In every interview, I like to ask writers, “Is there a question you’d like me to ask?” I’m always surprised by the types of questions they’d want to ask themselves, so I decided to take the idea of the self-interview and give writers some restraints.
One. Use Who/What/When/Where/Why-ish questions.
Two. Have fun.
Today, we have Melissa Fraterrigo, author of the memoir The Perils of Girlhood, the novel Glory Days, and a collection of short fiction, The Longest Pregnancy: Stories. Outside of writing, she is the executive director of the Lafayette Writer’s Studio in Lafayette, Indiana, and teaches at Purdue University.
Let’s turn it over to Melissa Fraterrigo.
When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I knew I wanted to be a writer pretty early on. I loved stories as a child and in the first grade, Mrs. Pepkowski had us create stories of our own with construction paper, and I remember sitting at my desk and writing my story with a crayon. It was called “The Littlest punkin” [sic]. I believe I was inspired because I had read a book that Christmas called “the Littlest Angel.” In my story, like a lot of the things that I’ve written, it was darker in nature. I don’t remember much of the story except for the pumpkin, a dagger, a missing black dog that was likely based on our own mutt, J.R. What I do remember is how much fun it was to sit at my desk and create something from my imagination, put it on paper, and then later watch as my mom’s face kind of blossom as she read my story.
Why do you think there’s such an interest in memoir?
I think that as much as we all walk around disliking ourselves, we are also simultaneously curious about our experiences and the possibility that they might be considered unique or remarkable. It’s kind of like those folks that are certain that somehow they are going to live forever. Memoir is one of the last places where you can wonder and reflect and do so with something close to love.
Which essays from The Perils of Girlhood do you wish you could give a younger version of yourself to read?
If I had to give a younger version of myself an essay, I’d probably offer her “The Perils of Girlhood,” which initially appeared in The Offing. It follows the true story of a murder that took place in Delphi, Indiana, in 2017, when two girls–Liberty German and Abigail Williams, who had gone out for a hike on an unseasonably warm day, were found murdered. The essay also brings in two additional time periods: my life now as a mom to twin girls, and the fear culture of the 1980s. Younger me loved reading the newspaper and true crime. She’d be interested in Liberty and Abigail’s story because of their age, but the essay also attempts to get at what it means to be female and to live with fear. I think younger me would have felt emboldened by the idea she was not alone with the discomfort of her body or the way that a man’s gaze could compel her to question herself.
What did you have to learn in order to write essays instead of fiction?
I’ve previously published two books of fiction, but I’ve found my home in memoir, in making sense of a life on the page. Fiction taught me the importance of play and how to be inventive in form and approach. The essays in The Perils of Girlhood are lyrical and experimental and let me lean into the limitations of memory by highlighting epiphanies and moving beyond temporal limitations of time.
When I was writing fiction, most of my stories were magical realism– “The Shark Swimmers” was about a family that swam with sharks and “The Longest Pregnancy” followed a woman who was pregnant for seven years straight. In fiction, I leaned into imagination and what if? These were not thinly veiled personal anecdotes. I had to use my senses to detail what was in hopes that readers not just felt as if they were present in a moment, but that they could empathize with me. Fiction taught me to imply events and ideas rather than spell them out so that readers were active participants in the meaning making.
In memoir, I had to challenge myself to figure out what I thought and get that on the page in a way that not just served me and my experience, but worked as a sort of portal through which others could reflect on their own experiences.
Why do think The Perils of Girlhood appeals to readers of various generations and genders?
I’ve been floored by the response to the book. I spent much of the summer agonizing over how my mom–who could not make it through the manuscript during edits–and other women might feel about the book, but the response has been so heartening. I met a woman the other day who talked about the essay, “Cotton,” and how it resonated with her own experience of growing breast buds and her father noticing this and touching her in jest. “Cotton” is a sort of triptych with three strands–when I first became aware of my breast tissue, recollections of seeing breasts in movies like Airplanes and Animal House and Sixteen Candles, and then my first experience messing around with a boy and him touching my breasts. But the book has also struck a chord with male readers. A male college-age student came up to me after a reading last week and said that he’d always had a crush on one of his coaches when he was an adolescent and had written about the experience several times but couldn’t capture it. “You wrote so beautifully,” he said.
What do you do when you’re stressed out?
I bake. I grew up in a family where food was pretty important to us, and my grandmas in particular, used to spoil us with all kinds of delicious treats. During the pandemic, I got in touch with that inclination, and my daughters and I would bake a little bit of everything banana bread studded with chocolate chips, gluten free croissants,
oatmeal cookies with craisins (one of my daughters hates raisins). And I just find that when I’m stressed out, nothing makes me happier than putting on a Spotify playlist, placing the butter on the counter to soften, taking out the canisters of flour and sugar, and letting the mixer do its thing. When my girls were younger and they came home from school and saw that I baked something, they would cheer. Now that they are in high school, I don’t get such enthusiastic responses, but I’ve learned to simply enjoy the contentment of a chocolate chocolate chip cookie.