Harvard Book Store; WGBH Forum Network; Belle Boggs: Mattaponi Queen

And now it's my pleasure to introduce Belle Boggs. Miss Boggs is a writer and teacher originally from King William County Virginia where much of Madame Queen is set. She holds an MFA from the University of California Irvine and her stories have appeared in the Paris Review Glimmer Train Oxford American and numerous other literary journals and anthologies. Queen Her first book is a collection of linked short stories set in and around the Mount of reservation in King William County. The manuscript for the collection was awarded the prestigious bread loaf Writers Conference baseless prize and Percival Everett the fiction judge for the prize writes of the book. It is always good to hear new voices but the newness of a voice alone carries no literary value. These stories are good because they are strongly imagined finally controlled and well crafted. These stories are good because they are true. True in that way that only good fiction can be. Thank you very much for coming and I'm going to read the stories in in the collection are a little most of them are a little long to read all at one time so I'm going to read just the beginning of a short

story called Jonas and I'll just start there. OK join us. It came almost as a relief when Melinda's husband told her that he wanted the operation. At first all she could think of was the thing itself as pink and ugly and tender as a face crumpled from crying and how she would never have to see it again. She thought not of what would replace it but only of its absence. A blank space missing us like the infinite and mysterious black hole space she had seen on NOVA. Melinda resolved her features into a look of utter surprise as Jonas coached in his words no doubt by that Richmond therapist carefully unschooled his case like the most ordinary and obvious yarn. So what you're saying Linda repeated slowly not looking at her husband. They were sitting in bed on a

Sunday morning yellow sunlight streamed on to the unread newspaper. What you're saying is you've never felt right down there. Jonas explained patiently that it was not about down there it was less about that than about his whole body not feeling right. Couldn't Linda imagine what it would feel like to have never felt like a girl like a woman. If every time she put on her cheerleading uniform she felt more like putting on football pads cleats helmets. No Melinda said flatly she could not. She had coached state championship cheerleading teams eight of the last 15 years. Pat rolled her hair every morning ever life past age 13 carried 20 odd shades of eyeshadow in her purse. But she had been thinking lately that if anything ever happened to Jonas she would never seek another man's company last out of loyalty to Jonas and out of mere tiredness. He was already taking the hormones he told her already he could feel changes in his body

a softening of something coarse hair turning fine as silk. Tell me about how you felt in that moment. Melinda had agreed to see Jonas as therapist in private sessions to help ease the transition. Seeing a therapist made her feel sort of stupid but she agreed with Jonas that it was good to know what she was in for. Melinda shrugged afraid of S. to say too much. Afraid of saying kind of sounding country or simple. She was also afraid she might start crying for no reason though she felt fine. This happens sometimes of the gynecologist's the therapist had long brown hair pulled into a low and glossy ponytail white white teeth under other circumstances. Melinda might have felt jealous that her husband was spending so much alone time with such a smart and attractive woman. Jimmy says you're taking it quite well that you are unbelievably supportive in fact. Linda smiled. Did you feel that this was somehow inevitable. She

thought about it for a minute and said no. I mean I've always known that Jonas was sort of different the quiet type. My first husband was loud. She looked up waiting for the therapist to say something but she was only waiting expectant. So Melinda continued I think partly I took it so well because I just come home from my sister's her husband boss owes her so much. Give me a beer. Where's my pants etc.. She said in a quieter voice. And my last husband my daughter's daddy. He drank and he cheated. But Jonas has been a faithful husband for 10 years the therapist said is that not right. No it is then there is no reason to believe. Well it isn't that not really. It's more the other thing. I'm tired of being bossed by men and I'm used to taking things as they come. The therapist nodded with a concerned and gentle frown.

