Originally published on March 29, 20195 in Perigree, the blog for Apogee Journal.
Rivka Galchen is the author of American Innovations, a collection of short stories speaking in conversation with “classic” short stories from a female perspective, and Atmospheric Disturbances, a novel. Staff writer Joseph Ponce corresponded with Rivka via email about the dangers of “familiar” language, intentionally de-railing plots, and misconstrued emotion and characters. She will be reading as part of the First Person Plural Reading Series, along with Mya Green, Patrick Rosal, and a screening of the Field Niggas and Antonyms of Beauty, a film by Khalik Allah, on Tuesday, March 31 at 7:00pm, at the Shrine World Music Venue in Harlem, NY.
Joe Ponce [JP]: American Innovations at times seems to be a commentary on the restrictive and even oppressive nature of language. Do you feel like the language you use in American Innovations is, in a way, a rebellion against old fashioned or constrictive language (the lazy language of idiom)?
Rivka Galchen [RG]: I do think my characters, on the spectrum, find phrases particularly magnetic, even talismanic. They’ll try on a phrase as a way to feel, they feel obliged to try and feel the way that language suggests they ought to. It doesn’t quite work, of course. Like, I suspect, the popularity of “that’s amazing” a few years back made us feel more compelled to find things amazing, even as the world may not have been any more (or less!) amazing. And sometimes the poor tailoring of language is just minor comedy and a popped button, and sometimes it’s tragedy, and usually it’s both? See that question mark, that’s the first emoticon doing its all-thumbs work at trying to nudge the sentence toward accuracy.