Lydi Conklin is known for representing queer characters with realistic nuance and detail. In Conklin’s new novel Songs of No Provenance, folk musician Joan Vole is a prime candidate for exploration. The story erupts right away as Joan performs her favorite sexual kink on stage upon an unsuspecting superfan after an uncomfortable conflict. Through this one singular event, Joan dooms herself to cancellation and, subsequently, rage-quits her life in New York City. On the way to a quiet Virginian campus in search of a faculty opening, she chucks her phone and is no wiser to how the world reacts to her departure. In this conversation, Conklin and William Huberdeau discuss narrative choices, the political imperative behind the novel, and how a person navigates the writing world with courage and grace.
William Huberdeau: Your new novel Songs of No Provenance incorporates a courageous amount of empathy toward cringe characters. The result is a roller coaster story with exponential escalations in plot but also an opportunity for emotional maturation and growth of both your characters and your readers. Can you tell me about the inspirations for this novel?
Lydi Conklin: I wanted to write about queerbaiting, for one. This type of appropriation is when a corporation—or sometimes an individual—tries to stick shadows of queerness in content that isn’t actually queer to attract a queer audience. It’s a complicated issue worth exploring. On one hand, no public figure really owes it to us to reveal their sexuality if they don’t feel comfortable. So sometimes individuals aren’t queerbaiting. They’re writing about queerness in a stealth way to send dog whistles so that the right fans can find them. Those writers aren’t able or ready to come out. On the other hand, people who do it maliciously can cause harm because queerbaiting creates false role models.
So, in your mind, is Joan queerbaiting in writing her famous song “Lakeshore,” which is about a man whom she fictionalizes into a girl? If so, is Joan being malicious?
When I started writing, I thought Joan was in the malicious category. I had been frustrated by cishet authors writing, then, about queerness. They didn’t leave room for queer writers’ stories, which are typically weirder and less acceptable than their cishet version of queerness. And I wanted to write about musicians who, when I was a teen, seemed to be queer but later turned out not to be. It was disappointing. But as I continued the novel, I realized Joan’s in the other category. She is realizing she is probably trans. She’s at the beginning of that journey, and writing “Lakeshore” about a same-sex partner was a helpful avenue to figure those things out.
What do you hope Songs of No Provenance does in response to queerbaiting?
I want to explore the issue and encourage people to reflect on it more deeply. Do we call people out for queerbaiting? There is a danger in doing that because they might be exploring queerness in good faith, even if they’re not queer themselves. A larger intention that I have for the novel is to let queer characters have their own complex and messy humanity. For a long time, queer stories followed certain stereotypes. You could have a coming out story, a story about AIDS, a story with suicide, but you couldn’t have stories where queer people nuanced and complex.
Can you talk about Joan’s journey?
My own journey of being trans was not the “normal” one. Most people I knew transitioned with a certain series of steps. They changed their pronouns. Then their names. Then they got top surgery. Then, maybe, they got bottom surgery. They did testosterone. I was interested in some of those things, but I knew that I didn’t want to take testosterone. That seemed like an integral part of transitioning. I didn’t think I could do any of it. It wasn’t until my therapist described it like a buffet. You can pick what you want, and you don’t have to do it in any specific order. You don’t have to do some of it ever. I just hadn’t seen that story represented. I know a lot of people with unusual routes towards their queer trans identity who aren’t represented. The more people write their own stories of their own journeys, the more people will understand that there are many different ways to be queer. Queer people who aren’t able to come out could see their stories mirrored.
Joan’s relationships with her mentee Paige and her colleague Sparrow certainly get complex, maybe even toxic. Can you talk about those?
I want the reader to understand those relationships for themselves. Joan has definitely caused harm to both characters and has good dynamics at various times with them, too. There are complicated power differentials there. I wanted things to be murky so the readers couldn’t dismiss anyone too easily.
You’ve done a wonderful job with that. I think most writers would not be so brave. You really put your neck out on the line. Can you share how and why you did that?
It’s boring—even annoying—to read about perfect people. Most of us are good and behave kindly in our day to day lives. Why would anyone want to read that? Wouldn’t you want to read about someone who’s a little unhinged? A little feral? Doing things that you wouldn’t do, so you can live in that fantasy? See how it would play out? That’s more interesting. Since I’m a literary writer, plot must come from character. If a character is menaced by outside forces, and the plot is not their fault, that feels uninteresting to me. The character is without agency. I want plot to come from my characters’ own misdeeds and mess-ups. Then the character has ownership over what occurs. It’s more interesting.
