Wayward Saints

A Conversation with Suzzy Roche
What inspired you to turn to writing novels after a career of making music as part of the Roches?
Honestly, the Roches were not touring and I had no job and no prospects, but I did write a children’s book for Random House (due out in 2013) and I figured I had enough money to live for six months. It was one of those now or never moments. I had to depend entirely on myself, sit down and create something out of absolutely nothing, and hope that it would mean something to someone, including myself.
Maybe because I was trained as an actress, I’ve always loved working with characters and realized how, through them, you can express ideas. Even when I perform music onstage, I think of myself as a character. I had been writing stories for years, but didn’t really have the nerve to try to write a novel. I took a short story I had written and set about expanding it. I spent the summer in my pajamas working on the book every day as if it were my job. I kept it to myself because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to do it. But I figured if I put in the hours, something would happen. It turned out to be a magical experience. I started to live and dream the book, and once I finished a first draft, it was a joy to spend the next year revising. I probably could have worked on it forever. But lo and behold, thanks to my agent, Gail Hochman, and my friend Meg Wolitzer––both led me through several revisions––the book was sold. I’m so grateful.
How is the process of writing a novel similar to writing music? How is it different?
For me, one important similarity between writing music and writing a novel is the way time slows down in the process. When you catch that creative wave, there’s nothing like it, you become super aware of everything that’s happening around you. Maybe it’s a bit like meditating. Of course, the wave ebbs and flows, so when it ebbs, you feel lost. But constructing a sentence is very similar to constructing a melody. It’s trial and error, attention to detail, a good deal of luck, and some whimsy. I consider myself a beginner as both a novelist and a musician. These are lifelong pursuits. There is no end to what I have to learn, and practice is the only way I know how.
There are big differences, too. A song is much shorter than a novel! Perhaps another difference is that a song generally expresses a single idea, where a novel is more complex. But that’s not to say that a song can’t be complex or that a novel can’t be simple.
Wayward Saints includes many nods and winks at the music industry. Is there a specific experience from your time in the music business that inspired a moment or event in Wayward Saints?
The opening scene in Wayward Saints bears a slight resemblance to something that actually happened. I have a fleeting memory of standing backstage in a smoky club in England somewhere, peeking through the curtain, scared to death because there were so many skinheads in the audience. But it’s just a flash, and everything else that happens in the chapter is fictional. Though there are little snippets of reality woven throughout the book, the story is by no means autobiographical. But I have experienced the music world from many angles, and I wanted to show as many of them as I could.
Is there a particular author whose work influenced you in the writing of this book?
I read constantly while I was writing, but the books that I found myself craving were Larry McMurtry’s Streets of Laredo, Lonesome Dove, and Comanche Moon. I love those books and have read them more times than I care to admit. But, specifically for my book, I needed courage. I never had the opportunity to study formally, from an early age I was busy singing, touring and recording, always running to catch up. My book is full of scrappy, uneducated people. Though I’m sure Larry McMurtry is a genius and probably very well schooled, the characters in those books are, for the most part, autodidacts, making sense of the world on their own, and I adore them, and his compassion for them.
Who have you discovered lately? What writers are you reading?
Fabulous books I’ve recently read:
Just finished Meg Wolitzer’s first draft of her new novel, The Interestings
Patricia Marx’s Starting from Happy
Mary Gordon’s The Love of My Youth
Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Marriage Plot
David Rakoff’s Half Empty
Re-read for the umpteenth time A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene Anne Sexton’s The Complete Poems—a bedside companion Margaret LeRoy’s The Soldier’s Wife
I also belong to a wonderful writers’ group and am very inspired by my fellow writers.