It can be difficult to explain to what extent the agricultural crisis of the 80s was ruinous to those who are not old enough to remember it.
A combination of factors – an increase in land values that would not last, general inflation, and the 1979 cereal embargo against the Soviets, among others – have triggered the crisis, which made that countless farmers lose their land, businesses and banks closing for good, and families in the American heart decomposing.
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The crisis is the backdrop of “US Fools”, the first novel by Nora Lange. The book follows Joanne and Bernadette, two sisters growing up in an Illinois farm in the 1980s. Their parents, never too attentive at first, are distracted by their economic misfortunes, letting the two girls get up.
Lange, the descendant of generations of Midwest farmers, was a child during the crisis. The subject does not result much from the people with whom it was raised – and with – in the 80s.
“It’s not like people have forgotten,” she said. “It’s just nothing that someone really talks about. People in this part of the world, they are occupied by day by day. It is only a foot in front of the other in many ways. ”
Lange’s novel, published by Radio Indie Press Two Dollar, resonated with readers, one who knows a lot about the Midwest in the 80s, Jane Smiley, author of “A Thousand Acres”. In a review, Smiley rented Lange’s novel as “quite remarkable”. “US Fools” was also appointed finalist of the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction earlier this year.
Lange spoke of “US Fools” by phone from Los Angeles, where she lived for several years; She has since moved to Salt Lake City. This conversation was condensed and published for duration and clarity.
Q: When the idea of this novel came to you, has one of the sisters first presented to you?
No, they presented themselves, surprisingly, at the same time, which is why they were difficult to ignore. I heard them at the same time. I lived in Chicago at the time, working in a textile factory, and I would come home from work and I would be tired and I would try to take a nap, and I would hear these two disturbing characters in my head, and they were simultaneous. One would say one thing, the other would say something contrary, and then it would continue from there. And then my nap was a total failure.
For a long time, I was not even sure. It took me a while to understand that they were certainly only two distinct people. I said to myself: “Maybe it’s the same person, but they have different thoughts. I don’t know.” I just went through these different phases to try to understand each of their voices. These are two distinct people, but it took a minute to see them completely.
Q: The sisters are called “unwanted children”. What does that mean for them?
These are discharges. It’s a bit like being punk, but they are beyond punk. They are just a little junky. They smell, they want dust food. But I have the impression that they kiss this. It came the other day, one of my friends, I was in conversation with another colleague, and it reminded me of “Gummo”, the film by Harmony Korine. I didn’t think about “gummo” at all, but I saw it? Of course. And I grew up on Harmony Korine, and did he have an impact? One hundred percent. So I think there is a line where they are just these children reject, these outsets, even if some are on their own manufacture. I think it is also an interesting question: how many do we spare ourselves, or how many other people are pushing us aside? Are we our worst enemy?
Q: At one point in the book, Jo says that she and Bernie are “continuous heirs of defect”. Do you think there is an element of self-realizing prophecy there?
I feel like that by name thus, they resign, but it is fun. But I also think that below, there is a lot of pain. It’s a celebration, but it’s also a way to celebrate this way of dealing. Whether or not they want to challenge this type of inherited courses, I don’t know. It is therefore a playful resignation in a strange way, but I think that sometimes people do it when they do not know what are.
Q: Another author who wrote on the families of farmers in the Midwest is Jane Smiley, and she gave a glowing criticism of the book. What does it make a criticism like someone who knows your part of the country so well?
I am totally impressed. I am honored. Maybe it’s just a personal line for me, but I honor the past. Sometimes I have the impression that we do not take enough time, we download respiratory applications, but we don’t really look at what it means to be in contact. But writers are in dialogue with other writers. Even if it is my first book, it is not as if this book was not in dialogue with so many books of those who have been written by people (in the past).
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
