Karen Britten

Karen Britten is an emerging writer to watch. In this interview, she talks about how storytelling is natural to Catholicism, the influence of Flannery O’Connor, how her experiences teaching theology and studying philosophy have informed her fiction, and how St. Lucy inspired her to write the prize-winning piece, “Eyes That Pour Forth.”

Here’s the first paragraph of the story:

Brother Michael remembers finding the girl standing in the doorway of the Tanzanian monastery where he lives. She is holding the remnants of her eyes in her hands--milky white orbs with pink muscle attached to them like the trails of twin comets. She doesn’t cry, but she trembles and quivers in the door frame, and the other monks, white Franciscans from places like Scarsdale, New York, and Wichita, Kansas, gather around her and embrace her with robed arms. They find out that she can see from those eyes when she describes the room in detail: the tanned hide lamp by the oak table, the woodstove by the front door.

1. Your story "Eyes That Pour Forth" won the 2012 Tuscany Prize for Catholic Fiction. In the introduction to the collection, prize judge Joseph O'Brien mentions Flannery O'Connor's concept of literary "distortion"; exaggeration with a purpose. Your story feels in the tradition of O'Connor. Could you talk about the life of this story (how it moved from idea to draft to completed story), and how this excellent first paragraph came to be?

St. Lucy is actually my baptismal saint and, according to some sources, a patron saint for writers. Because of this, I have always felt a connection to her. She seems so foreign to me in paintings, blindfolded, her eyes on a platter. And, frankly, I found that image so grotesque and strange, that it always stayed with me. But there was so much more to her story than that. She was a woman when women were not seen as equal in value, seen only for their ability to give birth. In fact, being from a wealthy family of that time period, that was really her only lot in life. But St. Lucy was called to something more, and she stayed true to that calling, sacrificing wealth and security to devote herself entirely to Him. She was, of course, eventually martyred for it. 

I loved this woman and her lasting image so much that I knew I had to write something about her. I started to wonder what would happen if St. Lucy existed in a modern world, and I figured she would be a little girl struggling to survive in a developing country, one who had sainthood forced upon her; a little girl who took it with the kind of strength only an innocent possesses. But I also wondered what we would do if confronted with sainthood in our modern lives, in the midst of our own doubts, fears, and desires. In a sense we are confronted with it in the Eucharist, and there are definitely people given sainthood in our lifetimes, but these are things something that we - and I - often take for granted. I wanted to know what we would do if confronted with it face to face, so that we couldn't walk away from it and return to our seats to plan the rest of our Sunday. And I started to think that, if confronted with something truly beyond our earthly existence, we would want to contain and control it somehow, which then became Father Michael's dilemma. 

This was really where the exaggeration came into play. I truly feel that in many ways, genre fiction (and all sub-genres within it) has the ability to illuminate more profound truths than stark realism does. We are visual beings. We always have been. And, like the lasting image of Lucy holding her eyes on a platter, when we see something grotesque and strange, we can't look away. I've always figured that's why the crucifix is placed at the center of the church. It's a horrific image, but it's one that forces us to keep seeing it. We're literally not allowed to forget it. Fiction with lasting images, often the result of exaggerating a body part, a death, or a mannerism to the point of it becoming surreal, can stay with the reader long enough to jumpstart the kind of introspection that realism only dreams of producing. 

2. I enjoyed the contrast between Brother Michael and Father Thomas, who searches for prosaic explanations when miracles occur before his own eyes. These contrasts, along with the visceral images you present, create a real emotional connection with readers.

As a reader of Catholic fiction--or fiction in general--who have been the writers of short fiction and novelists that have formed your own sense of story and image?

Only a handful of writers have brought me to tears. One is Gabriel Garcia Marquez, whose collection, Strange Pilgrims, had a profound effect on me. Another is Flannery O'Connor. Her short story "A Temple of the Holy Ghost" is exactly what I aspire to write: a deeply theological story of spiritual growth forced upon a girl after a strange and terrifying confrontation with a "freak." I recently started reading Shusaku Endo, and I'm mad at myself for not reading his work earlier. I had a moment of pure spiritual catharsis after reading "Final Martyrs." I also enjoy short fiction from Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and Tim O'Brien. 

My favorite Catholic novelist is most definitely Walker Percy. In fact, I may have referred to him as my "spirit animal" before, in jest, of course. We have very similar tastes in philosophy, for one, and his work has such a deeply philosophical core that I can't get enough. The good news is that I haven't read all of his novels yet, and I just recently started Lost in the Cosmos. As for non-Catholic novelists, I don't think there's a better writer than Fyodor Dostoevsky. He bled through his novels. In every one of his novels, there is a deep, psychological - and spiritual - investigation into one's relationship with others, with God, and with the self. The Idiot and Crime and Punishment are two of my favorites. And, of course, I have to mention Gabriel Garcia Marquez in this category. 

