Courtesy Kathleen Finneran
Kathleen Finneran
Memoirist Kathleen Finneran, who is scheduled to interview Sally Field about her new memoir, "In Pieces," for BookFest St. Louis on Friday.
When Kathleen Finneran floated the idea of interviewing Sally Field about the actress’ new memoir In Pieces for BookFest St. Louis past organizer Kris Kleindienst, she says it was “partly in jest.” Well, maybe it wasn’t so much in jest, Finneran, the senior writer in residence at Washington University and author of the 2000 memoir The Tender Land, now reflects—Kleindienst thought it was a great idea. The actress and Finneran are now set to talk in An Evening with Sally Field, on Friday, September 21, at 7 p.m. at the Chase Park Plaza.
Field’s memoir addresses a dark topic—the actress writes that her stepfather, actor Jock Mahoney, sexually abused her when she was a child. The idea of interviewing a celebrity would be nerve-wracking for a lot of writers. However, Finneran says, “there are some things in life that make me nervous, but this isn’t one of them.” To prep, she’s been reading Field’s book, of course, and “just trying to think of ways that I might speak to the writing of the book with Sally Field that will be exciting both to writers and readers,” she says. “When I think of books, just by the nature of my profession, I think of them in terms of writing. So BookFest to me means a festival of writers, but you have to keep in mind BookFest to others means a festival of readers.”
SLM talked to Finneran about Field’s book, the BookFest panels she’s looking forward to, what she’s reading right now, and, of course, her favorite Sally Field movie.
What did you like most about In Pieces?
One thing that I thought was really intriguing was, in the book, she talks about being someone who felt she had no voice or hadn’t discovered her voice. Finding a voice as a writer is one of the key things to attain, and one of the things I found quite remarkable was how much the book was in a voice that, to me, sounds like Sally Field. I was trying to understand that, because clearly I don’t know what she sounds like, because we hear her through her characters.
That’s true—we remember her as Gidget or the Flying Nun or M'Lynn from Steel Magnolias.
I don’t know if my inclination toward that is coming from times I might have seen her interviewed on talk shows. I don’t have a strong memory of them, but I know I’ve encountered them. But the way she expresses herself in those occasions is very audible in the book. As a writer, she seems to have mastered voice her first time out as a writer.
Which BookFest panels or events are you most looking forward to (besides your own)?
I’m excited to go to the one with Michelle Tea [Mavericks and Misfits: Essays from the Fringe, Saturday at 4 p.m.]. Tea’s new essay collection, Against Memoir, is so good. I haven’t been as excited about a book in a long time.
The last event of the BookFest, at Dressel’s, is a reading from an anthology, They Said. It’s writing that is done collaboratively. I taught this course on essay and one of the assignments was that my students had to write a collaborative essay every week. One person would write a part, email it to the next person, and so on. Some of my former students submitted it, and they’re going to be reading it.
You mentioned being excited about Michelle Tea’s new book. Who else have you read and loved lately?
Maggie Nelson is another radical feminist writer who has a memoir called The Argonauts that I recommend, and the person who I immerse myself in often is Rebecca Solnit [Solnit’s most recent book, Call Them by Their True Names, was released September 4]. The Faraway Nearby is one that I love a lot.
And Wanderlust—the one about walking.
There’s nothing that she’s written that I don’t love. There’s this very, very weird book by a writer named Jean Stafford, who is mainly a fiction writer, but she wrote this book about [President John F. Kennedy’s accused assassin] Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother called A Mother in History. Stafford goes down to Texas and spends three days with Oswald’s mother after the assassination, and what she encounters is so bizarre and wild.
Is there one piece of writing advice you find really helpful?
No. [Laughs.] It’s funny because I was invited to talk to a class of beginning writers, and I feel the most important thing isn’t all that exciting or quotable, but it’s to be patient. Writing is hard, and it takes a long time. It’s not something beginning writers are cognizant of. They think if they’re having trouble bringing something to fruition, it means there’s something wrong, but it actually means there’s something right about them as a writer.
I have to ask: What’s your favorite Sally Field movie?
I loved watching her in the movie Lincoln, which isn’t a movie people think of when they think of Sally Field. But I was riveted by her performance in that movie, as I was by Daniel Day-Lewis. My mother was a big Sally Field fan. If my mother were alive, and could see me on stage with Sally Field, she would have really thought I made it.
