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A
Novel Reflection on the Smith Life
With its vivid depictions
of lifetime friendships, career and family realities,
and relationship woes and wonders, J. Courtney Sullivan’s
debut novel Commencement is enjoying critical and
commercial success. Amid her book tour, Sullivan will make
a stop at Smith on Thursday, Sept. 24, to read from Commencement and
take questions from the audience. The event, in the Campus
Center Carroll Room, will begin with a book signing at 3:30
p.m. Her reading will begin at 4:30 p.m.
Meanwhile, Sullivan
answered questions for the Gate about Smith and
her novel.
 Gate: What
inspired you to write about Smith?
J. Courtney Sullivan: I
started writing Commencement about two years after my graduation.
Northampton and the Smith campus were so fresh in my mind,
and I was growing nostalgic for the place. I was considering
a lot of questions in my own life: How do friendships change,
and how do they stay the same after college? How do you stay
close to dear friends whose day-to-day existences are so
different from your own? And how does the current generation
of young, female college graduates in America decide which
choices to make when there are so many laid out before us?
Smith is such a physically beautiful place, full of so many
interesting and complicated women. To me, it seemed an ideal
backdrop for a novel about four young females coming into
their own.
Gate: How
closely does Commencement depict your Smith experience? Is
your character Celia, with whom you have so much in common
biographically, you?
JCS: My years
at Smith were some of the best years of my life. I learned
so much, met so many wonderful friends, went through my share
of Smithie drama, and probably ate much more than my share
of banana cream pie in the King House dining hall. Commencement touches on some of my experiences, but some things—junior
year abroad comes to mind—had to be left out for the sake
of storylines or space. Most of the book is pure fiction.
There are definitely a lot of similarities between me and
Celia: we live in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn, our
upbringings were similar, we sort of look alike, and as children
we both took embarrassing Irish step dancing classes that
left us completely unable to dance like normal people. But
Celia is much more of a wild child than I ever was. She’s
fairly apolitical, while I am obsessed with politics and
women’s issues. I probably
have something in common with every one of my characters:
I share Bill’s love
of W.H. Auden and Bree’s love of Dolly Parton, and so on.
Gate: Your
four main characters represent an interesting graph along
the feminism spectrum—all feminists, one
could argue, but in their distinctive ways. Where do you
stand along that spectrum? With which of your characters
do you most relate?
 JCS: Many readers
are so convinced that I’m
Celia (perhaps the least political of the bunch) that they
actually gasp when I tell them that my version of feminism
is most closely aligned with April’s (she’s the radical of
the group.) My admiration for writers like Andrea Dworkin,
Catharine MacKinnon, Gloria Steinem, Susan Faludi, and Virginia
Woolf inspired the more overtly feminist parts of the book.
And April’s research on
the trafficking of minors and sexual discrimination in the
military is based on extensive interviews I did both in college
and as a researcher at the New York
Times. But I think some
of the more everyday stuff in the book—from changing
(or not changing) maiden names to going Dutch on dates to
having grown up with working vs. nonworking mothers—speaks
to the lives of the young women I know, myself very much
included, and gets at feminist ideas in a different sort
of way. Part of that is the question of whether young women
are willing to look at their history and recognize the sacrifices
that were made on their behalf by generations past. And also
whether they are willing to acknowledge the extent of the
discrimination that still exists. I’m surprised by how many
young women shy away from the term “feminist” (as Bree does
in the book) even as they embody what it means to be one.
Gate: How
do you respond to charges that your book does not accurately
characterize the Smith experience?
JCS: There
are many events and ideas in the story that are drawn from
real life. The intensity of the friendship between the four
main characters is very true for me. But at the end of the
day this is a novel. Commencement is a work of fiction that
uses a real place as its backdrop, and that can be tricky.
While I was writing, some people suggested that I change
the school to a fictitious women’s college, but that seemed
like a bad idea to me. I wanted it to be Smith, because the
Seven Sisters are so distinctive and have a rich history
that can’t be
conveyed by calling the place Jones Women’s
College. I never expected to write a book about Smith that
would please every single Smithie—I’m sure that would be
impossible. We are too diverse and opinionated a group for
all of us to ever be happy about the same thing at the same
time. This is just one story, there are so many more to be
told.
Gate: Who
is the intended audience for your novel? And what do you
hope readers come away with?
JCS: On its
surface, Commencement is a novel about four young women that
might mostly appeal to young women readers. But I’m always
pleasantly surprised when the occasional man in his 70s rolls
into one of my bookstore events and says he was up all night
finishing the book. Or when a mother of three who never went
to college emails me and says she enjoyed it so much. My
New York Times colleague, the op-ed columnist Nick Kristof,
wrote about my book on his blog, saying, “I found it interesting
sociologically (Ah! So that’s what women say and do when
guys aren’t around!)” That
sort of sums up the male reaction to the book so far. For
women, I think it resonates in the themes of friendship and
personal choices—something we can all relate
to, whether we went to Smith or not.
Gate: Can
you comment on the role of men in Commencement? How did Smith
shape, for you, the definition of a quality man?
JCS: I’m tempted
to say that asking how Smith shaped my definition of a quality
man is like asking how dinner at a vegan restaurant helped
me figure out my favorite cut of beef. Smith had so much
to offer socially and academically that I didn’t think much
about men when I was there. It was probably after graduation,
when dating reemerged in full (and in New York City no less)
that I began to think about the ways in which several years
at a women’s college impacted my behavior around men. On
one level it was, “Great, romance is fun. Sign me up.” On
another level it was, “Men
are bizarre. I’m not sure what to make of them.” I think
the characters in Commencement wrestle with this on many
different levels.
Gate: Can
you offer advice for aspiring writers at Smith?
JCS: The first
step, if you want to be a journalist, is to say it loud,
say it proud, and don’t be afraid of it.
Editors need ideas and aspiring, hungry writers have lots
of them. My first job was working as an assistant at Allure
magazine, and that was a great opportunity because it allowed
me to write small pieces and get my first bylines. If you’re
not working at a publication already, pitch ideas (lots of
them) to smaller newspapers and magazines. If you’re still
a student, you must write for the school paper! (I didn’t,
but you must!) The Web sites of major magazines are also
a great place to start—they need content,
and they are open to newer writers. If you don’t know any
editors personally, pitch to the names you see on a masthead.
If you’re lucky enough to get an email
response—even a rejection—pitch to that person again, or
ask them for advice. Sure, some people are too busy, but
they’ve all been where you are, and a surprising
number are very generous with their time and Rolodexes. Those
first few clips are the toughest to get, but once you do,
you’ll be amazed at how quickly other
opportunities arise. When it comes to fiction writing, I
think the most important thing is just to write—find a way
to quiet any doubting inner voices, make the time, put your
butt in the chair, and just do it. You’ll be amazed by the
results. Last thing: Learn to roll with rejection—laugh at
it, mock it, decoupage your coffee table with “Thanks, but
no thanks” letters. The writers I know who have
made it the farthest all have talent, of course, but more
importantly they have determination and grit.
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