Jeni McFarland
Jeni McFarland holds an M.F.A. in Fiction from the University of Houston, where she served as a fiction editor for Gulf Coast magazine. She is a 2016 Kimbilio Fellow, with an essay appearing in The Beiging of America (2Leaf Press), and fiction in Crack the Spine, Spry, and Lunch Ticket. She lives in rural Michigan with her husband, her fearless Doodle, and her scaredy cat. The House of Deep Water—out now from G.P. Putnam’s Sons—is her first novel.
Featured Work
The House of Deep Water
Facing financial trouble, Beth, a Black divorcee with two kids, moves back to the Midwest to live with her white father, only to find him with a live-in girlfriend, Linda, a girl Beth babysat in high school. After returning home, Beth rekindles an old affair with a married man; she is also forced to address the town’s benign racism, as well as the sexual assault she experienced as a young child at the hands of a neighbor, both issues which her father has long refused to acknowledge. This is a story about the rage boiling inside a woman who has been quiet for too long.
Five Questions for Jeni McFarland
-
I’m seriously good at reading people—their body language, and their micro expressions and energies. I get hunches about people, and they’re usually right. It’s almost a sixth sense. As a writer, this translates into writing very real characters.
-
I wrote the bare bones of The House of Deep Water in Robert Boswell’s fiction forms class, and he had us start with a milieu. So the town came first, but the characters were the first thing I really delved into.
-
My editor wanted me to include a chapter from Steve’s point of view. He was inspired by an ex who really messed up my life for a few years, and I really didn’t want to write him; I didn’t want to get inside his head. To be sure, there are a lot of awful people in my book, but he was definitely the hardest to work with.
-
Before the pandemic, I would have said recliner, book, tea, cat in my lap. But I’ve had plenty of those days lately. Right now, what sounds great to me is sitting outside in the sunshine with a group of friends and drinking and laughing and talking trash, and when the day is over we all hug each other and make plans to meet again soon.
-
I hadn’t even thought of that! Okay, let’s do filet, medium rare. Roasted beets (roots and greens) with bleu cheese, toasted walnuts, and a drizzle of aged balsamic. Scalloped potatoes made with copious amounts of asiago and cream. A real jammy Zinfandel. Chocolate mousse with fresh raspberries. (I think it’s time I get my grill out of the barn for the summer!)
-
My book came out last year, so it’s already shelved with A. Raphael Johnson’s The Through (which I can’t recommend highly enough) and a prettily-bound book of Zora Neal Hurston’s Folklore, Memoirs, & Other Writings (which I still need to read.)
