From issue 1.9 November 2022 of Girls to the Front!
A Q&A with Katherine Alexandra Harvey, author of Quiet Time
Katherine Alexandra Harvey’s debut novel, Quiet Time, tells the story of Grace, a girl with absent parents who grew up with an “insatiable need for attention.” We follow Grace through her early twenties, bouncing between the present tense and childhood memories. The book mixes coming of age, destructive relationships, and the supernatural. It came out from Vagrant Press in fall, 2022.
The idea of Quiet Time is introduced in the book as being sort of the patriarchy’s wishes for women, how women are trained to not assert themselves or their voices. Can you explain a bit how this theme runs through the novel, maybe especially with Grace’s relationship with Jack and her father?
This idea of women being silenced is nothing new. Like you said, I wanted to show both the subtle and not so subtle ways in which these messages are imprinted on women from a young age, how we’re taught not to feel our feelings or speak our minds. How a well-behaved, unassertive girl isn’t punished or yelled at quite as much, and how these aggressions condition us for adulthood.
Grace is shown that to be quiet means to be good. Her father lays the foundation for this through his treatment of her mother. By the time she meets Jack, Grace believes this is love because it is all she ever saw with her parents. She learns to forgo her own needs and desires, to swallow everything as she puts Jack and his career ahead of herself. She spends all her time alone, her mental health and addiction worsening, as he spends all his time at his studio working until she finally snaps.
In order to recover, Grace has to find space from these negative male figures, or the patriarchy, and replace them with positive figures, which is one reason why I used therapy as the final, present timeline of this book. It forces Grace to reflect and find her voice.
Grace is studying Supernatural Folklore and Superstitions, and these make appearances throughout the novel—her great grandmother had the gift of second sight, Grace sees ghosts throughout the book, she warns Jack not to leave out a different door from the one he entered, etc. Why do you think Grace was drawn to superstition, why could she see ghosts and what role did they play in her life?
The superstition of counting crows was one of the first things I incorporated into this book. I knew the rhyme and thought, I can build something around this. I studied folklore at university, and so I have a lot of knowledge of the subject. And of course, I used it because it interests me.
In terms of its role in the story, Grace spends her life being controlled, and so she develops coping mechanisms to deal. I think when things feel out of control, you look for small ways in which you can regain some, which is why Grace counts obsessively, or cuts herself, and also why she believes in superstitions. It’s of comfort to have beliefs or small habits that protect you.
As for Grace’s ability to see ghosts, it was initially meant to make the reader question her reality. Is she actually being haunted or is she mentally ill? I felt it was a good metaphor, and it tied in with the folkloric elements of the book.
This book is also a reflection on motherhood. Grace is abandoned many times by her mother and spends the book reaching out to her, she sees the ghost of a woman who drowned her children, and she’s also plagued by infant deaths. What did you want to say about motherhood here?
Mothers are put on this pedestal in society, expected to endure everything for their kids and families, to be superhuman and neglect their own needs for everyone else’s. I wanted to challenge this idea and show that motherhood isn’t always this ideal thing. We sometimes end up being mothers when we don’t even want to be.
In the end, I wanted to write a story that healed the feminine, that brought Grace to a place of understanding, as we do when we grow up and start to understand our parents are just people operating under the limited capabilities they have been taught. It is ultimately a story about motherhood, and how we learn to forgive.
This book is structured along two semi-present time lines and then kind of a smattering of memories from Grace’s childhood. What made you decide to structure the novel this way?
Stylistically, it just made sense. I knew I wanted a fast-paced narrative; one that kept the reader following multiple timelines, to keep them engaged. It was important to me to include the flashbacks because I wanted to show how our childhoods shape us as adults, and what we have to endure in order to overcome the unconscious habits that are imprinted on us from our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. Each section is somehow linked or bled into the next. It was just an exciting way to write and to keep myself moving.
This is your first novel. I know that, often times, our debuts are stories that have been living inside of us for a long time, waiting to come out. What drew you to write this particular story?
I was going through a transitionary period and I started writing one day, not knowing what it was going to be. It just poured out of me. I worked on and off for about six years. It was an incredibly challenging story to write because it is a very personal book. Some parts are based on my own experiences, for example, Grace’s psychological notes are actually pulled verbatim from my own medical files.
I was healing and working through so many things as I wrote, so it was cathartic as hell. But I had to reach a place where I was able to let go in order to let the book go into the world. I wanted to write a story that was brutal and honest, to share those experiences of mental illness, addiction, of being wounded and growing up, finding a way unlearn all those wounds, with the hope that others would be able to relate to Grace’s story, and maybe find themselves feeling a little less alone.
What are you working on now?
I just finished a book of poetry called Tender Parts, which focuses on the discomforts of womanhood, love and loss.
I’m also writing a new novel that is set in the 1950s, with flashbacks to the 1930s, and follows a charismatic and rebellious protagonist, Iris, who runs away from her family. She is a closeted lesbian who has been in and out of mental institutions as a result of her overbearing and secretive mother, and finally has enough when her husband tries to commit her once again. She steps off the train, unbeknownst to him, at Niagara Falls to start her life over.
What would be your #1 piece of advice about the business side of writing to an emerging author?
Don’t rush the process. Publishing is the end game, it’s not the only part. Do your research on finding the right agent for you. Realize you are running a business, and that the commodity is you. Market yourself. Connect with other writers. Support others as much as you can. Read as much as possible. Read as widely as possible. Write every single day.
One thing I ask authors to do is to provide me with a song list – either songs that are inspired by your book, or maybe songs that you listened to while writing the book.
Here is Katherine Alexandra Harvey’s Quiet Time Playlist:
Blood Bank - Bon Iver
Smoke Signals – Phoebe Bridgers
I Don’t Wanna Get Over You – The Magnetic Fields
Black is Back in Style - Moonface
Don’t Know How to Keep Loving You – Julia Jacklin
Heads Gonna Roll – Jenny Lewis
‘97 Bonnie and Clyde – Tori Amos
Untouchable Face – Ani DiFranco
In The Car Outside – The Killers
Crush – Ethel Cain
Seventeen – Sharon Van Etten
Katherine Alexandra Harvey is the executive director of ReLit Literary Group, and the founder and editor of ReLit Magazine. She has been nominated for the Governor General’s History Award, the Carter V. Cooper Short Fiction Award, and WANL’s Fresh Fish Award. Her work has appeared in The Malahat Review, Exile Quarterly, Quill and Quire, 49th Shelf, Riddle Fence, The Newfoundland Quarterly, among others. Quiet Time is her first novel.