But Melinda thought she did not understand. She did not look like she had ever been bossed by men. Before Melinda left on the hour to the minute she noticed the therapist asked her in a delicate way if she had questions of any kind about the process the procedures. Linda shook her head vehemently. She did have questions primarily about what would be expected in the bedroom and about down there she was too shy to ask them. She could not help thinking as she left that if the therapist had been truly good and smart as Jonah said she would have known that and made her ask them anyway. Telling Jessica her daughter was the hardest part. For one thing Jonas had been the primary daddy that Jessica had known past age 10 and Melinda thought that this was probably the hardest news you could hear about a father. It didn't seem right Melinda said for Jonas to tell her she would do it herself just as she had talked to Jessie about her period and boys and

sex. This fell into that category she felt. Jonas had done the normal dad things he taught her to drive had chaperone dances at the high school had told Jesse's dates to have her home by 11 then 12 as she got older. He had even walked her down the aisle which was possibly the proudest moment in Melinda's life. It had been Jesse's choice to give him that honor and Melinda had been the one to choose Jonas. Well Linda did not want to tell anyone else first and she could not imagine keeping such an important piece of news a secret when it was not competition season. She spent half her mornings on the telephone and the person she talked to most was Jessica. She called her when she found a funny piece of news in the local paper and when she was feeling down and when she heard gossip about the neighbors she told her when Jonas had irritable bowel syndrome and had to sit on that funny donut shaped pillow from month. Jessie was the first to know anything. Melinda No.

Later Melinda would wish she had told Jessie and her more properly formal way and how she did it over the phone. Spooning sliced peaches onto a pan of chicken. It just came out Jonah says getting an operation to become a woman a sex change. She had hoped that telling Jesse would finally give her someone to talk to about it. Someone to be concerned about her. But what she heard from the other end of the line was Jesse's phone clattering to the floor. It took several calls before she would answer again and by then she was crying and she was the one who had to be consoled. But what will people think mama. Melinda shrugged looking pick peach syrup from her fingers. This county has had to get used to a lot of things she said. There was a country store owner who'd married the 16 year old and set her up working the counter countless teen pregnancies. A few of them from Melinda's own cheering squads and accounting scandal with the county supervisors. A professor who moved here

from Richmond and flew a rainbow flag. Her best friend had had her sick ski boat sunk by a jealous ex-husband. The way Melinda saw it this was a small and superficial change no more unnatural than the fertility pills Jessica had been taking for six months. The half dozen fertilized eggs she'd had implanted in her room. He still loves me honey just the same as he did. But Kevin's congregation Jessie wailed. They will not get used to this. Oh it's easy for Jonas. He's retired but some people still have to work in this town. Melinda did not mention that she still worked and that high school cheerleaders were not known to be the most open minded bunch. Jessica had married the county's most popular Baptist Church is self-righteous and smirking youth minister. Neither Melinda nor Jonas like to munch the Jonas wouldn't say so but it has been clear all along that Jessica was smitten. Melinda wanted to explain something about that

how when you love someone it didn't matter what other people thought. But on reflection she realized that wasn't it. Exactly. There was something more complicated that she herself barely understood and expecting a 22 year old to understand was probably pointless. It was more like you come into this world. You go out alone. You come into this world alone and you go out alone. But it wasn't exactly that either. Well I wish she wouldn't take it so hard. Melinda said. But I understand why you are. It was a shock to me too. She could hear Jessie sniffling Hopefully she asked Do you want me to come over. No. Jessie said in a calmer voice. The doctor says I should not get upset. He says stress is the enemy of conception. All right sweetie. Melinda felt her own tears starting to put her head back. You mustn't cry she told herself. Think of your grandchildren. He says I should

isolate myself from my stress factors Jessica said ominously. Melinda could not help wondering how such a smart girl could have married a man who put vanity plates on his truck. Rav they said. A sex change is not an overnight thing learned. First there are months of hormone therapy coaxing the body into its new self through small incremental changes small surgeries leading up to the big one before you even have one surgery there is a period of dress up drag they called it. So you get used to the feeling of being difference of being looked at the first time Jonas went out in drag. They took the doctor's sensible advice and made it an out of town and not overly formal or overly long appearance. Shopping for a pillow shams at the Ashland Wal-Mart and dinner at the Ashland Ponderosa. Melinda bought Jonas a smart new green pant suit. None of her clothes would fit him helped him style the ash

blonde wig he bought and powdered his face and eyelids and even gave him a touch of blush and lip gloss. She was careful not to overdo it when she was finished she looked rather as she expected like an older mannish woman. She realized rubbing a bit of thick gloss away from his bottom lip that she had probably never touched him there. Not with her fingertips never touched his soft and creepy eyelids or the high sharp ridge of his cheekbones and my beautiful yet he asked his voice so manly husky. He laughed as if to dismiss the notion. You'll do she said. You do the talking OK. He's asked in a whisper voice. On their way out Melinda nodded. She even drove Melinda did not think she'd had so much fun in years. First shopping at Wal-Mart. Jonas meek beside her in the brightly lit aisles with a new and keen interest he watched her

