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Elizabeth Day: “The discomfort of those who cannot be a mother”

There are topics that could not be explained so well if you had not touched them firsthand. Perhaps you would not be able to get into those maze of confused thoughts if they weren’t your own first. Even if you are a good writer, even if you have a fervent creativity and know how to play with words, there are thresholds that most likely would not cross. But Elizabeth Dayfamous English author, born in 1978, the theme of her new book, The Magpiepublished by Neri Pozza, he faced and examined it personally and for this reason he manages to write about it in such a meaningful way: in these pages we talk about desired motherhood and denied motherhoodjust like hers.

She still has no children, even though she has been trying and trying for several years: “And maybe that’s why”, she explains, “that with the character of Kate, the woman who can’t get pregnant, I feel a ‘deep identification: I spent 10 years doing inseminations, all of which failed. Then, in reality, Kate is not me, she has a very different personality from mine: she is undoubtedly more self-confident, maybe she is as I wanted to be. In all the time that has seen me engaged in this adventure of insemination, I have never read anything in fiction books that came close to what I was feeling. While I think it’s important to find our experiences in books, it makes us feel less alone. Even Kate, who goes through constant interruptions of pregnancy, despite her being a structured person, at a certain point crumbles and that’s what I wanted to investigate precisely because that’s what I think happens to all of them. Unfortunately today we live in a society where, if you don’t become a mother in a natural and biological way, you feel wrong, as if something was wrong with you, as if you had a fault. Women end up ashamed of their infertility, and sharing their discomfort matters. Then, paradoxically, the very same society that still fetishizes and sacralizes motherhood, is the same one that does not know how to listen to the needs of mothers and governments often neglect the needs of women who have children. Well, I wanted this tension to be felt in the book and this obsession continues ».

But don’t you think that there are several possibilities to love fully, beyond one’s biological children?
«Absolutely yes and I know I’m lucky: in my life there are many children who I love very much. But people don’t realize how exclusionary it can be: “You’ll see”, they tell you “you don’t know true love until you have a child of your own”. Here, in this way they make you feel inferior, lacking, as if you, in fact, could never know what love is ».

In the book, on this theme of motherhood, mental equilibrium is also played out, it borders on madness …
«For me it was important to write something realistic and to propose a representation as accurate as possible of the various mental health problems, with which the human being always ends up having to deal with. It is not so difficult to slip into mental difficulties: all the characters in this book of mine, in one way or another, have their own psychological problems, which does not mean being mentally ill, but it still means coming to terms with a malaise. I asked an exceptional doctor for advice: my father, who guided me in the descriptions of the healthier aspects ».

The cover of the new book “La Gazza”, published by Neri Pozza

His books always have something therapeutic: I am also thinking of his famous book «The art of knowing how to fail». How important and how important is empathy with readers?
«I would say more than important, fundamental. And actually I confess that writing about these topics was very therapeutic for me too. On my wrist I have a tattooed phrase: “Only Connect”, which EM Forster used as an epigraph to his novel Howards End. It indicates precisely that we must get in tune with each other, that we must commit ourselves to creating connections. And I believe that my role as a writer is precisely to have a dialogue with the readers, so that they can feel understood. I hope that empathy is felt, page after page. To write The Magpie I worked a lot on my own feelings: this book helped me to vent some of my pain and anger. I started writing it during the lockdown and at the same time I had my third abortion: it is as if this book had helped me to keep the memory of that pain, to share it and to understand that we must not be ashamed. For me it was really therapeutic ».

There is always a feeling of unease in your books, as if people feel out of place: is it a feeling you have or is it pure literary invention?
«I must say that now that I am 43 I feel more at ease with myself, but unfortunately I have known the discomfort well. I grew up in Northern Ireland in the early nineties, when social tension was strong: I spoke with a distinctly English accent and this was not always well received. When I was in middle school I was bullied and I tried to make myself transparent: I didn’t speak, I listened and I looked, but I never stepped forward. And the same happened when I went to boarding school: I wasn’t used to that English upper class and I didn’t know its social rules. And so, even then, I felt out of place. For many years I have been anxious, not really knowing who I wanted to be. I tried to adapt to what people expected of me, but I was not happy: I married the wrong person, so much so that I got divorced. When I separated my life imploded, but in a way it was good: I had to figure out who I really was, what I wanted for myself, what worked for my life and what didn’t. And I don’t think it was a coincidence that since then my work as a writer has gone better, has been more successful. My failure podcast was also ironically my greatest success. Now I feel much more in touch with myself than I was as a girl. “

You have a lot of followers on Instagram: how important are social networks to you?
«I am incredibly grateful to Instagram. Without Instagram, my podcast wouldn’t have been as successful. Today, social media is the only way to introduce someone to a new project. Then I think they are a very creative medium and I enjoy sharing ideas with people there. Having said that, I’m not interested in sharing everything I do on Instagram and I try to defend myself: I often put the phone in airplane mode, I don’t have notifications, I don’t have the social apps on the first screen of the phone and to find them I have to go to the bottom. And in any case, I always carefully choose who to follow. Social media always tell a part of my life, certainly not the whole story… ».

Who is your literary teacher?
«To be honest I don’t have a real mentor, there isn’t a person I follow: let’s say I discovered people through their books and then they became references. One of these is definitely Elena Ferrante, who was revolutionary: I love the way she took the architecture of the most classic stories, those written by ancient white men, and used it wisely, putting it at the service of multifaceted complexity and brilliance of being a woman. Then I would also mention Elizabeth Jane Howard and yours The Cazalet Chronicles: she was a wonderful writer. Writer Martin Amis, whose father was moved with her from 1965 to 1983, also thanked her publicly for having interested him in books and literature. A very great one ».

Source: Vanity Fair

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