Illuminating Fiction

Elizabeth Searle: Mistress of Ceremonies

171 Elizabeth Searle Mistress of Ceremonies Elizabeth Searle writes about gender-bending, actresses and actors, mentally challenged and autistic individuals, women, and their bodies. Several of the characters in her most recent book, Celebrities in Disgrace, are obsessed with fame and being watched. Her most recent work is the libretto for Tonya & Nancy: The Opera, an original opera based on the infamous Harding/Kerrigan ice skating scandal. The opera premiered in the American Repertory Theater’s Zero Arrow series in 2006 and drew coverage from the Associated Press, ESPN Hollywood, MSNBC, Sports Illustrated and National Public Radio. In her novel, A Four Sided Bed, Searle explores the shifting boundaries in a marriage and a ménage à trois. Searle is currently at work on a novel about grassroots politics and erotic filmmaking. She is also interested in working on an anthology of erotic writings by current literary writers. Celebrities in Disgrace was a finalist for the Paterson Fiction Prize; A Four Sided Bed was nominated for an American Library Association Award; and her first short story collection, My Body to You, won the Iowa Short Fiction Award. Searle’s work has also been published in Michigan Quarterly, Agni, Kenyon Review, Redbook, Five Points, Scene, and Genre magazine. For the past six years Searle has served as the mistress of ceremonies for “The Erotic Pen: Passion, Eros and Naked Lust,” PEN/New England’s Valentine’s Day Eve literary reading in Boston. Searle teaches writing at the Stonecoast MFA program and has taught at Emerson College. She lives in greater Boston with her husband and son. I met with her at her home. We sat at her dining room table surrounded by photos of her family and pictures drawn by her son. Sherry Ellis: In Celebrities in Disgrace, many of the female characters are preoccupied with fame and a hunger for attention—being seen and being watched. What are the challenges of writing about this theme? 172 Illuminating Fiction Elizabeth Searle: Ambition and women are subjects I had not written about in any realistic, sympathetic, in-depth way before, and they’re easy to satirize. One reason for the theme of Celebrities in Disgrace is what I have observed to be the obsessive need for attention. I taught special education for a while and noticed that this is the common denominator of all people. The phrase is used, “they’re trying to get attention,” and it seems that so often the motives of people centers on the need for attention. I’m writing a novel now, in which the siblings struggle for notice. I think the challenges are that it is one of those things that people don’t want to talk about, and also portraying the characters so they are somewhat sympathetic. I have a phrase in my mind, “the witch of ambition,” and I think there is this sort of dark force inside of people and any of those dark forces are hard to write about but they’re the ones you want to write about. It seems like such a driving force of our time. Celebrities in Disgrace is a book where I started with the title; it came to me during the time of Nancy and Tanya. It is hard to make the characters sympathetic when they are that ambitious, and it is hard to get past that and not make them shallow caricatures. Ellis: Celebrities in Disgrace is both the title of your book and your novella. In the novella, a struggling actress, who is elated to believe that her career is about to take off, becomes vulnerable and “the accused.” How did you juxtapose the events in this novella for maximum impact? Searle: Oh, that novella was so much fun to write; it was the most fun writing experience I’ve ever had. During the era of Nancy and Tonya, I was obsessed by it. It was this “girl thing,” the pretty skirts, and I remember there was a quote in the Boston Globe that got me thinking about it that I use in the novella: “America’s full of Tonyas who want to be Nancys.” During the scandal my friends would clip articles and send them to me. I didn’t know what I was going to do with them; I just knew I wanted a lot of information. That’s what always happens; you have one thing you’re thinking about and then another totally different thing happens and you band them together and something...