Janice Lynn Mather on the recurring characters & uneasy relationships that form the stories of Uncertain Kin
CBC Books | | Posted: May 4, 2022 3:28 PM | Last Updated: May 4, 2022
Janice Lynn Mather, a Vancouver writer by way of the Bahamas, made her publishing debut with Learning to Breathe, an insightful YA novel about a pregnant teenager that was shortlisted for the 2018 Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature — text.
She followed it up with another YA book, Facing the Sun, which won the 2021 Amy Mathers Teen Book Award.
Mather now makes her adult fiction debut with the short story collection Uncertain Kin. The 18 stories of Uncertain Kin follow the lives of girls and women as they grapple with moments of profound change — from witnessing terrible acts to bodily changes to adjusting to life in a new country.
Mather spoke with CBC Books about how she wrote Uncertain Kin.
Young point of view
"I wrote the story Mango Summer a few years after a series of disappearances of little boys took place in the Bahamas in the early 2000s. Not immediately after, but it was written when that was quite fresh in my memory. It was, I think, in large part trying to make sense of something that one can't really make sense of.
"I was thinking about how a child, who is as close as possible to a series of child abductions, how would they process or not process these happenings from their young point of view? What would they be told? What would they think? How would they make sense of that?
"I think there's something special about writing from a child's point of view. I have pretty clear, specific memories from my childhood. So even though I can look back with an adult's knowing and understanding, I can still remember those feelings and that perspective of being quite young, and that feeling of, 'Why is this not being explained to me? Why are people treating me like a small, slightly less intelligent form of life when I understand all these things?'
"Childhood is such a rich, interesting time. There's so much that happens and there's so much that you don't get. I think for a lot of people, you have these memories that you come back to again and again, and some things you reach some sort of understanding and other things you, even as an adult, still are somewhat baffled by."
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The nature of Uncertain Kin
"I think relationships are confusing. They're not always clear cut. I mean, sometimes they're fairly straightforward. But once the collection had come together and I sort of stepped back, the title Uncertain Kin felt like the right fit to capture that feeling of not really knowing where you stand with the people who are closest to you for various reasons.
"What I think I wanted to capture in the stories is the isolation and loneliness you can get from living in a place where everyone knows each other, but yet doesn't protect you, doesn't protect others. So even though you may live in what's often lovingly referred to as a 'tight-knit community,' that's not always enough to keep [you safe]. In particular, in a lot of the stories, because many of them are from the child's point of view or feature children, it's not always enough to protect those that most need protecting."
What I think I wanted to capture in the stories is the isolation and loneliness you can get from living in a place where everyone knows each other, but yet doesn't protect you.
Recurring characters
"At some point in time, I realized that characters [from previous stories] had crept back into new stories. I hadn't entirely realized it. It hadn't been entirely conscious. It was actually really exciting to be able to go back into the stories and find that, 'Oh, okay, this person is actually back here again... and she's in a different point in life.'
"I think, as a writer, it was a chance for me to understand and empathize a bit more with characters, some of whom I might have been drawn to and some of whom were not favourite people ever to write about, but with the context of seeing that, 'Okay, now I can understand you a bit more because this happened to you earlier — that information informs the person you are now.' I'm not a fan of that person now, but it informs.
"One of them, the aunt in Love, we see her as Samantha, a little girl in the first story, Centipede. So we see her as this very young girl who sees something awful happening and feels like she can't do anything at all to help or to fix this or to make it right. She sees a teenager being mistreated at the hands of an older woman. And then, we see Samantha herself as an older woman, and we see the way that she interacts with her young niece and with a young woman in the neighborhood as well.
Maybe I just wanted to capture this obnoxious person, just so they know that we see you. We know about you. It's not gone unnoticed.
"I always set out to write about a main character that I have empathy for, and usually I think I do like the main characters. But over time, a few have asserted themselves that I would prefer not to write about. I think initially that started off as maybe a little less generous spirited than wanting to empathize with them. Maybe I just wanted to capture this obnoxious person, just so they know that we see you. We know about you. It's not gone unnoticed. But I think over time, when you spend time with the characters a bit more, you can't help but try and — even if you don't exactly empathise with them — understand them."
Writing success
"Any kind of success is quite personal. I think, for me, you don't want to just write something and have it sit unread. I always want my books to be read. I want to know that hopefully someone somewhere feels a bit more heard and a bit more understood from having read the stories. I think when I'm approaching books as a reader, that's something that I appreciate — when you find that book that makes you feel a little less invisible in the world.
I think when I'm approaching books as a reader, that's something that I appreciate — when you find that book that makes you feel a little less invisible in the world.
"And I think as a writer, it's also really important to feel as though the stories that you've created are complete, that you feel satisfied with them, that you feel happy with them, and, once they're out in the world, you don't feel nervous or thinking, 'Oh, I wish I hadn't written that' or, 'I wish I'd done that last revision a little more thoroughly.'
"It's about feeling satisfied that you did what you set out to do and that's it's contributing something, that it's made a difference for the better in the lives of the people who read it."
Janice Lynn Mather's comments have been edited for length and clarity.