Jennifer Down is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in the Age, Saturday Paper, Australian Book Review and Literary Hub. She was named a Sydney Morning Herald Young Novelist of the Year consecutively in 2017 and 2018. Our Magic Hour, her debut novel, was shortlisted for the 2014 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript. Her second book, Pulse Points, was the winner of the 2018 Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction and the 2018 Steele Rudd Award for a Short Story Collection in the Queensland Literary Awards, and was shortlisted for a 2018 NSW Premier’s Literary Award. She lives in Naarm/Melbourne.
Why do you tell stories?
Probably because I don’t know how to do many other things! But also because I’ve loved reading for as long as I can remember, and every time I read a book or a story that blows me away, some part of me wants to emulate that magic.
Describe Bodies of Light in one (or two) sentence(s).
It’s a novel about a woman who, having grown up in residential and out-of-home care, decides to shed her former self and become a new person.
I was struck by the ways this novel explores visibility/invisibility, and in particular, the invisible menacing presence of trauma on a person's sense of self. How does trauma affect Maggie's identity?
Maggie’s sense of self is quite fractured—in part, because of the splintered nature of her childhood. There’s so little consistency in her early years. And, at the most tangible, practical level there’s very little evidence of her personhood, either: no family photos, no birth certificate, a handful of possessions. I kept thinking, what does that do to a person? There are times when being ‘invisible’ is a deep wound for Maggie, and other times when she’s able to use it to her advantage. The margins of her sense of self are so light that she can stretch and redraw them, for better or worse.
Maggie seems to undergo small healings via her relationship to the bodies of others. What are Maggie's points of light in this story?
There’s a line in the book where Maggie says, ‘I am secure in the knowledge of who knows me’: that security, I think, is where she draws most comfort from. To return to that idea of invisibility—so much of her personhood and identity is erased as a young person, and then over and again through her adulthood, that she wants, almost above all else, to know she really exists. Again and again, she looks for safety in other people, and tries to be a safe place for them, too.
As an author, and when writing unsettling material, do you need to get further away, or closer to your characters in order to write their trauma? How do you protect yourself as an author?
For me, especially writing in the first-person, it’s important to get as close as possible. How can you ask a reader to look tragedy squarely in the face unless you’re prepared to do it yourself? This story is a fictional one, but it’s very much anchored in reality—the things Maggie experiences as a young person are not exaggerated or unusual. I wanted to tell the story in a way that witnessed these traumas, not sensationalised them, or reported on them as a distant observer would, so I read and listened to as much as I could. It was a steep learning curve. I’d never lay claim to vicarious trauma in the sense experienced by nurses and social workers, for example, but sitting with distressing stories can weigh you down when they’re all you think about.
Your previous publication was a collection of short stories, can you tell us about your approach to the long-form novel as compared to the short form?
I prefer short stories! I’m much more comfortable with their architecture and (ironically) I naturally tend towards economy. But I think I approach writing both in a similar way: I take a long time to sit with ideas, and read, and research, and then the story comes out in a pretty linear manner. I don’t plan or plot, but by the time I sit down to write, I usually have a sense of where the narrative is headed.
What was the seed/kernel for Bodies of Light? Did this manuscript change over time very much as you wrote it?
It grew out of two parallel preoccupations: an enduring despair at systemic failures in how we care for at-risk children and young people, and a morbid fascination with death fraud and unknown decedents. It actually started as a short story, which was written for the now-defunct Review of Australian Fiction, but even when I was drafting that piece I knew it would grow into something much longer.
Do you have experience with the foster care system? What does 'family' mean to Maggie?
I don’t have direct experience, and am not a ‘care’ leaver, so my research focused on first-person testimony of people who had experienced out-of-home care during the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, and on parliamentary inquiries that often quoted ‘care’ leavers. For Maggie, ‘family’ is a complicated idea. Throughout her life, she’s placed within (and builds) different models of family. I suspect the nature of the structure means little to Maggie—for her, it’s more do with acts of care: how she is looked after by others, how she looks after them, and how much agency she has. Family is a father you barely remember and the person who taught you how to cook rice and the mother of your ex-husband and a rescue dog and a stranger at a truck stop who makes sure you’re alright.
When and where do you write?
Honestly—not a lot at the moment! The pandemic has really done a number on my cognitive capacity, concentration span, and motivation. Typically, I get up early and write first thing when the world is quiet. I’ve always worked at a desk in my bedroom, but when I left full-time work to start freelancing a few months ago, I rented a small studio space and moved my desk there. My flat is a 23-square-metre bedsit, and I needed to delineate labour from leisure. But then we went into lockdown once more, so I’m back to working at my little table.
What are three things that sustain you as an author, or while you’re writing?
Movement—I like running and walking, but anything helps: a drive, a bike ride, a train trip. The most important thing is to be in motion and see new things. Art, especially documentary photography, really nourishes my brain. I can’t wait to be able to visit galleries and museums again. And seeing friends and family! It sounds hackneyed, but writing is a very solitary pursuit. It’s important to be able to get out of your own head and spend time with loved ones, and to be reminded there’s a much bigger world out there.
Name three books that you couldn’t live without.
The Children’s Bach by Helen Garner. An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo. The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead.
bonus question:
What books are on your to-be-read pile?
She is Haunted by Paige Clark, The Night Always Comes by Willy Vlautin, How to Make a Basket by Jazz Money, and The Divided City by Nicole Loraux.