We chat with the author of Thanks for Having Me!
Thanks for Having Me is the first fiction title published in the JOAN imprint, curated by writer, actor and director Nakkiah Lui. Consisting of interwoven stories about three generations of women in one family as they navigate girlhood, motherhood and selfhood, this book is perfect for fans of Jennifer Egan, Meg Mason and Paige Clark.
We sat down with Emma Darragh to chat about her book.
A&U: Tell us about your book?
ED: Thanks for Having Me is about three generations of women in one family as they figure out who they are and what they want to be. It’s about we give and take away from our families, willingly or not, and the patterns that we find ourselves repeating.
While it’s about female characters, I don’t think it’s just about women (or just for women). It’s about growing up, it’s about making decisions that challenge social norms, it’s about identity, family, and relationships.
The 36 stories can be read individually, but they come together to be a cohesive whole that is more than the sum of its parts.
A&U: What inspired the story?
ED: I started writing the stories in Thanks for Having Me during my undergraduate degree at the University of Wollongong. They started out as separate stories before coming together to be part of the same story world, the same family…
For example, in one of my subjects, I wrote this dark little story about two sisters whose mother is physically abusive with them after discovering the girls making their Barbie dolls have sex.
In another subject, I was in a creative writing workshop and one of my classmates brought in a story about a couple that was going through divorce. My classmate was about 19 and I was 32 at the time and separated, living in a share house away from my two primary-school-aged children, so my classmate’s story really didn’t ring true for me. So, I decided to write something that was a little more nuanced and that spoke of other ways to live in the world, other ways to be a family.
In my Honours year I wrote six of Vivian’s stories and the collection was titled ‘What We Might Become’ and I wanted to explore ideas of how we become who we are. I was particularly interested in the way that the voices and the sexuality of mothers was represented. The author Catherine McKinnon read that collection as one of my examiners and noted how absent Vivian’s mother was from those stories, so I took that provocation onboard and expanded the family when I began my PhD.
A&U: You write across three different time periods, which one was your favourite to write?
ED: I really loved researching for the Mary Anne stories and particularly enjoyed her imagined correspondence with Jane Beaumont (one of the children who disappeared in Glenelg Beach near Adelaide on 26 January 1966). I think Mary Anne has a really tough time in the book and Vivian doesn’t cut her much slack, so I liked being with Mary Anne and giving her a voice.
It was also fun to revisit the 90s of my own childhood. I got really nostalgic watching old toy commercials on YouTube and reading through old Women’s Weekly magazines on Trove to help me remember what kinds of things a lot of Aussie families would have been eating at the time.
I guess the other way to think about time periods would be to think of childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and late-adulthood. In this sense, I’d say my favourite time to write about is childhood and early adolescence. I find it so fun and juicy to write from a naïve perspective, and to play with that voice. I love the poetic way that children see the world, coupled with the potential for some dark dramatic irony.
A&U: What are your favourite books of all time?
Stoner by John Williams
Olive Again by Elizabeth Strout
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
The Little Friend by Donna Tartt
A&U: What are 3 books you read recently that you absolutely loved?
Over the Christmas period I read Normal Rules Don’t Apply by Kate Atkinson. It’s a beautiful story cycle (or set of linked stories) that I was really sad to finish.
What I’d Rather Not Think About by Jente Posthuma
Bad Art Mother by Edwina Preston
Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
Listen to the Thanks for Having Me playlist here: Thanks for Having Me - playlist by Emma Darragh | Spotify
Thanks for Having Me
By Emma Darragh
The first fiction title from JOAN, consisting of interwoven stories about three generations of women in one family as they navigate girlhood, motherhood and selfhood.
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