A selection of books mentioned in Hunter Mclendon's interview with Kate Milliken for The Book Slut.

HM: Were there any books that inspired this story, or that inspire your writing in general? 

KM: So many, but for this book I wanted to write toward the work of Annie Proulx, Joy Williams, Claire Vaye Watkins. Women writers of the American West who tackle all the realms—ecological, political, spiritual, and in prose that has its own terrain, a grit and beauty. I also read several memoirs by female photojournalists: Lynsey Addario’s It’s What I Do, Deborah Copaken Kogan’s Shutterbabe, Kate Brook’s In the Light of Darkness, and several pieces on Dickey Chapelle. There was a time in my life that I wanted to be a photojournalist and I lived that dream out just a little through Rory. 

HM: I love that you mentioned Annie Proulx. I actually compared your work to hers in my review. I can also get a sense of Watkins and Williams. I found that the way you wrote about setting and your economy of language was so similar to Proulx in all of the best ways. Is there any of her work in particular that you were drawn to? 

Also, Speaking of Claire Vaye Watkins, her novel Gold Fame Citrus is speculative fiction. I think with how well you constructed the world and characters in Kept Animals, it would be really interesting to see you delve into that genre. Would that ever interest you? Or do you prefer more grounded stories? Do you have any interest in exploring more genre-specific fiction?

KM: I definitely return to Proulx’s short stories the most often. The story “A Lonely Coast,” provided the epigram for Kept and set a tone for me. When I was teaching I sometimes opened new classes by reading the first line from “The Half-Skinned Steer” as a kind of challenge: this is what a sentence can do!

“In the long unfurling of his life, from tight-wound kid hustler in a wool suit riding the train out of Cheyenne to geriatric limper in this spooled-out year, Mero had kicked down thoughts of the place where he began, a so-called ranch on strange ground at the south hinge of the Big Horns.”

Kicked down thoughts is just so great. I’d have students write simplified versions of Proulx sentences, an exercise meant to show the elevation of her language, how it’s always in-character, always of the place she’s writing about. Paring it down, writing in reverse, actually reveals how much a sentence’s meaning is deepened with each pass, how much you can strip away and what is lost. I probably love the stories the most because I could teach them. But talk about a writer who can hold everything. 

And yes, I so admired Gold Fame Citrus. I read it when I was about halfway through Kept Animals and I worried there was no reason for me to continue, that she’d said what needed to be said about the environment and motherhood and their relationship. Actually her short story “Rondine Al Nido” was what gave me the bravery to look at the female friendships of my youth. That’s such a powerful story. But, to answer your question, I don’t think I’ll adhere strictly to realism. Especially given the science fiction reality of our present lives, I think I’ll let my imagination escape however it needs.

Read the review of Kept Animals here and the full interview with Kate Milliken here.

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