{"id":260532,"date":"2024-01-11T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-11T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/?p=260532"},"modified":"2024-01-08T18:19:04","modified_gmt":"2024-01-08T23:19:04","slug":"amy-jo-burns-novel-mercury-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/amy-jo-burns-novel-mercury-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"The Real Cost of a Family Business"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Amy Jo Burns\u2019 second novel, Mercury<\/a><\/em>, is a heartfelt portrait of a working-class family set in an unsuspecting industrial town in Pennsylvania in the 1990s that follows the lives of the Josephs\u2014Mick, Elise, Baylor, Waylon, and Shay\u2014and the light in their darkness, Marley West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The novel opens with Marley, the wife every man wants, coaching her son\u2019s little league team, while her husband, Waylon, hides beneath the bleachers for reasons yet unknown. The story then thrusts readers back in time, to the fateful day when Marley and her mother, Ruth, rode into town one summer afternoon and changed everything.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

While the jagged edges of Marley initially seem like they might not fit into the small town of Mercury, the orbit of the Joseph family is strong enough to pull her in anyway. It soon becomes clear just how much the family was needing her when nearly every Joseph member is impacted by Marley\u2019s sudden arrival. Spanning nine equally heart-warming and heart-breaking years, Marley and the family endure love and loss, desire and betrayal, secrets and celebrations as they try to navigate the unique demands of a family business and a working-class life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the story revolves around a murder mystery, after a shocking discovery is made in a local church attic, the pulse of the novel stays with the Joseph family itself. The town of Mercury, based on a real town by the same name, also acts as its own character throughout the novel. Having grown up in a similar once-industrial town in western Pennslyvania, like Burns herself, I was excited to connect and discuss her latest work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spoke with Amy Jo Burns over Zoom to discuss working-class family dynamics, the real cost of a family business, what legacy means for women, being the author of your own story, making peace with the past, and much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Sam Dilling: Mercury <\/em>takes place in a small working-class industrial town in Pennsylvania and centers a dynamic family of roofers\u2014the Joseph family. Where did the idea for this book come from and what was the experience of writing it like?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amy Jo Burns:<\/strong> I come from a roofing family\u2014my dad, my brother, my uncles, my dad’s best friend, my grandfather. I learned how to tell stories from them. They are fantastic storytellers. They’re so funny. They have a real sense of timing and surprise and how to land a punch line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of what inspired me, I had been working on a separate project for a long, long time and I had to put it aside. I really love to write about my hometown. I don\u2019t know if you feel that way. I find it endlessly inspiring, beautiful, problematic, romantic, and haunting. All of it. So I sat down and I did a writing exercise. It was from this memory I had of being nine years old at the Little League baseball field. There was a man smoking a cigarette behind the bleachers. He said to my mom, \u201cPlease don’t tell my wife.\u201d I always remember that. I thought it would be fun to freewrite who that person might be and what led them back there. It was interesting because as soon as I started writing, it all just tumbled out. I said he’s a roofer. He’s got this wife he really loves, but he’s not sure she loves him back anymore. Why would that be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SD: The family orbits around the business\u2014like it has its own center of gravity. And at times, the lines between the family and the business blur. The business acts as a proxy for the love the family shows each other. And that might sound bad\u2014but that\u2019s just the way of life. When you\u2019re from a working-class family, the dynamics of work or the family business are going to influence the family itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n