Words Like Brustrokes (From the Barnes and Noble Review)
The booksellers who sit on our Discover Great New Writers selection committee can’t stop talking about Helen Maryles Shankman’s debut, In the Land of Armadillos. Set in Poland in 1942 at the height of the Nazis’ power, this haunting collection of linked short stories that reads like a novel blends folklore and history into a single unforgettable voice. Delusions and denial, hope and atonement co-exist in these finely-wrought narratives full of clever reveals. Shankman has a fine arts background, and her paintings have been displayed in numerous exhibitions in and around New York City, and we asked her to tell us about how she employs such different media to tell stories. — Miwa Messer
There are times I want to tell a story with a brush and a tube of paint. There are times I want to paint a palace with my words.
Plain, unadorned sentences function like the background in a painting, moving the story forward, framing, but not detracting from, the main action. Or they provide contrast to long, compound sentences heavy with lazily unfurling syllables and clauses.
Used another way, the stripped down sentence becomes a splash of bright color, riveting the reader’s attention with starkness and simplicity, like the yellow trousers on the doomed man in Goya’s “The Third of May, 1808.”
I work as an artist. But when I write, I still depend on the building blocks of art: color, texture, and composition. Color is description, the way sights and sounds and smells breathe life into a list of words. Texture is the nature of the writing itself; should I use dialogue or narrative in this passage? Exposition or summary? I think about where the highlights will go, and what I can hide in the shadows. I compose the narrative arc of the plot, and the path my characters will travel.
When I paint, my gaze roves restlessly over the surface of the canvas, checking the work in progress against my original sketches, scanning my reference photos for accuracy and detail. When I paint, my eyes are wide open.
But to write, I must close my eyes. Back I travel, through the inky black waters of memory, dredging up places and events and passions, trying to recall the way the air smelled of rain and electricity that day, or cigarettes and orange peels. Behind my eyelids I flicker through a slide show of remembered settings, or rekindle the sensation of a particular moment. Only with my eyes shut can I shuffle through emotions like they’re a pack of cards, deciding which one to play.
Painting is how I escape my demons. Writing means facing them down.
Originally, I planned to be an illustrator, to tell stories with the pictures I made. But eventually, I found that pictures weren’t enough. I needed words. Big words, small words, fancy words, dirty words, lyrical words, foreign words, words I could taste and words I could see, words that syncopated with music and rhythm, words that twirled off my tongue and ran through my fingers and fastened themselves to the page. It seemed as though I’d been running along the ground for years, flapping my wings the whole time. The day I began to write was the day I learned to fly.
There are times I want to tell a story with a brush and a tube of paint. There are times I want to paint a palace with my words.
Plain, unadorned sentences function like the background in a painting, moving the story forward, framing, but not detracting from, the main action. Or they provide contrast to long, compound sentences heavy with lazily unfurling syllables and clauses.
Used another way, the stripped down sentence becomes a splash of bright color, riveting the reader’s attention with starkness and simplicity, like the yellow trousers on the doomed man in Goya’s “The Third of May, 1808.”
I work as an artist. But when I write, I still depend on the building blocks of art: color, texture, and composition. Color is description, the way sights and sounds and smells breathe life into a list of words. Texture is the nature of the writing itself; should I use dialogue or narrative in this passage? Exposition or summary? I think about where the highlights will go, and what I can hide in the shadows. I compose the narrative arc of the plot, and the path my characters will travel.
When I paint, my gaze roves restlessly over the surface of the canvas, checking the work in progress against my original sketches, scanning my reference photos for accuracy and detail. When I paint, my eyes are wide open.
But to write, I must close my eyes. Back I travel, through the inky black waters of memory, dredging up places and events and passions, trying to recall the way the air smelled of rain and electricity that day, or cigarettes and orange peels. Behind my eyelids I flicker through a slide show of remembered settings, or rekindle the sensation of a particular moment. Only with my eyes shut can I shuffle through emotions like they’re a pack of cards, deciding which one to play.
Painting is how I escape my demons. Writing means facing them down.
Originally, I planned to be an illustrator, to tell stories with the pictures I made. But eventually, I found that pictures weren’t enough. I needed words. Big words, small words, fancy words, dirty words, lyrical words, foreign words, words I could taste and words I could see, words that syncopated with music and rhythm, words that twirled off my tongue and ran through my fingers and fastened themselves to the page. It seemed as though I’d been running along the ground for years, flapping my wings the whole time. The day I began to write was the day I learned to fly.
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