Q&A with Amity Gaige
Q. What events in your own life led you to write this book?
A. My son was about three years old when I started this book. He wasn't old enough to be as articulate as Meadow, but he said and did a lot of wise things. For some reason, when I realized how much he could actually understand, I started to get nervous. I hoped I was saying or doing the right thing. But no one is entirely "normal," and occasionally I wondered if what I said and did as a mother wasn't a little eccentric--nothing as inappropriate as Eric, but you know, on the playground it seems like either you're doing something questionable as a parent or somebody else is. So I was very interested in exploring what makes a "good parent," how both parent and child get through the crucible of the early years.
During this same time, my parents separated after forty-four years of marriage. This was a profound disorientation for me. Then, my father--who had been the first and most influential reader of my work, to whom this book is dedicated--fell terminally ill. I moved him up to a hospice home in my town and had to learn how to let him go. Meanwhile, I tried to be cheerful for my son--again, to project a sense of normalcy--but that was getting increasingly harder. Who was I kidding? Anyway, these things end up getting absorbed into the writing of Schroder. The writing heals. Or at least, the writing is a vessel to hold the experience.
Q. In Schroder, the bond between a parent and child dictates a lot of the action. What is it about the nature of this bond that drives Erik? Is there a difference between the bond of a mother and a child versus that of a father and a child?
A. Yes, I think the parental bond is different between genders because men and women are different. But I firmly believe that a bond between a father and child can be as strong as that between a mother and child. Maybe not in the infant years, but beyond. Personally, I think it's really the primary caregiver who knows the child best, whoever feeds and clothes the child and pries sharp objects out of his or her hand (what Eric calls "the relentless being-aware" of the child). For at least a year, Eric is a stay-at-home-dad. He's not a great one, but for the first time he actually pays attention. Anyone who pays attention to his or her child builds a bond. You can't help but respect their miniature successes and failures.
Q. What is it about the theme of identity--from our formative years through how we present ourselves as adults--that attracted you as a writer?A. Someone once said to me, "All your books are about identity." I think so. Who knows why? I had an early and unsettling awareness of the self as a construct. Sadly, I haven't shaken that. I think we all do a lot of "deciding" who we are; we train ourselves to have certain qualities. But who knows, maybe even then, maybe, some other god-given self shines through, a self that's better or worse than the one we're projecting.
I guess the same thing gets played out in Schroder. Although Erik reinvents himself as Eric, the capable American, he can't totally transform, not convincingly. His injured German boyhood self slips through. Even Laura begins to see this. Before she ever discovers he's a fraud, she senses there is something fraudulent about him. So maybe that's my answer. Maybe there is a "real self" that cannot be renamed or repackaged.
Q. America is a land of opportunity and reinvention. Could Schroder have taken place elsewhere? What is it about the nature of America that allows a boy named Erik Schroder to grow into Eric Kennedy?
A. Yes, this is an American story. America has accepted waves of immigrants throughout its history. Sometimes their names were changed by lazy immigration officials and sometimes the immigrants changed their own names. My mother was one of those people. She came to this country from Latvia when she was eleven, was one of the displaced people of World War II. Her childhood was very hard. She didn't want constant reminders of it, nor her ethnic background. Everyone made fun of her name. You see where this is going...
A lot of people come to the United States to reinvent themselves. It's understandable. Of course, Eric does not legalize his name change, and because he's not a citizen, he's actually committing fraud by accepting Pell Grants, etc. But for me, the only truly immoral thing he does is lie to Laura. A marriage can't be built upon a phony life history.
Q. In many ways, Laura's perspective is absent from the novel. She is a character created out of "negative space." Why did you decide to keep her voice out of the main narrative? Was it hard to exclude her from the central action of the novel?