3. I can see you appreciating Marquez, who melded the fantastical and the real in his fiction. I like that you mention Percy, certainly one of our most philosophically sound Catholic novelists of recent memory.

I think philosophy and theology can successfully intersect with Catholic fiction without those narratives becoming pedantic. Could you talk about your own experience teaching theology for five years? And has the study of religion and philosophy informed your reading and writing of fiction?

I taught theology at a Catholic high school in central Florida, a job I was, in retrospect, horribly unprepared for. I learned very quickly that all the books in the world could not prepare me for the American teenager. In many ways, though, that was a good thing. Aside from the stress of dealing with high maintenance parents, paperwork, meetings, and endless amounts of homework to grade and update, I was part of a family I greatly miss. During my time there, I attended two funeral masses, a wedding, and too many school masses, prayer services, and retreats to remember. I was able to watch children grow into adults, try to make sense of their personal and spiritual lives, and open up to me about their daily struggles, some of which were tough to even listen to. Now that I'm back in a college environment, I go to mass alone, and sometimes don't go at all. My students leave after a semester, and I forget their names within a few months. In fact, right now I'm teaching an online class and have no idea what my students even look like. 

Majoring in philosophy and religion may have made finding a job challenging, but I have never regretted it because it shaped me as a person. I was a very restless student, in high school and college. I had no desire to learn about anything I considered "too practical," mostly because I was bored easily. (My grades indicated this, by the way.) Studying philosophy and religion forced me to never settle on one truth, to always search and strive for more knowledge. It allowed me to ask questions and poke holes in logic without being seen as difficult. In fact, it was encouraged. But most importantly, studying philosophy and religion humbled me. I saw the universe as complex and vast, and I saw my place in that universe. I saw God not as anthropomorphic and simple, but also as complex and deeply mysterious. I realized that there are very few truly "bad" people, and that most people do bad things in search of what they think is good for them. All this, I think, has been my greatest asset as a writer. Writers I most want to emulate see human beings not as categories, but as fully fleshed out people with complex emotions, fears, and desires, people always searching for something, even if it's just an answer to a burning question. 

4. The way you speak about open-ended disciplines like philosophy and religion make them sound very effective in preparing one for the complexity necessary to construct authentic characters--I'm happy to hear this, since I think so often students of the former discipline might mistake artifice for art and idea for drama. But you've been able to channel that sense of inquiry into a story that itself is open to interpretation.

Do you see fiction as having a particular role or identity with the Catholic experience?

Oh yeah, absolutely. I think Catholics are the best storytellers of any faith. We perpetuate our history and identity through a very visual narrative. Even the church building itself is structured around a narrative. There are pictures depicting the Stages of the Cross, there's a statue of Christ in the center suffering his final moments, and there's an adoring mother and a saint or two looking on in the corners. There are stained glass windows that tell stories of healing, redemption, and sacrifice. The liturgical season is itself a story of Christ's birth, life, death, and redemption, and we live that narrative every year. Mass is a narrative. Scripture is a narrative. The lives of saints are narratives. And they are all accompanied by very exaggerated visuals and other appeals to our senses. I still get a little spooked out in Catholic churches. There's something about the candles, the incense, and the statues that seems otherworldly to me, and even gives me the good kind of heebie-jeebies sometimes. Of course, these are all the necessary components of storytelling, and I think Catholics are affected by good stories - and even write a few good stories of their own - because their entire religious life is experienced through story. 

5. What are you writing now? Do you have plans for any future Catholic-themed fiction?

Right now, I'm working on a novel about a man whose blood has healing powers that are exploited by members of a small Georgian town. I'm in that awful revise and edit stage, though, and don't know when I'll be finished, or if it'll even see the light of day when I do finish. I'm also writing a lot of short stories, of course. Most of my work deals with religion somehow, and I do write a lot of Catholic-themed stories in particular, something I plan to continue. 

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Karen Britten is a Fiction candidate in the University of Florida's MFA program in Creative Writing, and a part-time editor for Revolution House. She is the recent recipient of the 2012 Tuscany Press Prize for Catholic Fiction, and has had other work published in FRiGG: A Magazine of Fiction and Poetry. In addition to her literary endeavors, Karen is a teacher, a tutor, and an editor.