3 Questions with Andrew Plimpton
ANDREW PLIMPTON is a writer living in Western Massachusetts. His stories have appeared in The Dalhousie Review, Heavy Feather Review, and The Write Launch. His plays have been performed at The Tank in New York City. He is currently working on a collection of stories and a full-length play.
Associate Editor Tsong Chang talks to Andrew Plimpton about his work in Issue 77
“Breadcrumbs” contains only two moments of spoken dialogue. Readers and the narrator are immersed in a breath-taking journey of silence as they follow the breadcrumbs into the woods. Can you talk about how this choice of silence shapes your experience, and what it offers you as a writer, when composing this story?
Silence was not a conscious choice on my part. I tried simply to see the story as it unfolded, and I rarely felt the need for anyone to speak. However, this story does portray a family where there is a lot of silence, so I think it bleeds into the whole piece as a result. Also, while writing "Breadcrumbs," I had the impulse to restrict the reader's knowledge to the events themselves, with only some exposition and no explanation. Focusing on image and action while steering clear of dialogue is one way to achieve this.
The story’s charged center is its exploration of sexuality, and the eccentric dynamic between the grandfather and the narrator. I realize the narrator is not (or rarely) gendered overall, until learning their name as “Oliver” on the last two pages. Could you discuss your choice to withhold gender consciousness throughout most of the narrative, and whether this omission was intentional?
That omission was not intentional! That's a fascinating observation which potentially makes me see the story in a new light. I think I just made the main character's gender clear when it occurred to me. I guess my response is to be curious about what said omission does for readers who are conscious of it.
Is there anything you would like to share about your story “Breadcrumbs” that we do not know?
"Breadcrumbs," is, if all goes well, the first in a series of interconnected stories which all will involve the same characters and, mostly, the same setting. I have no sense yet of how many of these stories there will be. Possibly a lot! Also, "Breadcrumbs" is a fairly old story. It has lived safely in a drawer for about a decade until I took it out, revised it, and started sending it out this spring. I'm very happy that it found a home.