Indiana Writer: Another Marguerite Young Interview

I have another post about Marguerite Young here which includes part of The Paris Review's Marguerite Young, The Art of Fiction No. 66 (1977) which I am quoting in this post. The Paris Review opened its archives which allowed a fuller reading of the interview.

This time I latched onto what she had to say about being a writer in and from Indiana.

INTERVIEWER

So, you make a distinction between regionalist writers and those who adopted an international style.

YOUNG

I have always said that Southern writers seem to be born to sing. They live in small towns where they hear the most beautiful balladry every day from their own people and from the black people. I have lived in Southern towns in the very heart of Kentucky and Tennessee. I have always envied Southern writers because experience is so accessible to them. But the Middle West is more prosperous and more middle class. If you are going to be a writer from the Midwest, you have to become highly sophisticated, highly educated, in order to interpret that land. You cannot be just a natural-born singer—I could not imagine anything less possible. I think the Middle West begets bizarre, beautiful writers who have been dipped and dyed in education.

That Southern writers may be born to sing while we Hoosiers may not resonates with me. Flannery O'Connor comes to mind; so does Carson McCullers. I agree the difference in economics underlies the different literary styles. I hope she is wrong about the need to be  highly sophisticated and highly educated, for I am neither.

INTERVIEWER

But isn't it tempting to follow the fashion of the day, to become involved in the literary movements?

YOUNG

In the Middle West we didn't know flocks of writers. Each writer was isolated, and thus he developed an inner vision. One read on a vast scale. It was not as if we were sitting around in cafes talking about literary movements. That would have been beyond imagination.

I do not know if this still holds true for most with the existence of the Indiana Writers Center and the Midwest Writers Workshop. For me, up here in Muncie, it does feel true.

sch

12/22/21