finger the fabrics place flowered pattern next to a solid rug or curtain material and did not once check his watch. He wasn't wearing a watch his watch was a man's. No one seemed to notice his large still hairy hands or his Adam's apple. Melinda told her sister later that was because women from Caroline County were so damn ugly. At dinner he ate slowly carefully cutting his steak and bringing it right to his mouth in the continental style. Melinda was put in mind of a delicate long lost aunts come to visit or a sister you didn't have to compete with and looks. She smiled at him across the table. But they didn't speak. They spent an entire hour and 15 minutes at the Ponderosa lingering over black coffee for Jonas and an ice cream sundae for Melinda. Normally Jonas

would raise his finger for the check before she'd even taken her last bite to save time he always said. Time for what she used to wonder at a table across from them. New parents took turns feeding their baby. She thought of Jessica and Kevin said a little useless prayer for a grandchild she was sure it was played prayed for plenty. Later in the car she asked him what he wanted to be called Joanie. Joan I think he said he put his hand over hers which rested on the gear shift and patted it. Even his palm felt softer to Melinda. You can call me Joan as still Melinda. I don't have to always. She gave him her martyr look like I told your therapist. I'm used to taking things as they come when in bed he reached for her. She kissed him chastely then turned it turned over. But clearly you would prefer he stay a man her sister Pauline said over the telephone.

Well suddenly Linda it's not up to me but secretly. I want Jonas to be happy. Melinda had come out with Jonas new Jonas's news to just about everyone who mattered and she had never in her life and told her so many times how amazing and strong she was. She'd even told her cheering squad carefully explaining that it didn't mean Jonas was gay. Melinda explained appalling that Jonas Joan was like a new person. He was willing to go out more and he laughed and smiled more than he ever had. He spent last less time alone. He cooked though not well. He wanted to learn new things. Could she imagine a man who did things with you not because he had to but because he wanted to. It sounds like what you're saying Pauline said simply is that we should all we should hope all our husbands get a sex change. Linda tried again. Did she remember what it was like to raise a child

when it was very young. How you could teach them one thing like how to use a flour sifter. And it kept them entertained for hours. How every day they learn something new and just learning it delighted them. It was sort of a little bit like that. Well I still don't think I want Roland getting his thing chopped off vulgar. Melinda thought her sister was so vulgar. The thing that is still in my mind Melinda began a little too quick and business like it felt was that my daughter is not speaking to us. Exactly. The therapist nodded leaned back in her chair. That's normal under the circumstances. Well it does not feel normal to me Melinda said. She had dressed up more for this visit. I think you know more powerful presence would exact better advice from this woman. She had what she called high hair the kind of hair that she required her girls to wear for competition. It looked good on the field. It made people remember you.

I talked to my daughter every day Melinda said proudly. Every day the therapist repeated. That is quite a schedule. Melinda did not expect this woman to understand or come from a place where daughters wear their mothers best friends boys their fathers. She did not want to talk about why that might be a problem in the therapist's eyes. How does Jonas feel about your daughter's rejection. He's shy about it. Linda said she explained how it wasn't Jonas exactly who had told her how Jonas didn't really like to talk about it to anyone. She told the therapist about Kevan and how she didn't think Jonas had ever really cared for him. Of course they wished Jessica well. I think he wants to just be a woman. A new person and that's that sometimes I think Melinda looked at the clock notice she had seven minutes left. Sometimes I think maybe he's practicing with us. The

therapist shook her head not comprehending. Feeling her eyes began to sting. Melinda decided quickly to ration the rest of her time to Jessica. My daughter used to have this amazing memory not for things like history and formulas for math or schools. She was on a roll and all but that wasn't the amazing part. It was for little details like if you are remembering so and so's wedding she could tell you exactly what you wore what everybody wore was the talent she had. So now she's married to this reverend and she wears sweatpants to the grocery store and goes out without her hair done and lies on her side all day and gives herself injections in the butt and she won't talk to me for more than a second. Now when I call says she has to go in this short way I accepted all of that. She said her voice breaking. I excepted it because she was happy. The therapist nodded but said nothing. Melinda wanted to say that she was

