More Plains TalkAn interview with Kathleen Norris
Classic: In Dakota you wrote about Hope Church, 12 miles down a gravel road in the middle of nowhere. Is that congregation still meeting?
Norris: Yes. They’ve actually grown recently. Hope is a Presbyterian church, and there was also a small Lutheran church in the area that was dying. Despite their theological differences, the Lutherans joined Hope and became Presbyterian in order to keep another country church alive. They also donated their tiny organ, so it was the first time Hope Church had an organ. Now it’s at about 50 members, which is fine. They can survive a long time on those numbers.
Classic: What are some of your favorite books?
Norris: My all-time favorite author is Emily Dickinson. Among contemporary writers, Marilyn Robinson’s Housekeeping and The Death of Adam, a book of essays, are fantastic. I wish she’d stop teaching and write full time. I love her work. Oscar Hijuelos wrote one of the best novels about forgiveness I’ve ever read, Mr. Ives’ Christmas—beautiful book. Right now I’m reading Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth. It’s a satirical comic novel about the Irish—it’s fun to read prose that demands you pay attention. I’m rereading Atonement by Ian Mcewan because I really love the writing.
Classic: Are you in a book club?
Norris: No; I never have been. I joined a film club, and on Friday nights we meet for a little wine and watch a movie and have a conversation about it. Sometimes the director is there, which is fun. I’m addicted to Netflix, so I watch a lot of movies at night.
Classic: What’s a recent favorite?
Norris: Brokeback Mountain. To some people it’s a controversial film, but for me, the homosexuality was a minor theme. The most remarkable thing about that movie—something I did not expect when I saw it—is that it tells so much truth about rural poverty and the invisible people of the American West. The film actually made me enormously homesick. I felt as if the characters were people I had lived among for 25 years. It reminded me of how seldom they are ever depicted honestly in our culture: the way they talk—or don’t talk, the silences. That was all there, and it just stunned me.
Classic: Do you write fiction?
Norris: I’ve written one short story that was published in a tiny magazine in North Dakota and then anthologized. Writing fiction is something I’d like to do. I’ve got a character I’ve been thinking about for years, a woman from South Dakota who becomes a tourist in Hawaii and doesn’t like it there. I might do something with that; knowing the two places as well as I do, it would be easy to put them together in a fictional form. If a person is used to the dry weather of the Plains and she goes to Hawaii, she’s going to feel like she’s had a wet towel put over her face. She’s also someone very provincial visiting a place where whites are a minority, so that would also be a new experience for her. In any group in Hawaii, whites are going to be in the minority. It would be a shock for her to find herself on a bus with 40 people, and only two are white. All this gets her very disoriented—I’m playing around with that right now.
The one story I wrote was about a rodeo weekend in a small town.
Classic: Do you go to a lot of rodeos?
Norris: As few as possible.
Classic: You’re not a big rodeo fan?
Norris: Not too much. The Lemmon rodeo is the only one I’ve ever been to, and it was fun because I knew the kids in it. I wouldn’t willingly go to a really big one anywhere. It’s just not my thing. I’ve been to powwows, and I like those a lot better. Especially the Sioux traditional dancing—all the dancing is good, like the jingle dancing—but the Sioux traditional is so still. Three women will link arms, and their movements are so miniscule. It’s just this quiet, beautiful thing.