#17
January 21, 2003
From: Lindsey Main

(See Lindsey's previous question if you need to catch up on the conversation.)

Dear Kelley,

Chocolate milkshakes.

Ah. Damn...And I'm usually pretty good with metaphors. I pulled a Buckner on that one (Red Sox player, ball went flying between his legs, lost the world series, attempted suicide after the game, but the bus went between his legs). I completely missed it. I thought the crocodile was a metaphor for madness...

I am new to science fiction and have been reading more and more of it since last month..trying to understand the scientific part of it. I think I overlooked the metaphor in order to understand something that I didn't really need to...which is crazy...when I was in highschool, I lived for metaphors...and even crazier when, here, it's kind of the whole point. Well, now that I know the crocodile is a metaphor for that fear you mentioned, I'm going to reread Solitaire.

take care,
Lindsey

No Buckners here, amiga. You didn't misread. The crocodile is certainly a metaphor for madness. That's even made explicit in the text ("She wanted to lie back and rest in the jaws of madness.") It's just that I think the equation "well, she was alone for a really long time so she went nuts" is too simplistic. Madness, like anything else, is a specific experience. So it was my job to imagine it specifically, and to make it particular to Jackal. That's why I describe the crocodile as being one embodiment of her fear—she is so afraid of "not being herself" that her fear threatens to pull her apart and swallow her up.

I believe this happens. Things we fear come to rule our lives, if we allow it. Jackal's fear is influencing her to make bad choices right from the opening of the book. For me, the VC section was (among other things) my chance to explore that intersection of fear and choice. Jackal fights off the crocodile and doesn't give in to madness, but that's not the end of her struggle with fear. She falls into a much more subtle trap of fear when she turns herself to stone, when she erases the people and things that she loves so they can't hurt her anymore. And so on. Fear has many ways to control us, some of which seem so sensible and comforting at the time. I regret the impact it has had on my life, which is of course one reason I write about it.

And please remember that this is just my version of the story. You get to read Solitaire any way you want. I can tell you what happens to Jackal, and I can tell you what it means to me, but it's your job to decide what it means to you. That's one of the biggest pleasures of story for me (and story can be words, music, movies, theatre, visual art)—it becomes mine, filtered through my experience, my imagination, my hopes and fears. The best stories help explain myself to me, or show me something that I want to be or feel or do. And if all someone takes away from Solitaire is a newly-discovered taste for brandy and orange juice, that's cool with me. It's the connection, large or small, that matters.

#16
January 13, 2003
From: Aislinn, someones_altar@yahoo.com

Dear Kelley,

I ran across Solitaire a week or so before Christmas, attracted by the cover image, and was amazed and delighted to discover that you had finally written a novel. My first encounter with your work was when I read "Strings" in the ('94?) edition of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthology. Perhaps it was partly the nature of the character that made that story so precious to me (I'm a violinist as well), but it instantly became (and still is) one of my favorite pieces of short fiction. I'm not easily overwhelmed, but by the final page I was weeping. Reading it aloud to my girlfriend a little over a year later, I couldn't keep my voice steady when I came to the end. Your work is extremely powerful, and I felt blessed just to have read that one story -- it caused me to make a serious inquiry into what I value about life, and living. I can say without hesitation that it changed me.

After my experience with "Strings," I sought out the rest of your work, and loved it, but since '99 or so I'd been tormented by the "is this it? is that all?" sensation one feels when waiting (and waiting . . .) for a favorite artist to produce something new. And then, finally, I found Solitaire, and I rushed home with it, and I read and re-read until I became completely absorbed in Jackal Segura's life, and her story. Then, when I finally set it down (I usually devour books at an alarming pace, but this one I savored, taking it a few chapters at a time) I realized I didn't have any words to use to tell you how grateful I am. You gave me a journey I can make again and again, and a whole world.

I don't mean to be so effusive with my praise, but there are very few authors whose work I can connect with on so many different levels, and I value those few quite highly. Your writing inspires me to live as fully as I can, to create, to dream, to love . . . and to hope.

Sincerely,
Aislinn

These are lovely words to give to any artist, and it means a great deal to me to receive them. Thank you.

The waiting wasn't so much fun on this end, either. Nicola and I share a metaphor about writing, which is that there are points where a work-in-progress becomes a desert—nothing but dust ahead, nothing but dust behind. All the writer can do is stick her chin out and keep slogging. There were a couple of years of dust during the writing of Solitaire, when the work went particularly slowly because of the demands of my job at Wizards of the Coast, and also because I made a serious wrong turn in the narrative. I had to trash about 15 or 20 thousand words, about a year's worth of work at the time. That was a very bad day. It took a while to get back on track. So, thanks for being patient.

I'm still getting used to the fact that strangers have read my short fiction and liked it well enough to go out looking for more. I'm not trying to be coy—it's literally amazing to me that someone might pick up Solitaire and think (some version of) hot damn, Kelley Eskridge wrote a book! My stories have been so few and far between (at least in publication terms, although not in terms of my own process) that it hadn't occurred to me that people would persist in seeking out my work. But of course I'm delighted—I want people to read this stuff, and one of my primary reasons for creating this website was to make it accessible again. If you have not looked at the stories section of the site, you will find that I've written introductions to each piece. I enjoyed that a lot—it's the first time I have tried to put my work into some kind of context, to look at connections and try to discern my process and growth as a writer. Endlessly interesting to me <grin>, and those who aren't so interested can skip the intros and go straight to the stories.

Nicola and I were talking last night about the ways that art gets in and stirs up the soul. I'm not sure I've ever experienced art that changed me like a lightning strike, but there are particular works that have influenced me incrementally but immensely, like weather systems moving across the ocean. They are works that speak to the deepest parts of me, and force me to recognize things within myself—values, as you've said. In almost every case, they are works that confront me with the truth that I can be more than I have let myself imagine—I can work harder, be braver, see more clearly, endure more, go farther, have more joy.

And then there are those experiences of art that are like mainlining joy, struggle, sadness, fear and courage, hope, loss, redemption. Emotion speedballs. Music does that for me, and movies, and particular piercing moments in books. There is nothing like it, for my money. I will always be fascinated by the quality of humans that compels us to seek out such moments, and to create them for each other. I think whatever power there is in my work comes from this place, but that's me looking at it from the inside out. You are a musician—is making music like this for you? I know there are other uses for art, and perhaps one day they will interest me more than this one. But not now.