I’ll Talk, You’ll Fill That Notebook

Sex, Shock and Killing Yourself Off With Frankie Barnet

Fringe ArtsSara McCulloch — Published August 11, 2011

He catalogued the elements that surprised him the most—things he had never seen in past submissions: it was written from a male perspective, which Allen liked because here was a writer who wasn’t confining herself to a point of view; but it was also misogynistic, racist, and explicit.

The piece was too risky to publish, but this was the first time Jack had read a story where gender framed the context: it was a commentary from a female perspective written from a male point of view. (You can read her new story, “The Normal Things That You Do,” here.)

The details she can pinpoint are telling in just how much she takes on the role of her characters: “They had been together in the shower, I had heard. This probably meant that she had her period, not many girls were worth staining the sheets.” There are moments of insight that come out of meaningless, yet intimate details. These are the types of subtle features that draw you into a story.

But first, I wanted to know about that first story.

“The story centered around this lonely professor,” said Barnet. “His wife has just left him. And now he’s in a bar with one of his students. He’s infatuated with this student. There are some homosexual undertones, but I wasn’t really conscious of them when I was writing the story. The student was this bro, and he was talking about girls he had had sex with. So the professor and the student are telling these really dirty jokes. They both get off on it.”

What kind of dirty jokes do they get off on?

“Silly ones, like ‘Why was 6 scared of 7?’”

I don’t know. Why?

“Because 7 ate 9.”

Oh.

“See? That kind of a guy. I write about assholes. Most of these stories have happened to other people before, or they’re stories I’ve heard before. But I like to add a bit of a twist to things—like filling in details, or adding a different story to what I’ve already heard. But I don’t retell the stories: I change the order around, I add things, I cut things out.”

So what inspired the second story you submitted?

“My old roommate. I wanted to write a story for her based on these two guys who lived down the street from us. I wanted to write little scenarios about them. It was funny for us to read. That girl Rebecca—she’s actually me. Wait, I’ve never done things like that before, but she is me, in a way. I kill myself off like that in my stories. I only started doing this when I was much more confident in a story I wrote.”

Wait, you kill yourself off in a story when you like the story?

“Yeah. I write about myself through the eyes of someone else—like how I think others think of me. People write about themselves all the time – the stories in workshops are always in the first person, and it’s so annoying. It’s shallow and one-dimensional.”

How do you think others perceive you?

“ I guess I would say I don’t really know what I think other people think of me. In terms of my work, I sort of assume the worst. I know that’s not a good answer but I really don’t know.”

Rebecca, the girl in Barnet’s story, has just died in a car accident. The only way the reader knows of her is through the small episodes in the protagonist’s memory. The protagonist knew her as a child, and he’s now reflecting on his own mortality through her death and her life.

And the world is even smaller in a short story: his roommate was sleeping with her not too long before her death. (He eventually moves on: “…that other girl had been coming around; she had bigger breasts than Rebecca and was taller.”) So where did this all stem from?

“I like to write stories that deal with heavy stuff. I write about death a lot. I like to handle the heavy stuff in a particular way. That first story I submitted to Jack—that was a story from a professor I love so much. He told us this story about a time when he attended a frat party with one of his students. His student was pointing out all the girls ‘he fucked,’ and then started calling them dirty sluts. My professor couldn’t understand this–that a guy who wanted to sleep with a girl would use sex against her after she had slept with him. That he could hate a girl who had slept with him. He just couldn’t understand that. Neither can I, so I tried to.”

Well, the same goes for a girl who doesn’t end up sleeping with a guy.

“Yeah. That’s funny too. She’s a prude, or a tease, or something. She can’t win no matter what.”

On the topic of sex in stories, it is difficult to talk about. Often, writers include them for the wrong reasons. Others incorporate a sex scene because the interactions between the two characters, and not the act itself, can be telling.

“People rarely date here, which is weird. They sleep together, though. So the idea that people try to move so far away from the self in a sex scene by saying “making love” just isn’t genuine.”

“There’s a fine line that you can cross very easily,” explained Barnet. “There is certainly this anxiety around sex and it’s definitely interesting to write about. It’s uncomfortable—people can’t deal with this discomfort. You know, those people who write “making love” in a short story. It’s like they can’t talk about it.”

What do you mean?

“People are always writing about personal stuff and there are these weird connections in Montreal. Also, people rarely date here, which is weird. They sleep together, though. So the idea that people try to move so far away from the self in a sex scene by saying “making love” just isn’t genuine. I think I’m trying to move away from sex scenes though; I shouldn’t write about them anymore. I also need to be less explicit.” (In Barnet’s story, Rebecca is known for masturbating with an assortment of things.)

So what do you think you’ll write about?

“Well, I’m working on this story right now. I was staying with a friend. His roommate goes to this laundromat and he never puts coins in. He does his laundry close to closing time because the man there always waits and pays for him. So this one night, the same thing happens, but this time the man tells him to stop by in two hours. They exchange numbers to arrange for a pick up. It’s pouring rain and the man calls. He offers to pick him up and drive him there because it’s raining. The man finally picks him up and he starts pouring his heart out to the roommate.”

What does he say?

“He shares his life story, and then ends the conversation by telling him his girlfriend is dying of cancer.”

Wow. So do you think he waited around for your friend because he needed to talk?

“I don’t know. I’m going to fill in all those details.”

At this point, our conversation turns to storytelling, but it could have turned to broken telephone because Barnet likes to take these stories she’s caught wind of, and then revises and restyles them.

So what do you read, and how does that affect your writing?

“Right now I read for enjoyment and I re-read books I like or really connect to. I still read a certain amount each month, but I’m much less self-conscious about what and who I read. I’m so much less focused on being ‘well-read,’ because reading really influences what I write.”

Who are you reading and re-reading?

“Don Delillo’s White Noise. I like his voice and I like how deals with the heavy stuff—in this funny-but-not kind of way. It’s clever.”

What’s your favourite scene or theme from White Noise _?_

“The part where everybody’s sharing stories, in their own style. They’re all kind of performing, too. I don’t usually do readings because I don’t really think my stories are the kind you can read out loud. I also don’t always love readings. I usually attend them so I can get to know the writers. That’s what’s kind of lacking from readings—that performance. When I say that readings could be less boring if the readers were conscious of performance, I don’t want them to cheapen the writing; it’s not necessary. But you can still put on a show. The problem lies in the selection of the story: what selection to choose from for a reading. What will read well. What will people respond to.”

That scene from White Noise Barnet is referring to is the one where Jack and the New Yorkers sit around and talk about defecating across the United States and then they each go around answering the question “Where were you when James Dean died?” But before that, the protagonist (Jack) recalls this: “He once told me that the art of getting ahead in New York was based on learning how to express dissatisfaction in an interesting way. The air was full of rage and complaint. People had no tolerance for your particular hardship unless you knew how to entertain them with it.”

Then Frankie quickly adds what motivates her to write: “I try to get myself in a particular mindset. I go on Facebook and I look at pictures of boys with their girlfriends. Then I get super sad, but that’s the mood I want because it brings out this fight in me—like I’m going to prove them all wrong.”