Brittany Menjivar on the literary scene, the meaning of success, and her book, 'Parasocialite'
Photos and Interview By Luc
Brittany Menjivar is the co-host of the recurring reading/party series “Car Crash Collective” in Los Angeles. She recently published a book, Parasocialite, with LA-based publisher Dream Boy Book Club. Her book, a collection of magically-realist short stories and poems, explores ego and personality in a post-“micro-celebrity” world.
Her work inspired the following questions I had about art and literature as a social scene, writers and artists as celebrities, and the current state of fame, personal relationships, autofiction, her inspirations, and where the culture goes from here. As someone who needs to be completely alone to create, I'm intrigued by Brittany's extroverted approach , in which relationships with others are exemplified in her work and her dissemination of it.
L: How would you define a ‘Parasocialite’?
B: Etymologically, a “parasocialite” is “distinct from,” but “adjacent to” a socialite. I use the word to refer to those who form parasocial or one-sided “relationships” with those they admire—i.e., they act or feel as if they know them far better than they actually do. People have pointed out to me that the word sounds like “parasite”—although I didn’t register this association while writing, I find it fitting.
L: What are the marks of a celebrity/fame in a flattened culture?
B: With the rise of social media, fame is becoming increasingly stratified, which is why we now have terms like “niche Internet micro-celebrity.” Notoriety doesn’t always mean money, and vice versa—so it’s hard to say that someone has “made it '' by reaching a certain threshold for followers, projects booked, whatever. The metrics I personally consider most meaningful are engagement and influence—do you have an audience of people who regularly interact with and look forward to your work? Do you find your work figuring into broader conversations about culture? Has it reached other people who share your hopes, grievances, and curiosities? Has it reached people who definitively don’t?
L: Do less people want to be famous now than in the past?
B: I would wager that fewer people dream of traditional fame, since the Internet offers an avenue to visibility for those who crave it—and forces visibility upon those who don’t.
L: What's your opinion on authors putting aspects of their own lives into their work, and how much can people glean about a person from their fiction ?
B: It’s hard to imagine writing that doesn’t draw upon the author’s personal background in some sense. When I would write stories growing up, the protagonists were typically just self-inserts: they were named Brianna, they wore glasses with plastic blue frames, and omg guess what, they loved writing. Now, although many of my protagonists share key traits with me (for example, many of them have creative careers), they’re distinct entities. Parasocialite certainly isn’t autofictional in the self-referential or metatextual sense, and I don’t consciously manipulate reality in the way that so many of my talented autofiction-writing friends do.
A writer’s work tells you what they’re interested in exploring intellectually or conceptually; it doesn’t necessarily reveal anything beyond that. Many Parasocialite readers have assumed that the protagonists in my book are me or “autofictionalized” versions of me, even referring to me and the narrator interchangeably in reviews and conversations. At first, I was more preoccupied with setting the record straight. I’m finally learning to let go and recognize that this confusion is, to an extent, a reflection of a “scene” in which writers are encouraged to present themselves as larger-than-life characters (through readings, the Internet, etc.), and readers are encouraged to view them as such.
L: Who and/or what are your biggest influences?
B: As a child, I was obsessed with Madeleine L’Engle, who taught me that anything imagined can be written. (Case in point: Many Waters, a Noah’s Ark AU in which the Gen-X, Episcopalian equivalents of Zack and Cody have to fight evil winged giants.) In my teenage years, I fell for Salinger—I’ve read everything he’s ever written, including all the apocrypha I’ve been able to get my hands on. Although L’Engle and Salinger are very different authors, they’re both able to draw out the emotional resonance of a fleeting chance encounter—clearly an idea I keep coming back to.
J.G. Ballard is a genius—Crash is the novel I wish I could have written. Dennis Cooper always stuns me with his willingness to explore darker subcultures and phenomena from such a thoughtful and compassionate perspective.
Film has influenced my writing just as much as literature has. I wish I had been running around Canada in the ’90s—Cronenberg and Egoyan amaze me with their ability to probe the same central themes (voyeurism, infatuation, secrecy, etc.) across projects without falling into redundancy.
Oh, and here’s a deep cut… You know the song “Bennington,” by John Maus? It was inspired by a real girl Maus met during a performance at Bennington College. He kept up an email correspondence with her for years, even after she stopped responding. His missives started out sweet and quickly veered into obsessive territory, almost the stuff of absurdist horror in places. A few years ago, he compiled all of them and forwarded them to a journalist who had reached out to him, along with retrospective commentary. The published document is about 20,000 words, and it’s one of my favorite glimpses into a parasocial relationship ever recorded. Definitely a crucial text.
