ALL LIT UP: To start, can you talk a bit about your debut novel, The Unravelling of Ou? How would you describe it to someone picking it up for the first time?
HOLLAY GHADERY: This is such an interesting question. Thank you for it! The way I would’ve described the book before I started seeing advanced reviews and general reader responses is different from how I would describe it now.
Initially, I would’ve said it is a book that encourages us to stay playful, even when things are difficult. Especially when things are difficult. To embrace whimsy as a way of re-enchanting ourselves with the world so that we can better endure its challenges. Not so we can ignore them. But of course there’s a balance here. It’s easy to lose sight of our lives if we are perpetually living in another dimension entirely—and this state of detrimental disconnection is where Minoo, one of the protagonists of the novel, finds herself.
Now, with some reader feedback, I might perhaps talk more about how the story is an examination of how women uphold the patriarchy and the implications of bodily shame. And I think I take this explanatory approach because talking about play might make people think that the book is not serious. And it is. And because it’s a story that is entirely narrated by Minoo’s sock puppet and that unrepentantly prioritizes a neurodivergent way of seeing the world, I’m conscious of the fact that perhaps neurotypical readers might not give the book a chance if I frame it as a wild flight of whimsy.
All this said, I think both of these explanations are totally true and I suppose I’m not overly worried about how people who aren’t going to connect with the book respond to it anyway. I’m grateful for every single person who reads the novel, but I’d argue one doesn’t write a book like this, with a wacky central conceit like mine, and expect it to land with the resounding understanding of say, commercial fiction.
by Hollay Ghadery
ALU: Can we talk about the sock puppet narrator, Ecology Paul? What an unexpected and compelling narrative force! Even though their perspective is filtered through Minoo’s, they have their own personality and awareness that perhaps we wouldn’t get through Minoo’s narration alone. When did you realize Ecology Paul needed to be the only one telling the story, and what could their voice reveal that a more conventional narrator couldn’t?
HOLLAY: Thank you for your kind words! I can’t remember exactly when Ecology Paul took over the narrative, only that it happened pretty early on. I became enchanted with the puppet’s voice. I found that it comforted me and even provided me with kindness that I don’t give myself and a softer way of seeing the world than I often manage to muster.
What I do know is that reading Jade Wallace’s Anomia—which is a fascinating novel that doesn’t use any gendered pronouns—encouraged me to maintain the courage of my narrative convictions. Ecology Paul would be the sole narrator. I don’t think I even realized that Jade’s book didn’t have gendered pronouns until I was at least halfway through it. I reread the book and realized that if a book is written well and there’s a reason behind one’s decisions, you can justify almost any tactic.
The reason behind my decision was fairly simple. Ecology Paul felt like the most dependable and honest narrator of the story. This puppet was the one who could express things Minoo couldn’t, as puppets have done throughout history. Ecology Paul is a conduit through which Minoo expresses sentiments that feel too difficult to address directly.
ALU: Did Ecology Paul ever surprise you during writing? Something you didn’t anticipate that shifted the direction of a scene? How did your characters reveal themselves to you during the writing process?
HOLLAY: Ecology Paul surprised me in so far as this silly puppet proved to be kinder than perhaps I intended. When I first started writing, I thought the puppet would dole out some tough love. Tough being the operative word. As it turned out, Ecology Paul is incapable of cruelty of any sort, and is an embodiment of how kindness is not weakness. Being kind in an unkind world requires legions of strength.
ALU: There’s this line from the novel “Memories of lightness persist because of the darkness that surrounds them” that feels somewhat central to the book. As a writer, what draws you to memory on the page? Is it a tool for survival or sense-making, or is it something more instinctive? Something that returns before we’ve decided what it means?
HOLLAY: I depend on memory to add texture and context to my existence. For instance, when I am stuck in a seemingly endless OCD rumination and I feel like I’m gonna spend the rest of my life agonizing I remember that what I’m feeling I have experienced my whole life. As far back as I can remember. Even as a very young child. Somehow, I got through it then. And I can get through it now.
In this sense memory acts as a tool for survival too. In Minoo’s case, she and Ecology Paul are replaying memories as a way to account for how Minoo got to where she is: totally reliant on a sock to function.
I’m sure I do this too. I mean, I must. It felt natural to lend this quality to the story.
ALU: In the book, Ecology Paul explains that in Farsi, the language Minoo speaks, there are no words for he or she, that ou carries no gender distinction—everyone is an ou. How were you thinking about the space between language, identity, and lived experience while writing the novel?
HOLLAY: My focus writing this novel was conveying the experience of someone who is detached (both by force and choice) from who they are both physically and emotionally. I’m talking about someone who is not necessarily in between spaces but in a completely different realm than most every else. I don’t subscribe to the idea of a universal truth or a universal reality, but arguably most people have some shared experience of the world. Minoo has less shared experience than perhaps most. She’s had to create a world that feels safe to her. A world where she can function. She may microdose a shared reality now and then, but for the most part, the puppet is more engaged in reality than Minoo is.
I wanted my language to reflect this, which is also probably why there is a poetic bent to this story. I feel poetry can better express the distilled, slippery nature of being sentient.
ALU: In an earlier interview with us after you wrote your story collection Widow Fantasies, you mentioned your brain is more poetry-inclined. How did that carry over into writing your debut novel? Did this sensibility evolve in the process?
HOLLAY: I don’t think the sensibility evolved since I still wrote this book with my usual poetry inclined brain. The first draft was driven by a poetic impulse to express a feeling, perhaps more than a plot. So while the sensibility didn’t change and I still consider myself more poetry inclined, to write this novel, I did have to write a plot outline. I did have to sometimes just tell readers what was happening instead of trying to imply it the way a poem might.
I also had to write a plot map to help guide me to where I wanted to go in the end, which was more of a feeling than a concrete place. The plot map helped me get there. This was something I’ve never needed before when writing personal essays or short fiction. Before, I could hold the entirety of what I was working on in my head. With a novel, I found that impossible to do so I needed help. The map gave me that support.
ALU: Some writers have mentioned they read differently when they’re immersed in their own writing. Does that resonate with you, either in what you notice or how you engage with a book?
HOLLAY: I don’t think I read differently, but then again I’m usually always immersed in my own writing—actively or passively—so I might not register a difference. I read almost everything all of the time and live in pursuit of surprise. Blame my addict brain. I’m always trying to get a hit of astonishment. I don’t think you can plan this kind of thing so I’m not picking up books looking for it. I’m just hoping.
I do know that other writers have expressed what you mentioned, of course. It’s just not something that registers with me.
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Hollay Ghadery is an Iranian-Canadian multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, (Guernica Editions 2021) won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. She is the author of Rebellion Box (Radiant Press, 2023) and Widow Fantasies (Gordon Hill Press, 2024). She is a host on The New Books Network and HOWL on CIUT 89.5 FM, and the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township. The Unraveling of Ou, is her debut novel. Learn more about Hollay at www.hollayghadery.com.
Find a copy of The Unravelling of Ou here on All Lit Up.
