Interview: "Thirsty" by Kristin Bair O'Keeffe

I am so excited to celebrate the release of this stunning debut novel! Thirsty tells the story of one woman’s unusual journey through an abusive marriage, set against the backdrop of a Pittsburgh steel community at the turn of the twentieth century. Kristin Bair O'Keeffe's work has been published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Poets & Writers Magazine, San Diego Family Magazine, The Baltimore Review, The Gettysburg Review, and many other publications. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago and has been teaching writing for almost fifteen years. Kristin lives in Shanghai, China, with her husband and daughter. If you’d like to learn more about Thirsty, visit thirstythenovel.com and kristinbairokeeffe.com.

Opening Lines: “In the beginning, Drago smelled of dirt and bloom, the odor that would rise if you peeled the earth back at its seams. When he appeared on the doorstep of her father’s farmhouse in Croatia on the first anniversary of her mother’s death, Klara was sixteen and grateful that the mourning period for her mother had finally ended. At sunrise that very day, for the first time in a year, she had put on the pale green skirt that lit her eyes instead of the black one that highlighted only her grief.”

Kristin was kind enough to answer a couple questions just for us.

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
I didn't write Thirsty with a message in mind. I simply wanted to share the story that had been swirling around in my head for so long. But because Thirsty deals with a number of pretty serious issues, I'm sure readers will glean a variety of messages from it. I'd love to hear what they have to say. (So, readers, check into my blog and let me know!)

How did you come up with the title of your book?

I confess...I'm not good at coming up with titles and I find the process to be excruciatingly painful (I'd rather have a tooth pulled). But I have to say, I'm really happy with the title Thirsty. Thirsty is the name of the steel town I created outside of Pittsburgh where the story takes place, and it's as much a character in the book as Klara or Drago. For a while, I called the book Klara, but that just didn't work; although the story is very much about Klara, it's bigger than that, too. It's about steel, community, immigration, Pittsburgh at the turn of the twentieth century, and more...the novel needed a title that encompassed all of that. Thirsty (I think) accomplishes this.

Can you give readers 5 adjectives that describe you--the writer?

quirky, passionate, dogged, dreamy, curious

Here are a few more questions Kristin answered on her website...

What inspired you to write Thirsty?

As a writer, I’m deeply inspired by place so I wasn’t surprised that Thirsty, the town, came to me first. I grew up in Pittsburgh’s steel-making milieu. My maternal grandparents lived in Clairton, Pennsylvania, and my grandfather worked in U.S. Steel’s Clairton Works. This was in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and steel was everything in Pittsburgh. We talked about steel over dinner. My sisters and I chanted, “Rotten eggs, rotten eggs,” every time we took the twenty-five-minute drive from our house to our grandparents’ house and got close enough to smell the mills on the Monongahela River. And from my grandparents’ back porch, we watched flames and big puffs of steam rise from the smokestacks. Later we watched the demise of the steel industry.
Not long after I clearly saw the town of Thirsty in my head, Klara began to appear. Right away I saw the awful marriage she was in. I’m especially sensitive to women in abusive situations. When I began to see Klara both as a young girl and an old woman, I knew I was going to be writing a story with a long arc.

What was the most challenging aspect of writing the novel?

I faced two big challenges while writing Thirsty:
1) I started my writing life as a poet so language and rhythm are important to me. I read everything I write (even emails) out loud…over and over again…until the language and rhythm of every sentence feels right. I must have read Thirsty a thousand times out loud before I felt I could let go of it. And even then…even now…given a few minutes to read out loud and rewrite…I’d probably change a few more words.
2) Telling Klara’s story as fully as possible—including the scene in which Drago cuts off her hair—wasn’t easy. But I knew I had to. It was only fair to see the abuse as vividly as Klara lived it. Domestic violence is an experience shared by many, many women. Too many women. And it’s too easy to turn away from it in fear and shame…too easy to gloss over the most crucial, heartbreaking brutality. No woman escapes domestic violence on her own; Klara has Katherine, BenJo, and Old Man Rupert. I believe if we face it together, there’s hope.

How long did it take you to write Thirsty?

A total of about seven years. I started it in 1992 and completed a full draft as my graduate school thesis in 1996. I worked on it off and on for another three years.

How long did it take you to have it accepted for publication?

I took a circuitous, scenic route to publication. It took sixteen years from the day I wrote the first scene to the day I got the email from David Sanders at Swallow Press that said, yep, we want to publish this book. I’m a big believer in right time, right place. I always knew Thirsty would find its home; I just didn’t know when or where.