happy now too but the words did not come. Melinda had pictured therapy before Jonah started going as a place where you could go and get your embarrassing questions answered. You could say for example why did my father drink and who are around. Or why did my uncle abuse me. And the therapist would have an answer. You could say what does life mean. And he would know what you needed to hear. If you told him your worst and weirdest dreams he would tell you what they meant. Make you feel better. Normal. Why else would it cost so much. Driving home air conditioning cooling her bare arms and blowing back her high hair. Melinda knew what she wished she had asked. How old do you have to be to understand how love works. Jonas began therapy after suffering a panic attack at work more than a year before he had been a trucker hauling lumber to Chesapeake paper company. And one day he pulled over and

decided he was having a heart attack. He knelt in the weeds on Route 30 and clutched his chest until the feeling passed then drove himself and his whole rig to the hospital. When the test results came up clear the specialist at Tidewater memorial had referred him to therapy and that was that. Melinda wondered if Jonas would have ever made this decision without the therapist leading him there. Another woman she thought might be angry with the therapist angry with Jonas for having a fake hurt attack when he was supposed to be working and for taking an early retirement and for having something as inconvenient as the mind of a woman inside the body of a man. Surely she would be angry. Maybe Melinda thought turning on her favorite backroad short cut they should have a get together out at their house but at someone else's So that just seeing Kevin could see how they were accepted by other normal reasonably Christian people. It would be sort of like a

debutantes coming out with Jonas and his modest schoolmarmish could drag so that Kevin and Jesse could see that it wasn't about blue eyeshadow and fishnets and six inch heels so that they could see that it wasn't about sex. Linda sped up the straightaway where she had always tried to get the car up to 60. There was a dip in the road. If you were going fast enough you lost your stomach in the most pleasant way. Jonas's voice was steadily growing softer and higher. He spoke and a half whisper and had become almost neat in his habits. Folding his clothes and wiping crumbs from the countertops. It was almost like he knew that he was too big to be a woman and was trying somehow to contain himself to leave less of his bigness and coarseness behind. When I found that she bossed him more telling them what their plans were for the week and what movie she'd like to see. He acquiesced. Generally doing laundry she noticed that even the

sweat had a sweeter smell more feminine. He was plucking his eyebrows now and using it to tell its story on his arms and legs and face. Linda bought him a special stringent to shrink his pores and a cold cream that cost $20 a jar. It had been nearly a month since she told Jessica and she still had not talked to either of them for more than a minute. She'll come around and just wait. But aren't you sad. Melinda asked. Don't you miss her. Of course I do. You can't make people talk to you. Meanwhile Jonas had joined a support group in Richmond and Melinda was tired of waiting. The group met two nights a week next to a tattoo parlor on the south side and Jonas would be gone on those Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4:00 in the afternoon until 9:00 or 10:00 at night. Sometimes we get a beer afterwards he explains. On the south side Melinda asked. She had a big picture of that. There was a separate

support group for partners Jonas said. But Melinda told him she needed to think about next year's routines at least for now. So she stood outside in the backyard in her shorts and T-shirts and did jumps and kicks. Listen to her boom box as the sun sank lower and lower behind the water tower. She played old favorites from CNC Music Factory and Janet Jackson and Salt n Pepa. I jotted notes down on a pad doodled her own name in big curvy letters. When the grass grew too high making her legs she mowed it. At first she was annoyed that Jonas had neglected neglected the task but she found that she liked the challenge of starting the motor. Liked the feel of pushing and pulling a great weight of cutting. And the more she thought about it the more she liked the term partner. It sounded more democratic more freeing then wife. Time to stop there.

Thanks. You like to know how it became a book. OK. Well I went through. And if a school in California at UC Irvine and I wrote a novel as my MFA thesis and after that I was in. I mean I had moved to New York City and I was teaching in Brooklyn at an elementary school and my novel like didn't sell and that was fine. You know it's like a learning process. So I started working on these short stories the year. After the summer after I taught first grade and so I would go to the New York Public Library every day and work on my computer and I was just really enjoying writing about they're all set in the two counties where I grew up which are King William County and king and queen County and I was really enjoying working on these stories and after another year of working on them I moved to North Carolina with my

