As a young writer, I questioned the idea that I had to write fiction in a world where I could write my own ethnicity only and nothing else. 'Fach' to me was a little like that. As a biracial person, that's an inherently unstable identity. Alexander Chee More Quotes by Alexander Chee More Quotes From Alexander Chee It's my experience that people don't think of fiction writing as being as intellectually serious as other kinds of writing in academia and so without a career as a critic or essayist you can be treated as something of a spiritual medium - a fraud - for "just" writing fiction. Alexander Chee spiritual writing thinking The secret to being a rider in the hippodrome wasn't that you must be agile, or that you must be good with horses...It was that you must hide inside your costume a little of a killer's heart. Alexander Chee horse secret heart Characters to me are like sonnets, they have limits that you obey which allow a force to enter in, an invention that makes the novel possible. Change the limits and the force leaves. The novel becomes impossible. Alexander Chee possible-change limits character I knew it was a risk but what I was after was a novel that is about the feeling that comes with a coincidence in real life - that you feel as if something divine has intervened and has arrived with a message. Alexander Chee risk real feelings Each source that I read, I would look through the bibliography and the footnotes, and use that as a map for the next thing I would read. Alexander Chee maps use looks The myth works to make the very real things people don't want to look at visible for them. Alexander Chee real people looks One of my big inspirations was Céleste Mogador. She was a courtesan who wrote her memoirs in order to pay off her debts, which is a hilarious gesture. Alexander Chee debt inspiration order Acadia was founded in 1916 by Woodrow Wilson as the first Eastern national park, aided by rich men, often with middle initials, the 'rusticators,' as they were known then, the first of our wealthy out-of-state visitors. Alexander Chee park first rich men The beauty of Maine is such that you can't really see it clearly while you live there. But now that I've moved away, with each return it all becomes almost hallucinatory: the dark blue water, the rocky coast with occasional flashes of white sand, the jasper stone beaches along the coast, the pine and fir forests somehow vivid in their stillness. Alexander Chee you blue beauty water My fascination with women's clothes began very early. My mother was a very fashionable woman. She also made her own clothes. She had these fashion magazines, and I would draw the women in them. My middle school art teacher suggested that I have a fashion drawing show. Alexander Chee women mother teacher art I met my first boyfriend when we were 13, playing 'Dungeons and Dragons' in the basement of my local comics shop. We were from the same small town in Maine but went to different schools. Alexander Chee playing small small-town different I sat down to try to write 'Edinburgh,' an autobiographical novel, and that took five years to write and two years to sell. Alexander Chee down try two years If you compromise, and then you succeed, that's another kind of feeling. But if you compromise and fail, it's two failures at least. Alexander Chee feeling you succeed compromise Andrea Schulz became my editor in 2009. Alexander Chee became editor It took me a while to get back to 'The Queen of the Night.' I was angry with it as an idea because I felt like it had sort of ruined my life by taking so much attention away from 'Edinburgh.' So it essentially languished in a drawer until 2004, when I pulled it out, dusted it off, and thought, 'Oh, I actually really like this idea.' Alexander Chee my-life me angry life My mother's family has been in Maine for over 300 years on the same farm. They have a King George III deed. Alexander Chee farm king family mother A woman's desire is either terrifying, or it's ignored. Alexander Chee either woman ignored desire The year was 1882. The palace was the Luxembourg Palace: the ball, the Senat Bal, held at the beginning of autumn. It was still warm, and so the garden was used as well. I was the soprano. I was Lilliet Berne. Alexander Chee beginning warm autumn garden Lilliet Berne, La Generale, newly returned to Paris after a year spent away, the Falcon soprano whose voice was so delicate it was rumored she endangered it even by speaking, her silences as famous as her performances. Alexander Chee she year paris voice When you're bi-racial, in the town I was in, in Maine, people kept asking, 'What are you?' It was like I wasn't even human. Alexander Chee human like you people
