Food, Femininity and Domestic Intensity: A Conversation with Lottie Hazell
‘I want to know what they’re having for breakfast; I think that's essential information.’
I read Piglet really quickly, and it’s definitely got an addictive quality to it. Why do you think creating that type of feeling was important to you? And how did you go about creating that sense of propulsion?
I think the reason I was, particularly for this book, very committed to pace is because I wanted it to have a salacious quality to it. Because of the way I chose to finish the book, I wanted to create that feeling of greed and wanting to know what’s going to happen; I wanted to engineer that feeling to specifically contrast with how the book ends, and I’m really interested in what position that leaves the reader in. That was my writerly motivation for creating a plot like that. And with the content being food writing, I was also interested in how the plot style can complement the feeling of appetite and that kind of voraciousness.
It's also interesting because I didn’t actually start with the countdown format. It was always moving in a linear fashion, but I hadn’t gotten to the point of actually counting down with the chapters, and the final structure of the book hadn’t come together. But when I did a very heavy edit, where it felt like the book really just shed its skin, that format revealed itself to me, and then it seemed very natural for the plot of the book to be structured like that.
And do you enjoy reading that kind of book yourself? Do you like reading thrillers or books that are very plot-heavy in your own reading?
Not in reading, no. I wouldn't say that I’m a fan of a thriller, but I am a fan of domestic intensity, and I don’t actually need anything more dramatic than that. I don't need any official drama; I don’t need a murder or a crime... although who knows what’s happened in Piglet. I like a boiling point, even if it’s just between two characters. I definitely read for that. I’m interested in breaking points and tension.
You mentioned domestic intensity, and I wanted to talk about that idea about the ‘domestic’ because Lamorna Ash said of Piglet – which I thought was a perfect explanation – that it opens with domestic conformity and then drives out into the wilderness. It made me think about how I keep seeing the term ‘domestic fiction’ more and more, and I wonder how you feel about it? Do you think it’s a helpful term, and is that how you think of your book?
I think it’s interesting. I think all labels are often unhelpful in one way or another. I think it’s more of a shorthand for people to communicate to readers and to people like yourself what writers are trying to aim for and what they’re specifically interested in. I don't think of Piglet as domestic literature, but I am interested in relationships and everyday life and micro struggles, which I suppose all fall under the kind of umbrella of the domestic. So, I suppose the terminology is more pragmatic than it is accurate.
And surely everything has an aspect of domesticity?
Yeah, it’s like ‘women's fiction’, isn’t it? Like, what is that?
Agreed. Going back to the ideas and themes you explore, obviously one of them is those pressure points that bubble up within relationships, and the ways that control and desire are related. I’d love to just talk to you more about this, and why you’re interested in talking about desire and control, and how these ideas link back to food.
I think it all centres around the kind of notion of satisfaction for me – the life cycle of craving, satiation, and then a building desire again, and the kind of lengths that we go to be at certain parts of that cycle. And I think that’s where the control comes in, when people think, ‘I want to be in satiation mode internally’, and that’s impossible because you have to have the light and the shade. I think I’m interested in that in a food sense, as well as how one feels intently about controlling their life, and the perception of their life and themself. I just think it’s such a productive combination to have both of them together because they feel like the same language to me.
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Read the full interview in the Innocence Issue
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