Once I figured out that the narrator is me and she is not me, and I was not going to punish her or drown her, then things started getting really interesting. What was it like imagining these sort of transgressive possibilities?Ĭlaire Vaye Watkins: It was extremely freeing, a real libertine exercise, and completely pleasure-driven-eventually. Jacqueline Alnes: I’ve read many books where male narrators abandon their responsibilities and pursue pleasure, it is rarer to find a novel where a woman permits herself to do the same. Over the phone, Claire Vaye Watkins and I spoke about the cultural expectations that come along with motherhood, surreal landscapes, the power-and limitations-of witnessing, and what it means to feel joyful even while tortoises are being bulldozed in the desert. There, her alter-ego Claire confronts parts of the past that continue to haunt her: the ghosts of her parents, her past, and what the land once was. Claire Vaye Watkins uses transcriptions of her deceased mother’s letters, excerpts from her deceased father’s memoir and voice recordings, and a fictionalized account of narrator Claire leaving her daughter and husband behind for a romp out West. Instead, it’s a fitting way to describe the novel. This leaving-behind of multiple choice answers and prescribed narratives does not only apply to the narrator Claire’s response to the postpartum questionnaire. And so, she breaks the form of the survey open. Where is there an option for more enjoyment than ever? Why is there no room for participants to express complicated feelings? Theo, the narrator’s husband, suggests she should write a short-answer response.

When the narrator, Claire, of Claire Vaye Watkins’ newest novel I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness takes the quiz after giving birth to her first child, she and her husband ruminate on how reductive the questionnaire is.

I heart you you haunt me book