterward would have overwhelming popularity, but that just isn’t true. Some people have not sold well at all afterward, and some people have sold okay. I certainly didn’t sell as much of Never Change as Open House (an Oprah pick), not by a long shot. But I knew I loved what I was doing. I had an audience before her, and I continue to have one after her. It was nothing but good. I was moving to Chicago, I needed some money so I thank her every day. I point myself in the direction of Harpo Studios and say “thank you.”
McDONALD: The other tag that you get that you probably aren’t real thrilled with is “woman’s writer” or I saw the phrase “chick writer" used a couple of times. Do you have a sense of having a male readership?
BERG: Actually, yes, more and more. That’s not to say that if you go to my reading it won’t be mostly women. It is mostly women. But I think it’s mostly women who buy the books anyway. If I have to be categorized as something, why not? But I have been struck, especially lately, with how many men have told me they have read a book because their wives have asked them to — particularly The Pull of the Moon — and they say that they feel they now understand more, about their wives. So that’s an honor. There are some who come to signings, and they come not because somebody dragged them, but because they found me on their own and they like reading me. What can I say? I’m content.
McDONALD: Do you go book to book, or do you have a vague notion “I’m going to do this one, and then this other one and then over here that other one?”
BERG: I have always gone book to book, just what ever happens to come up. But because of that period I’ve told you about after moving, I have beginnings for a couple of other books now, and I have to decide what I want to write. There are two compelling ideas and I want to do them both, but it’s just a question of which one first. I also would like to do another collection of short stories. I found that really satisfying.
McDONALD: You don’t have any kind of disjointment moving from form to form?
BERG: I don’t. I know a lot of people say it’s more difficult to write short stories, but I don’t find that to be true. It is a different form, but I like doing both.
McDONALD: Do you outline your works before composing them?
BERG: I don’t outline it. I like to be open to being surprised. Sometimes I’ll write down bits of dialogue or an idea for a scene that I want to incorporate in there. It usually comes pretty soon after what I’m already working on, though. Sometimes, I’ll know the very last line or the ending that I’m working toward, but I have no idea what’s going to be in the middle there. I show up for work and the thing tells me what to do.
McDONALD: Are you fairly rigid in terms of the way you write? A particular time of day, or?
BERG: Routines? I like to write first thing in the morning, because I think best then. I’ll usually work three, maybe four hours, then I’ve kind of had it. Most of my novels are pretty emotional and I feel like I just have to come out of the shrink’s office and go do something else.
McDONALD: Do you write on a computer or longhand?
BERG: I do both. Mostly a computer at home. Traveling, I write longhand because I’m afraid I’ll break the computer.
McDONALD: You wrote a book not too long ago about the craft of writing. And there was another book on family traditions....
BERG: I was writing for magazines at that time, and someone called Parents Magazine and asked for the name of a good writer, because she had a proposal, and she had a publisher and she had an artist and she just didn’t have a writer. They recommended me, so she asked me if I wanted to write this book on family traditions and I said, “No thank you, I don’t have any family traditions.” She said, “Let me just send you the proposal and you take a look at it.” She did. I saw the by-line and that was the end. I thought, “Oh boy, I’d have a Library of Congress number and everything.” I agreed to do it. It’s a serviceable book and it came out fine, but it was kind of murder writing it. It felt like homework. I didn’t really enjoy the process.
McDONALD: What triggered the writing book?
BERG: If you go to a lot of readings you hear the same questions over and over again. A lot of misconceptions, like writing is really difficult, or you have to just discipline yourself to sit down and write five pages a day or x-number of words a day, or you have to know somebody to get published. Mostly, it was the drudgery aspect. I just wanted to say, “Look, here is my experience. I didn’t go to writing school; I didn’t take writing classes. This is how I did it. Here are some ideas for you. Here are some exercises for you." I wanted to dispel some myths so far as I am concerned. And I wanted to give people some good recipes. That’s what people like best.
McDONALD: The recipes and not the writing instruction?
BERG: (Laughing) You know how when a book first comes out and you’re just dying because you’re so nervous about it? This one came out and a woman came to a reading and she said, “I just want to tell you, I love this book so much.” And I said, “Oh, thank you.” And she said, “Yes, I have made this chocolate cake three times!”
McDONALD: That will adjust your compass.
BERG: It’s good to have those things happen.
McDONALD: Do you feel that real pressure now that you have been on the New York Times bestseller list several times to sell well?
BERG: I do. You want to sell well so that you don’t disappoint your publisher. I try really hard to remember why I am in this and what it is about for me. I’ve read enough reviews now, not only my own but other people’s, and I’ve reviewed books myself, and I’ve done that enough to know that it’s just political. It’s a game, in some respects. Some reviews are just great, and other reviewers are just angry critics who wish they were writers. You have to learn not to get too swell-headed about it when you get good reviews and when you get bad reviews not to take it so personally. The business of writing is very much separate from the act of writing. One is very soulful, and one is very cuckoo.
McDONALD: You’ve said you wouldn’t write another book about Katie, particularly, but what of Cherylanne? She’s such a distinctive voice and she’s been left in such a hideous place. Perhaps The Short and Happy Married Life of Cherylanne?
BERG: (Feigning a Southern accent) How to Have a Happy Marriage. Yeah, I’d buy it.
McDONALD: Thank you very much for your time.
BERG: Thank you.
— © C. McDonald, June 2002