Norah Labiner
Norah Labiner’s bold and outgoing writing style gives the impression that she can tromp through whatever story she pleases. In person, however, Labiner looks like any South Minneapolis barista with the afternoon off, wearing a cardigan sweater and a waffled pink floral undershirt. Sitting at a corner table at Bryant-Lake Bowl, Labiner told Decider about her new book, German For Travelers: A Novel In 95 Lessons, prior to Saturday's reading at the Kitty Cat Club, where she'll be accompanied by local bands Rank Strangers, His Mischief, and Middlepicker. Written in her experimental, nonlinear style, this latest effort follows two cousins as they unravel a mystery involving their grandfather, who was a German Jewish psychoanalyst in the pre-Nazi era. Thrown in the mix are ghosts, foreign-language travel manuals, and Freud’s unsolved “Dora” case.
Decider: How did you create the book’s complicated structure?
Norah Labiner: I just started writing it, and then just paring down the lines. As I worked on it, the structure became more dominant and the language more simple. I wanted to write a family story. But I didn’t want it to be like “this happens, then this happens.” And then around that time I read Freud’s Dora case. And that became part of the subtext of the story within the story.
D: How so?
NL: Freud used literature for the basis of psychoanalysis—the journey, the trip, and the whole model of travel. He was certain over and over again that he had cracked the case of Dora. There’s all that kind of language in the case. It’s the language of the mystery novel, and the gender language, the seduction language. [The book has] a lot of bad jokes, too. I love jokes. Even when everyone knows what the punch line is, there is still that expectation of how stupid it is, which also became a part of the book too—the question, "Why are terrible things so funny?"
D: Mel Brooks said, “Humor is just another defense against the universe.”
NL: Jokes are threatening. They are power over something. It’s also used as a kind of a parable, answering a question with a joke. It’s vaguely Talmudic.
D: Each chapter is accompanied with a "lesson" in German. Where did those come from?
NL: When I took high school French [and Italian in college], we would have those example sentences: "Jean-Claude and Maria are going to the swimming pool." They were always about going to the mountains, the ocean, or the cathedral. They always seemed like the beginnings of some fantastic story. I tried to learn German, and the test sentences would be insane. Like, “Hands up! I have a revolver!” I would think, “Why would I need to know this? Don’t I need to get to the swimming pool with Jean-Claude?” It made the whole function of the language seem different.
D: As you've done before, you directly address the reader in the new novel.
NL: Some people will attack you for it. Like, “You’re breaking the wall!” But I hate ignoring the fact that I am writing for a reader. It’s so strange. You see it in old books, but now it’s considered this “postmodern” trick. I hate when people talk about the “conventional” novel. I don’t think any novel should be conventional. I mean, if you were in therapy, you would tell your stories in an associative way—one thing leading to the next. The questioning is so much a part of psychotherapy and of storytelling, and the whole Jewish experience is based on the question without an answer. For me, the book came together with the questions.
D: Are you really as reclusive as your reputation suggests?
NL: It’s more like I’m not really part of the literary community, I guess. I just kind of do my own thing. It’s so strange to live in Minnesota where everyone is reclusive for about six months. You’re doing a lot of sitting inside and looking out the window.
D: You must do a lot of reading, too, because it keeps showing up in your books.
NL: Sometimes you like something about a book that you finished, and you still want to be a part of it. My first was with Hamlet, and I tried to jump into Hamlet. I love literature so much I just want to get in there. I don’t want to rewrite it, but I want to be a part of it. I want to keep the story going.
Can't make it to Labiner's reading on Saturday? Don't sweat. She'll also do readings on May 21 at Hamline Midway Library in St. Paul, and another on June 30 at Ridgedale Library in Minnetonka.
