AN INTERVIEW WITH PAULA BOMER

In reviews and blurbs of Paula Bomer’s work, a word that keeps coming up is “raw”. As though picking scabs, she digs into the dark, spectral interiors of relationships—between friends, between lovers, between husband and wife or parent and child—in ways startling, strange, but most of all, piercingly real. 

And it’s one of the deep ironies of her fiction that such brave narrative can coalesce around characters who often lack that very virtue. From the tales in Baby and Other Stories to her new novel Nine Months, Bomer sends men and women scampering about, dreading their lives, fearing their husbands, wives, and children, yet unable, for one reason or another, to confront these fears. In other words, she writes about our secret lives. 

And it’s not only the directness of her approach to these sad, angry, complex people that alarms—and in many cases amuses (she’s got Mary Gaitskill’s knack for the killer one-line takedown)—but the wit with which she skewers contemporary upper-middle class mores and expectations that makes her fiction such vicious fun. And though she carved out her own space with the collection Baby and Other Stories, her new novel, published on August 21 by Soho Press, expands her unique vision into a genre all its own, one that upsets convention, and is not for those without a strong stomach and mischievous sense of humor.

I’ve known Paula for a few years, and another interesting point—though one that most readers won’t ever have the pleasure to know first-hand—is how far removed this caring, generous, vivacious author is from so many of the characters lurking in her imagination. It was my absolute pleasure to talk to her a little about the conception, and misconceptions, of her hilarious, thrilling, and astute new novel. – Shya Scanlon

In other interviews, you’ve spoken of both Baby and Nine Months being satirical. This interests me, because the work doesn’t seem to fit snugly into that category. Some of the characters, particularly in Baby, have exaggerated traits, but they’re not cartoons. Likewise, the situations and relationships, while often humorous or provocative, don’t seem designed as a send-up of another genre, nor intended primarily to condemn social norms. Can you describe what you mean by satire, and what role you feel it plays in your fiction?

I think a lot of people confuse satire with farce. Satire uses humor and exaggeration to examine serious issues and many writers that I admire write satire. This in no way makes the work “light” but is a method or style used to chew on some very serious themes of our human...