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Women Asking Women: Brit Griffin & Mackenzie Nolan
In our final Women Asking Women conversation, Brit Griffin, author of The Haunting of Modesto O’Brien (Latitude 46 Publishing), and Mackenzie Nolan, author of Veal (ECW Press) explore the monsters in their stories, the magic of rural settings, and female agency.
In honour of Women’s History Month, we asked women writers from across the country to pair up and interview each other about their process, their inspirations, and everything in between.
Interview: Brit Griffin & Mackenzie Nolan
BRIT GRIFFIN: Hey there Mackenzie, very nice to meet you and your new book! So—thinking about that title [Veal]. What a word—one of those particular ones that sounds like it means, such an uncomfortable and even repulsive word—on so many levels. And it brings the reader to an uncomfortable place too, the young women/young meat/young animals—what were you trying to tell us by naming your novel that?
MACKENZIE NOLAN: Hello, hello, so lovely to meet you as well! And to answer your question, I wanted a title which was both visceral and simple—something small which packed a punch. I’m so happy to hear you took it as such!
The title speaks for many, many elements in the novel. Primarily, it represents the boxes we are put in, whether it be by parents, friends, heteropatriachal expectations, etcetera, etcetera. To be made small by the box you are put in, and unable to grow outside of it, is a major theme for every character in the book, in their own unique ways.
This sentiment continues in how the serial killings haunt the town. There were countless young women slaughtered, and consequently, they are unable to grow old. Trauma works in the same way. You see these characters who are frozen in place, unable to move forward, and it’s for a multitude of reasons. Franky in particular represents this idea; she has been placed in a box from the trauma her father left behind, and cannot escape, no matter how hard she tries.
The second, more gruesome purpose behind the title is what the monster represents: violence against women. The whole “scared meat tastes better” idea was one I played with a lot, in having the monster’s behaviour work as an allusion to a patriarchal society. The idea that women who are scared, trapped, are easier to consume, easier to digest. Tastier. It’s one which informed every piece of the story.
When I first discovered what veal was, only a few years ago, I remember thinking to myself, “wow, what a metaphorically rich food item.” There’s a lot to mine from that, and I feel like I’ve mined it for all it’s worth.
MACKENZIE: What an honour to be paired with you, and what a stunning novel you’ve written! My first question is something we have in common, which is the utilization of a rural community as both the setting and foundation of the novel’s magic/folklore. I was wondering what inspired you in the creation of this setting, and how small-town culture shaped the development of each character and their story?
BRIT: When it comes to landscapes I consider myself a serial monogamous. There seems to me something important in paying close, intimate attention to the land I actually live on—perhaps it is my pathway to atonement for all the wrongs of the human species, to be devoted to a place even if it is a place of wrack and ruin—which it is. So when I walk, it is the same walk, the same nearby places, not much of a hiker or explorer in that sense—and where I live is what I write about. It helps that the town I live very near was an outlandish place, where everything at one point was extreme and heightened and very dramatic; now there is just the post-industrial aftermath, dramatic in its own way. Also, both towns, Cobalt and your Mistaken Point, they almost seem like places out of myths or fables—and that name, Mistaken Point! There is a literary power, I think, to places that seem like they shouldn’t be real but are.
BRIT: Your monster. This bits and parts being—a nod to Shelley or were you perhaps tapping into other myths or stories that have been of interest/meaning to you? So how did you conjure up this monster?
MACKENZIE: The monster, oh the monster. What a journey me and that monster had throughout the writing and editing process! It’s certainly a nod to Shelley, as I feel that it’s hard to write horror, particularly creature horror, without referencing Shelley.
My editor Pia and I actually had many conversations on this topic—what the monster means to me, and what it represents in the story. Essentially, I wanted to conjure a mystical creature of terror, which aligned with the moments of organic terror in a traumatized and haunted community. What does it mean to personify violence? What does it mean to see a creature that wants to hurt women? Is it a neighbourhood man? Or is it a horrific monster? Is it both? These questions are explored throughout the story, as well as in the structure itself; I wanted to create a world where violence against women can take its truest form: a gory, horrific creature, which no one wants to acknowledge or see.
MACKENZIE: What was the main message or theme you hoped to convey with writing [The Haunting of Modesto O’Brien], or rather, what inspired you to write it? I always love to hear this directly from the author, as when the book is released into the world, countless readers will take countless things from a novel, so it’s always interesting to hear the original intent.
BRIT: It’s like the childhood event that lies at the core of the story has been waiting, always present, slipping around inside my head waiting for some outlet of expression—sure you have to have scenes and events from your past that dog you and then feed into your writing. For me, that the event, of having watched a boy dragged out in front of all of us school children to be held down and have his hair cut, fundamentally changed my entire character, my point of view in the world. It was so jarring, so visceral. For me it really was tectonic. So, finally finding a way to write about it in a way that was able to show how it transcended the schoolyard and was part of the weird toxic masculinity that permeates so much of our existence, I think it was very good for me. I think what I wanted to say is that these small violences, the casual humiliations, whether of fellow humans or creatures or the land itself, are part of a systemic diminishment of the power of creation, of the female divine. It was also important for me so shift the narrative away from female victim/male aggressor, to explore a way of imagining female power and agency—this led to the revenge thread in the book, something that emerges in your book as well!
BRIT: Did you have your ending before you began? Endings are always of interest to me as I can’t really write a story without knowing how it ends, but some writers I probably write more organically, maybe let the story lead them to an ending?
MACKENZIE: Fun question! I find it different for every project. Veal, to my memory, was one where the ending came first. Or, almost first. I had the concept for Franky, her monster hunt, and her relation to the monster hunt and serial killings first. Then came the ending, which stayed almost exactly the same through many phases of edits. Franky’s final monologue and the last page, which calls the reader’s perspective into question, was a direction I always knew the story would end up in. It’s the thesis of the entire book, in my mind. A question of belief, which was seeded through the entire story.
MACKENZIE: I was drawn deeper into the book by your use of perspective. Did you find it a natural flow, to plot out which character point of view would occur at which moment, or was it more of a jigsaw process, in which pieces were moved around and slotted in as necessary?
BRIT: I see a scene, hear voices, like eavesdropping almost, and then write it down. So, there isn’t a lot of intentionality in terms of which character’s voice or point of view emerges. I sort of meet the characters first, catch a glimpse of them, and then once they have sort of inhabited my imagination, they reappear more frequently, probably more vividly too. I’d be driving and there would be Lucy or Modesto, saying or doing something, then another scene and the story slowly builds until I see the ending, which is sometimes quite early in the imagining process—then I start to write the story. So yes, I guess kind of like a jigsaw, which is a nice way of thinking about it.
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Brit Griffin is a writer & researcher living in Northern Ontario. The Wintermen III: At the End of the World, is the third novel in her cli-fi trilogy was released in 2020 by Latitude 46. The Wintermen (2014), and the sequel, The Wintermen II: Into the Deep Dark (2018) were also released by Latitude 46.
Griffin works as a researcher for Timiskaming First Nation, an Algonquin community in north-western Quebec. She lives in Cobalt, Ontario with her husband, and is the mother of three daughters.
Mackenzie Nolan was born and raised in Newfoundland. Working professionally as a social worker for several years, she found herself better suited to writing interpersonal dynamics, rather than solving them. She lives in St. John’s, NL. Veal is her debut novel.
Many thanks to Brit and Mackenzie for this thoughtful exchange on how horror can become a form of reclamation.
Order The Haunting of Modesto O’Brien here and Veal here, or from your local bookseller.
Thanks for following our Women Asking Women series for Women’s History Month this year. Missed the other conversations? Find them all here.
