Fiction Scribe

Hello everyone! Today I bring you a special bonus interview for this week.

Joining us today is Cheryl Snell, the author of the novel Shiva’s Arms. I hope you’ll join me in welcoming her to the site.

Hello and thank you for stopping at Fiction Scribe, Ms. Snell. Tell the readers a bit about yourself.

Thanks for having me, Jaime. I was trained as a classical pianist, and performed and taught music for many years. When I married into a Hindu Brahmin family, I began to write seriously to make sense of my new situation. Over the past six years, I have published three poetry collections, and earned several Pushcart Prize nominations. I am on staff at Alsop Review as book reviews editor.

What brought you into the world of writing? When did you start?

I can’t remember a time when I did not scribble. I’d write poems for family birthdays and little pieces to amuse my father. My love of words can be traced to him, I think. At the table, he would recite Chaucer, Coleridge and Robert Burns, complete with brogue. He had a great library, and I had the full run of it.

You’ve recently published your novel Shiva’s Arms. Could you tell us a bit about the book?

It’s a literary novel that crosses cultures and genres. It has religious and political elements, and some readers have called it a love story. Here’s a brief synopsis—

When Alice marries Ramesh, she is plunged into a battle of wills with her mother-in-law, named Shiva for the Hindu god of Creation and Destruction. The older woman usurps Alice’s authority in her own home, and never lets her forget her lowly place in the Indian joint-family. On one annual visit, the power struggle between the women is interrupted when a family secret is revealed that costs Shiva both her health and her reputation. It is up to Alice to heal the rift between them, as the story evolves into an exploration of freedom and duty, rootlessness and belonging, cultural identity and the meaning of home.

What inspired you to write Shiva’s Arms? Where did the idea begin?

I wanted to get my husband’s stories about growing up in India on paper before they changed under the weight of time and new information. My own position in his family as a permanently “unsuitable bride�? offered me built-in conflict and a wealth of detail, a good platform on which to explore the “householder�? stage of Indian life known as samsara.

It’s a nice word, isn’t it—the sibilance that connotes drowning. In my reading, I found myself drawn to the stories of immigrant families thrashing in their domestic seas. The plight of characters who straddle two continents, the lives they make here, and the families they leave behind, raised the question: when one belongs to two cultures, which part of a divided self goes, and what stays? I thought it would be interesting to pit an American believer in individual freedom against a traditional Indian joint-family.

Obviously the book has a lot of cultural ties. What kind of research did you do for the book?

I read books on India, the culture, the history. I learned to cook the cuisine. I read new Indian writers, fiction and non fiction. But the most useful research came from my personal observation of divided loyalties among new immigrants. We live in a multi-cultural neighborhood, so I have been able to speak to many women Shiva’s age who identify with her struggle. They approved of her meddling ways, and her determination to carry her old traditions with her to America.

These reactions balanced my American point-of-view, and helped me give my story universality.
One reader asked me how I can write about the ‘other’. I can write about this community because I do not truly belong to it. Being a perpetual outsider, standing in the doorway, is a good place to eavesdrop on people with divided loyalties figuring it all out.

What character do you relate to the most and why?

People often ask me if I am Alice. I tell them she has my long hair and my quirky fashion sense, but her character is influenced by my fictional universe and the demands it makes on her. After all, even a true story is held hostage to memory and interpretation. When fictional truth wins over nostalgia, the story finds its own voice. I am not Alice, but I know her very well.

What is your favourite part of the book?

I liked the way the Christian ideal of reconciliation grew organically out of the women’s responses to each other. The scene where Alice and Amma work together on the doll ceremony display is pivotal to how the women heal one another.

Are there any authors who have inspired you in your writing?

Alice Munro for her wisdom, Tolstoy for how he weaves the social fabric of a time and place into personal drama. The poets Levertov, Merwin, Rich, Emily Dickinson, and Tomaz Salamun. The essayists and storytellers Kundera, Stegner, Maxine Hong Kingston, Louise Erdrich, Italo Calvino, Arundhati Roy.

What are you working on now?

I’m following Nela back home, after Amma’s crisis has passed. In the course of editing the manuscript, I began to want to know her better. In the new book, I’m giving her an environment where she can continue to go against cultural and sexual stereotype. She tries to live authentically, and is willing to pay the price for her choices. Her search for self, the quest for love, and the power struggle between equals, are all developed more fully. She finally finds what she really wants, as opposed to what she thinks she wants.

What are your dreams for your writing?

There’s interest from a movie producer in Shiva’s Arms. That should about do it!

When you’re not writing novels, what do you do? How do you find time to write?

I think of writing as my job, and put it first. I use bits and pieces of time, having long ago given up on the idea that some ideal stretch of uninterrupted hours will appear in my schedule. I’m always thinking about my current project, planning it out in my mind. When I get to the computer, I have a good idea about what I want my characters to do. The interesting part is that they don’t always agree.

Do you have any advice for writers?

Read more than you write, and write every day. Then revise. Don’t be afraid to “kill your darlings.�?

Thank you very much for your time.

I appreciate yours!

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If you liked this interview, check out my interview with Shobahn Bantwal.