L: How does hosting with Car Crash Collective affect your own writing ?
B: Car Crash has introduced me to so many ingenious writers who have inspired me both on the craft level and in terms of their creative practice. By inducting me into the local literary community, it’s pushed me to be a better reader, which has pushed me to be a better writer. The fact that I’m constantly hosting readings also inspires me to be more prolific, since I like to be able to share new work with an audience.
L: In your experience, is writing more of a solitary or collaborative practice?
B: At the end of the day, it’s just you and the blank page (or blank Google doc)—but as an extrovert, I typically write best in the presence of others, whether that means cozying up next to my boyfriend with my laptop while he’s watching a documentary or hitting up my friends for a joint work sesh at a diner. Writing alone, I tend to get lost in my thoughts too easily—being around people helps me stay on track. I always appreciate teamwork during the revision process, as well. Erin gave me helpful feedback on many of the stories in Parasocialite, and Jonathan was a keen editor—after the manuscript was accepted, I reread it obsessively and marked it up with any questions or comments that surfaced, and he addressed every single one of those notes with me. I never want to decide a piece is “good enough” because I’m tired of working on it or whatever—I’m in this game because I want to challenge myself.
L: What do you think of the current literary culture around readings/the idea of literary it girls etc?
B: At best, readings are a celebration of literature and the community that creates it (readers and writers alike). I think it’s wonderful that we’re rendering the old personality test question “would you rather go to a party or read a book” irrelevant—there are enough hours in the day for us extroverted writers to do both. At the same time, I think it’s possible to become so caught up in a scene that you neglect your personal creative practice—in the sense that the scene could become a distraction, but also in the sense that your work could start to sound derivative. While scenes can be a source of inspiration, and they have for me, I never want to create work exclusively for a scene—I’m always excited when Parasocialite resonates with someone unexpected.
L: What is the Great American novel?
B: The Great American Novel is not a novel but a short story, and that’s “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” by J.D. Salinger.
L: What do you think is the future of literary fiction and poetry?
B: I have a theory that the trend gap/nostalgia gap with respect to all aspects of culture is narrowing so quickly that it will soon close in on itself. Look at how we name-check “indie sleaze” fashion and call ourselves “alt-lit,” referring back to the late 2000s and early 2010s. I wonder if we might soon find ourselves growing tired of post-ironic 2013 throwbacks and look way further back in time. Perhaps first-person autofiction will give way to more old-school, stylized prose, or the Gothic will make a big comeback. I’m really hoping this prediction will ring true for the fashion world as well as the lit world. I got to wear some vintage 1910s pieces for a shoot and had so much fun with them—I look back with particular fondness on a headband studded with human teeth.
L: Is the internet dead?
B: This question makes me think about that line we were all fed as adolescents—once you post something to the Internet, it’s there forever. I know it was meant to scare us, but I think there’s something beautiful about this notion of the Internet as a garden of memory where nothing ever dies. Of course, all of us have things we would want scrubbed from the World Wide Web, but after so many years lived online, all of us have things we wish we could summon back from the void of ephemerality, as well—Webkinz pets, WeHeartIt boards, old forum accounts, those silly websites we made in middle school. The Internet we have now is not the Internet we once knew. Even so, I wouldn’t say it’s dead. As long as the Internet remains an archive of information, even if it’s not always the same information, and a place where friends and strangers can connect, even if they’re connecting in new ways, I’d say it’s alive and breathing.
L: Do people actually read anymore?
B: We’re all captives of language when we abide by road signs, scroll through social media, or peruse the news on our smartphones. Regarding books, I do think there has been some renewed interest in reading as of late, as an intellectual pursuit and as a signifier. Bimbo feminism had its limits; not enough people were in on the joke. Now everyone wants to identify as a “reader”—sometimes even as a writer, a la Drake and Megan Fox. (The influence of social media must be considered here; is a post a poem? is one of the most pressing questions of the last decade.)
I believe that even as the culture evolves, the novel will persist. Despite whatever technological advances, there will always be those who look reverently toward outmoded mediums as a source of ancient wisdom and pleasure—and of course, the art of storytelling will never die (high-school-essay-conclusion-type sentence but it’s true).
