February 1998
Turning fact into fiction
Review by Laura Reynolds Adler
T. Coraghessan Boyle had recently moved to Montecito, California, and was working on his sixth novel, "The Tortilla Curtain," when he came across an article in the newspaper: "A Local Curiosity: The McCormicks." It was the same McCormicks that the 49-year-old author had read about in a book on the grand estates of the area.
That is, Stanley McCormick, son of the inventor of the reaper, heir to a fortune, and a paranoid schizophrenic and sexual maniac. And Katherine Dexter, scientist, suffragette, and Stanley's loyal and heroic wife, who continued to love him though he was forbidden all contact with women, including and especially her, from 1908 to 1928.
Boyle has written a dark and tender novel about Stanley and Katherine entitled "Riven Rock." With its ripe, poetic language and idiosyncratic humor, "Riven Rock" could be the work of no one but Boyle, but it is less satirical and more heart-rending than his previous offerings, an emotionally charged novel by one of our finest enchanters.
Although Boyle says the 13 and a half exhausting, intense months he spent writing "Riven Rock" left him feeling "completely obliterated," he seems to have made a thorough recovery. The author was in fine form as spoke with BookPage in a phone interview from his rental cabin in the Sequoia mountains of California, where he spends two to three months a year.
BookPage: You frequently write about people that society dehumanizes: the mentally ill, illegal immigrants, addicts. Why do they hold such an appeal for you?
T. Coraghessan Boyle: Well, I think we have to go back to my early psychiatrists to answer this question. [Laughs.] No. Um. A lot of the characters I write about are marginalized by society in one way or another. And I suppose that speaks very deeply to me and what I think about and believe in. I come from a very poor background myself. . . . So I kind of know what it's like on both sides of the fence because now I'm very successful, and I have everything that I could want. But unlike maybe others who have the same things that I have now, I have a slightly different perspective on it because I didn't always have it.
BP: Why did you want to tell the story of Stanley and Katherine?
TCB: It was a way to talk about the division between the sexes in America, particularly from the turn of the century on, when the women's movement was starting to evolve. It was a way to talk about fidelity in a relationship, to talk about sex in a relationship, to talk about marriage. How difficult is it to give yourself over to some other person and to be natural and to be sexual? To be an animal really. Which is what our sexual root is. All of those questions were very interesting to me in tracing the story of Stanley and Katherine. And ultimately, I think it becomes a story about fidelity. Katherine did stick with him his entire life. And so did his nurses.
BP: You did a wonderful job of conveying why Katherine loves Stanley. In the courtship scenes we get to see Stanley as he was before the worst of his illness. You really managed to convey the sweetness of the man; I wanted to pull him out of the book and hug him.
TCB: That's really nice of you to say because I think that's the hardest thing. Here you have a sex maniac, a giant guy who beats up and assaults women. How do you make it credible that his wife would love him and stay with him? You have to make him -- make his whole plight -- tragic but sympathetic. As with Katherine and Eddie O'Kane [Stanley's longtime nurse]. But especially with Katherine. To me, she is really the center of the book, and becomes the hero of the book. Her story is pretty much heartbreaking.
BP: How much of the novel is factual and how much is fictional?
TCB: Well, as with "The Road to Wellville," the most bizarre things are true. In fact, this is more true than "Wellville" was. Eddie O'Kane is fictional, but he's very strongly based on a composite of some of the other nurses who were with Stanley his entire life. All the rest is true.
Where did I get the information? Since Stanley was declared incompetent and was heir to millions of dollars, each year it had to be shown and demonstrated to the court in Santa Barbara that he remained incompetent. Otherwise, anybody could say: "My rich wife is incompetent and she can't tie her shoelaces, let's put her away and I'll cash the checks." So in the report to the court each year were extensive documents from the psychiatrists. . . .
BP: Is the act of writing a largely depressing book like "Riven Rock" a depressing experience?
TCB: To me, the experience of writing the novel is exhilarating because the themes are unfolding and it's coming together as a whole. That's the joy of doing it. And I think that far outweighs any kind of consideration as to whether things are depressing. I think a lot of my work is very depressing, you know? [Laughs.] I think my world view is very depressing. But that doesn't mean that I can't take tremendous joy in doing the work itself.
Laura Reynolds Adler lives in New York City and regularly interviews authors.
Riven Rock, by T. Coraghessan Boyle
Viking, $24.95, ISBN 0670878812
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