That is why I like this novel so much. It is powerful to experience loss or failure that is one’s own fault. It’s important for growth. I would say, to me, Joan experiences that.
Yeah, I wanted her to have this toxic or misguided life. She’s obsessed with music to the exclusion of all else. She puts relationships second. She probably puts herself third. You can live like that for a long time. I did, but shit never hit the fan for me. I was curious about someone putting their art before everything. They may hurt someone badly and face the consequences. Yet, it’s the only kind of path towards change that they can find.
Are there any artists that inspired Songs of No Provenance?
Diane Cluck, Adrianne Lenker, my friend’s band Wild Yawp. Their sound really inspired my vision of Joan. I tried to follow their narrative, poetic, text-heavy lyrics. I love music where the words are forefront, whether the narrative is realistic or linear. In terms of general inspiration, I loved my friends’ band You Won’t. They tour and make amazing music together, whereas writing is such a solitary thing. Even though Joan is a solitary artist, she works in this collective. I was interested in that approach to making art.
As a side project with this book, I invited musician friends to interpret some of the songs from it and play them live. For example, my friend Emily Bielagus from Wild Yawp played one of the songs at my reading at Skylight Bookstore. She said it was the coolest gig she’s ever played, but this is probably the nerdiest one I could have imagined. Wild Yawp would usually play in a bar, and this was a bookstore full of literary people. I just thought it was funny that we both thought what the other person was doing was cool.
The grass is always greener. But you’ve reached quite a bit of acclaim. What’s it like being on that side of the grass? Do you ever feel jealous of other writers?
I do feel less stressed out. I’m happy at the place I wanted to be. I’m never going to be a best-selling book club writer. I’m not even trying to do that. For almost a decade after my MFA, I never thought I would publish. I was in a panic for a book and a tenure track job. I’ve got those. I feel a lot of gratitude. Before, I would write every day out of panic, but now I do it because I love it. Even though it’s hard and not always fun, I can do it for the art of it. I had been writing to survive, going from fellowship to fellowship. If I didn’t write something, I wouldn’t have health insurance the next year. But that said, jealousy is always going to be there. Even a Pulitzer Prize winner will feel that. There will always be people who are getting things that I wish I had, but that doesn’t bother me, now. As my friends get more acclaim, they can help me, and I help them. Not that it’s transactional, but I used to be so upset when it was a friend who got something I wanted. Now I’m happy for them, which did involve doing a lot of work on myself.
Just remember that everyone’s path is different. Just because someone gets a book deal in their MFA doesn’t guarantee that person’s success. It could be the opposite. Their book might not be ready and get published prematurely. I recommend taking the time you need to write the best book you can write instead of seeking validation. The better book will always serve you better in the long run. As for turning off other people’s thoughts, I always pretend I’m not going to publish my book, even though I know it’s a lie. Then I put whatever I want in there. When I go back and read it, edit it, I’ll think about those kinds of concerns.
That’s refreshing to hear. Again and again, I’m told that one won’t publish if one writes to publish. You’ve got to love it.
It’s a combo platter. In some ways I do agree that you can’t write with an eye to publishing. You won’t write well. You have to be true to yourself and hope that someone loves the thing you’re excited about. If you are, it’s going to come through. Once you’ve published, the responses get more into your mind, though. It’s hard to turn off. After publishing my first collection Rainbow Rainbow I would read my Goodreads reviews. I don’t do that anymore. There’s always someone saying something mean that’s going to get under your skin. Those people just aren’t my readers. I have to shut it off as much as I can.
William Huberdeau is a recent Sewanee MFA graduate (’24) and a high school English teacher. Other interviews and book reviews appear in Cleaver Magazine and Poetries in English Magazine.
Lydi Conklin has received a Stegner Fellowship, four Pushcart Prizes, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, a Creative Writing Fulbright in Poland, a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation, and fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Bread Loaf, Sewanee, Emory, Hedgebrook, Djerassi, Headlands, Loghaven, Lighthouse Works, and elsewhere. Their fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, One Story, McSweeney’s, American Short Fiction, and VQR. They have drawn cartoons for The New Yorker and Narrative Magazine, and graphic fiction for The Believer, Lenny Letter, and the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago. They’ve served as the Helen Zell Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan and are now an Assistant Professor of Fiction at Vanderbilt University. Their story collection, Rainbow Rainbow, was longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Award and The Story Prize. Their novel, Songs of No Provenance, was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.