A. I identify with Laura. Of course, it's kind of like hamstringing yourself to leave a character you relate to out of a novel. But she's there. I hope the reader might glean what she thinks of Eric, why she left him, etc., through the tidbits Eric reveals in the service of other things. But the novel isn't really about why Laura loves or doesn't love Eric. The novel is a love letter--Eric's. It's a long love letter that goes unanswered. I got sad myself writing the end of the letter/novel, when I realized that a "real" Laura probably wouldn't even read it...Meadow will always remain connected to her dad, if only by blood, but Laura can wash her hands of the whole thing. Grown-ups can divorce each other. Kids can't divorce their parents.
In a letter to his estranged wife, Erik Schroder pleads for mercy and understanding, as he attempts to explain the recent, unsanctioned trip he has taken with his young daughter, Meadow. Woven throughout the novel is Erik’s personal history. Originally from East Germany, during his teenage years Erik becomes convinced that he does not fit in with his peer group and creates a new, Americanized identity, calling himself Eric Kennedy. This ruse lasts for many years, through college, a marriage, a semisuccessful career, and fatherhood. However, in the midst of a heated custody battle, Erik slowly becomes unhinged and makes a grave mistake that results in the unraveling of his elaborate secret. Gaige creates a fascinating and complex character in Erik, as he moves from the eccentric and slightly irresponsible father to a desperate man at the end of his rope. While the novel’s format occasionally lends itself to overly dramatic prose, this does not take away from its warmth and expert exploration of the immigrant experience, alienation, and the unbreakable bond between parent and child. --Kerri Price
From Bookforum
Amity Gaige's Schroder is a daring book. It tells a clean, suspenseful, economical story that is also a clever act of social commentary. It asks us to empathize with one of the most benighted figures in today's marital hierarchy: the sketchy divorced dad. Novelists like Gaige remind us that we live not in the age of the nineteenth-century marriage plot but in the era of the tewnty-first-century divorce plot. One of the accomplishments of the book is how energetically it conveys the wild tenacity of the parent-child bond, the power of preverbal connections. —Meghan O'Rourke
Review
"Complicated and nuanced . . . the novel is absorbing, with a propulsive plot and a narrator who is charming, ambivalent, and searching-a man driven by love who understands that love cannot save him."―The New Yorker
"Enthralling.... Gaige displays an unnerving insight into the grandiosity and fragility of the middle-aged male ego.... SCHRODER is clearly her breakout book. With its psychological acuity, emotional complexity and topical subject matter, it deserves all the success it can find. I wish there were such a thing as a Divorced Couples Book Club just so we could listen in on the tangled responses."―The Washington Post
"Like Nabokov's Humbert Humbert, Schroder is charming and deceptive, likable and flawed, a conman who has a clever way with words. Schroder's tale is deeply engaging, and Gaige's writing is surprising and original, but the real pull of this magnetic novel is the moral ambiguity the reader feels."―People, 4 stars
"Daring...a clean, suspenseful, economical story that is also a clever act of social commentary...As a case study of the unreliable narrator, SCHRODER is beautifully managed...Gaige...is an accomplished writer, and the novel elegantly navigates its ethical razor's edge, brining the reader along on a kind of joyride gone wrong...half sympathy-inducing mea culpa, half a bristling act of bravado and self-ignorance...Novelists like Gaige remind us that we live not in the age of the nineteenth-century marriage plot but in the era of the twenty-first century divorce plot...Gaige writes with a cool strangeness, a strong sense of style...Schroder is by turns dry, peculiar, expansive, and visionary."―Meghan O'Rourke, Bookforum
"On occasion... a novel will provoke a host of tangled and disconcertingly conflicted reactions-revulsion and affection; blame and understanding; a connection that goes beyond surface sympathy to a deeper, and possibly unwanted, emotional recognition. These were among the things I experienced while reading Amity Gaige's astoundingly good novel SCHRODER."―The Wall Street Journal
"Agile. . . transporting . . . a book that works as both character study and morality play, filled with questions that have no easy answers."―Janet Maslin, New York Times
