Many thanks to Shana at Her Circle for her swift publication if this interview! I love Siobhan. How can you not?
http://www.hercircleezine.com/2012/03/19/cycles-of-waiting-an-interview-with-siobhan-fallon/
CYCLES OF WAITING:
AN INTERVIEW WITH SIOBHAN
FALLON
Siobhan Fallon is a remarkable
writer and mother, who also happens to be a military wife. She survived several
difficult years of living on insulated Army bases while her husband was
deployed. Most recently she capably dealt with a move from the Middle East to
Falls Church, Virginia during Christmas week - while battling a killer sinus
infection, caring for a sick child and looking for a rental house. Her first
novel, You Know When The Men Are Gone (Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam) is a collection of
intelligent, heart-wrenching, unforgettable stories. (
MaryAnne
Kolton)
MaryAnne My first question is going to be a compound
one. Who are you? Where did you grow up?
Brothers and sisters? What was your family like? What drew you to
reading as a child? Please let us know a bit about the "you" before
you became the wife of a soldier.
Siobhan I come
from a family of bartenders. My father was born in Ireland and came over to New
York at sixteen, working his way through high school in Queens, doing a stint
in the Army during Vietnam, then settling down when he married my mother. They
chose to live in the small town of Highland Falls, about an hour north of New
York City, because my father fell in love and purchased a bar/restaurant there,
the South Gate Tavern. Part of this particular Irish pub’s charm is that it
stands right outside of the front, or south, gate of the United States Military
Academy at West Point. And in a small town like ours, where everyone has gone
to school with everyone else, the South Gate Tavern has become a large part of
my family’s identity.
I credit bartending with teaching me as much about story
writing as my MFA. There’s a tradition in my family of sitting around the
kitchen table with hot cups of tea and sharing whatever wild happenings
unfolded at the bar the night before, and we had to vie for the best hook to
get our listeners’ attention, the best delivery and story arc.There are the
mundane moments to bartending — handing people their pints as they watch Army
football games, refilling the hand soap in the ladies room, washing glasses
until your knuckles ache from the hot water. But there are a lot of
transformations as well, from the shift of a mellow after-work-crowd to the
take-it-to-the-face college kids or soldiers, to the fellow in the bar stool in
front of you slowly changing from sober to drunk. People of course have a
tendency to reveal secrets, to say and do incredible things when they have been
freed by a touch of alcohol. The bartender is the observer, the person who
tries to keep things easy, handing out vodka or conversation or music on the
jukebox, but she is never truly part of the party, she is outside of it all,
aware and ready.