"Gaige's spot-on prose makes this quirky parental drama irresistible."―Good Housekeeping
"Strikingly original."―Reader's Digest
"A lyrical and poetic novel about the adverse ramifications of a little white lie that follows its teller throughout his life."―O, The Oprah Magazine
"It's a mark of how good SCHRODER is that, upon finishing it, I immediately went out and read the rest of her work."―Kathryn Schulz, New York Magazine
"...a fascinating psychological portrait of love, longing and self-loathing....Written as a jailhouse confession to his ex-wife, SCHRODER's closest literary relative is probably Lolita (minus the pedophilia): The compellingly unreliable narrator of European background, the East Coast road trip with the precocious child, the narcissism, the unsavory motels, the whiff of danger. SCHRODER easily stands up to the comparison....And yet the book, at its heart, is a love story. Schroder may be deluded-and a woefully irresponsible parent-but his touching, sincere adoration of his daughter and ex-wife is his great redemption."―The Los Angeles Times
"Brilliantly written....What could be a hackneyed novelistic trope--the confessional letter--is completely transformed in Gaige's sure and insightful hands....SCHRODER is a haunting look at the extreme desire for love and family, and how the mind can justify that need to possess what it cannot have. Almost, just almost, Schroder has us rooting for him."―Cleveland Plain Dealer
"The measure of Gaige's great gifts as a storyteller is that she persuades you to believe in a situation that shouldn't be believable, and to love a narrator who shouldn't be lovable. Seldom has such a daring concept for a novel been grounded in such an appealing character."―Jonathan Franzen, author of Freedom and The Corrections
"In SCHRODER, Amity Gaige explores the rich, murky realm where parental devotion edges into mania, and logic crabwalks into crime. This offbeat, exquisitely written novel showcases a fresh, forceful young voice in American letters."―Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit from the Goon Squad
"Amity Gaige has written a flawless book. It does not contain a single false note. Playful and inventive, SCHRODER movingly depicts the ways we confound our own hearts--how even with the best intentions, we fail to love those closest to us as well as we wish we could. Eric Schroder should take his place among the most charismatic and memorable characters in contemporary fiction, and Amity Gaige her place among the most talented and impressive writers working today."
―David Bezmozgis, prize-winning author of Natasha and Other Stories and The Free World
"You will not want to put this book down. You will want to read it in one big gulp. This is a bullet of a novel, aimed at our pieties about parenthood and familial love. You won't soon forget Schroder or his daughter or the sentences that bring them to life. To those who know Gaige's first two novels, it's no surprise she's produced another stunner. To those who don't, you're in for a treat."―Adam Haslett, author of Union Atlantic, and the New York Times best-selling short story collection You Are Not a Stranger Here
"Gaige creates a fascinating and complex character in Erik, as he moves from the eccentric and slightly irresponsible father to a desperate man at the end of his rope . . . [an] expert exploration of the immigrant experience, alienation, and the unbreakable bond between parent and child."―Booklist
"Quiet and deeply introspective . . . Tender moments of observation, regret and joy - all conveyed in unself-consciously lyrical prose - result in a radiant meditation on identity, memory and familial love and loss."―Publishers Weekly
"Terrific.... SCHRODER grabs you early on, holds you with its lyrical prose and surprising insights and lingers in the mind long afterward."―The Pittsburgh Post Gazette
"SCHRODER is a beautifully told story about how a father's undeniable love for his young child can be distorted by the pressure he experiences at the thought of being cut off from her.... we all are destined to fall short of our expectations, to fail to match our lovingly painted self-portraits, some of us more dramatically and tragically than others. It's but one of many penetrating insights that transport Amity Gaige's novel from the realm of mere artifice to the status of real art."―Book Reporter
"With Schroder, Gaige has achieved a remarkable feat. How impressive to have created a protagonist who's brilliant, narcissistic, creepy and unhinged, yet somehow sympathetic...Gaige is such a masterful writer that she makes Schroder seem more pitiful than hateful...As unlikely as it sounds, you'll be half-rooting for this lost soul to prevail."―USA Today
"Impossible to put down....Gaige completely creates this alternative universe, and it is entirely suspenseful as readers are drawn to the Schroder/Kennedy character. It's a credit to Gaige's talents that she can create such a morally complex character."―Chicago Tribune, Editor's Choice
"With SCHRODER Gaige has created a narrator who, while flawed and frustrating, is intensely lovable....SCHRODER is a touching story of parental alienation."―Wisconsin State Journal
"Prepare to be captivated by SCHRODER, a riveting novel by Amity Gaige with a unique and incredibly creative voice...SCHRODER is a book to be digested slowly, reread and discussed. It's quite a wild ride, but the miles fly by with Amity Gaige at the wheel."―The Missourian
"The essence of the ersatz Rockefeller/Kennedy character is of course an epic, pathological narcissism, and this Gaige gets impressively right....Gaige writes beautifully....The novel's climactic chapter is also its best conceived: the item that brings about Schroder's downfall is perfect, both dramatic and mundane. The reader will realize that he or she has been given every detail necessary to see what was coming, yet didn't, which is plot-making of the highest order."―New York Times Book Review
"Eric is the unlikeliest of characters to charm a reader. His life is a tabloid drama: man abducts daughter, gets arrested and confesses in a letter to his estranged wife. It is to the credit of Amity Gaige, an American writer, that her third novel, SCHRODER, transforms this thriller plot into a deeply moving tale....What distinguishes SCHRODER is its insight and language....Ms. Gaige excels at landscapes; her writing has the still, clear beauty of a mountain lake."―The Economist
"[A] superb novel....Gaige makes fraudulent, kidnapping Eric utterly sympathetic-heartbreakingly so-which is part of this book's intelligence and depth. We have so little distance from him that we become myopic in our desire to have his outrageous escapade work, even though we know it cannot."―San Francisco Chronicle
"It's a fine line, sometimes, between disturbing and enrapturing. Amity Gaige's new novel, SCHRODER, treads that thrilling line-swiftly, and on tiptoe-for 270 pages. It is impossible to put down....Despite his criminal behavior, our intimacy with Eric makes his behavior, and this story, more tragic than enraging. Does he love his daughter? We know that he thinks he does. But does carting her across state lines-in a stolen car, no less-constitute love? Who's to say? SCHRODER certainly doesn't give us an easy answer. But it digs deeply, satisfyingly, disturbingly into the question....she's created a riveting tale, at once infuriating, heartbreaking and human."―The Denver Post
"To say that the piece of fiction Gaige has produced is successful is a serious understatement.... Schroder is refreshingly bereft of the formal wizardry that characterizes much of the postmodern fiction that attracted academic interest in the second half of the twentieth century. This is good and this is nice. Instead, Gaige turns to the ineluctable parts of life that go by big-sounding names: love and fear, for instance....Not to mention the fact that this book is great fun to read. It is relentlessly compelling in the way that mystery stories can sometimes be."―Artvoice
"Amity Gaige's SCHRODER is a triumph of voice. Part road trip escapade, part liar's lament, this absorbing, expertly crafted book takes the form of a self-serving but moving apologia written in an Albany jail cell by an untrustworthy but genuinely heartbroken father and ex-husband with astonishingly bad judgment....one heartrending lesson from all these narratives is that even a deeply flawed parent can be a loving one."―Barnes & Noble Review
"Fascinating....In all, we are glad to be along for the ride. And when someone asks Schroder, near the novel's end, 'Do you miss it? I mean, your made-up life?'-we can assume that, in large part, he does. We can also confess, now we know Schroder so well, that we do too."―Buffalo News
About the Author
Amity Gaige is the author of Schroder and The Folded World. Her essays, articles, and stories have appeared in various publications, including the Yale Review, Los Angeles Times, O Magazine, The Literary Review, One Story and in a 2009 collection of essays, Feed Me (Random House). She is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, a McDowell Colony Fellowship, and a Baltic Writing Residency Fellowship, and is currently the Visiting Writer at Amherst College. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, with her family.