husband and I was teaching GED classes then and I was working more and more and I thought oh that's great I have a collection after a while it seemed like they were done. I hadn't even at the time and he said well you know he wasn't that into short stories so he wasn't that into me I don't know. But so I thought well I'll write another book. And meanwhile teaching and I then I moved to D.C. We were moving for work and I was teaching at a KIPP school in D.C. and Shaw. I was really busy I had never imagined if you would like Europes be I mean KIPP is great but you know if you value your spare time it's really hard. So it's a great thing to do. But it's it's hard. So my husband was like Well I think you should send these stories to a contest or something it was like. Yeah and I didn't do anything with them and I came home one night it was winter timers like late where it's cold and there was a message in the machine that was that it was a finalist for the big

prize and I didn't know that he submitted it for me I had no idea. So yeah it was really nice. You know that's an understatement. So then it was great I was on spring break when I heard from Michael Collier that it won but it was great because I was able to share that with my students I was writing teacher fifth grade which was when I had first decided that I wanted to be a writer so was a really great thing to share with my students. Anyway so that's how we came up. Well the title magic and I clean the magic and I River is a river in Virginia that. It's than that than that the TA The Paolo and the I like are three tributaries that form the map and I and they run in between King William and king and queen and feed into the York and the Indian reservation is also on the map and I river so very like one of the most pristine rivers coastal rivers on the East Coast. There is a boat. There really was a real boat called the

mad queen that I remember from growing up in Walkerton but it had been like kind of like our pleasure cruiser boat and it's someone it's in a couple of the stories like three of the stories are about well not about but there this boat appears because one character's trying very hard to buy the boat from someone else who doesn't want units to get rid of it for various reasons. I sort of came to it later I didn't. I wrote one of these short stories when I was in workshop of the very last story in the collection. I was just thinking about it. This ad man that we had and just thinking about the town that I live in and I was three pages and I wrote it and I didn't think that I would write anymore about it. But then I just started thinking you know kind of coming up with characters and thinking about the place. And also at the time I was just well at the time there was a lot of concern about and there still is about the magpie river because Newport News wants to build a reservoir that will

take the river a lot of the river step them will be very harmful to the magpie Indians who depend on the river. And I was thinking also about like people I was I gone to high school with and what their lives were kind of becoming. And so I just kind of thinking a lot about that and that's sort of where how I got started. I think a lot because like when I when I first went to. When I first moved to California I remember going I had been there before but I had never been to Los Angeles. I was like oh this is terrible. And I went and I was going to live in Long Beach and I went to the beach and I met the surfer and I was trying to be friendly. And I was talking to him and he said where are you from. I said I'm from Virginia and he said is that on the coast. I was really worried. So so I thought and I remember that Jeffrey Wolf who was in my workshop leader for me

and my first of the first letter to me he like scrawled Are you lonesome for the Tidewater and I was like oh no. But I also felt kind of emotional about it so I was like well maybe I should be. But but it also has helped. I mean I have met a lot of people I'm just a regular teacher like I don't teach at universities I teach usually in middle schools and right now I'm teaching in a high school. And so I meet a lot of different people I'm. I teach all different kinds of things like Judy first grade high school fifth grade. And so I meet all these interesting people and I move I'm pretty settled in North Carolina now. But then I would be glad to talk to anybody about I know a lot of people are kind of doubt sometimes people are very you can people within that phase or sort of down on the MFA experience but for me I mean. It was just such a great opportunity to go and work with writers and to have time to write and Irvine is really really supportive of their students even now where the

U.S. funding has Kai has kind of disappeared. They still fully fund their students and you know help you learn how to teach. And they also do a lot of outreach. I mean that's how I got into teaching younger students. I was teaching in a program called humanities out there that was in the community of Santa Ana. And so that's how I got interested in doing that but I thought I would love the whole experience I was able to spend three years there and the teach the all the teachers there take it really seriously and then they also have great other programs you can take classes in. I mean there are a lot of great programs but I think that they're really special and this really small two like there are only six people each year. It's kind of nice. Well I think I see some things. I mean I don't even think of myself as having an accent because my dad is from West Virginia so he has a stronger accent I think that other people in my family have a stronger accent than me but. But I think there's a tidewater sort of accent.

I think. I mean you know I tend to teach in schools that are pretty needy and so a lot of times I spend you know stand on my head trying to get kids to like writing and it hasn't really you know unfortunately they agree you know things that people can do and reading and writing are not necessarily done in our classrooms I think that New York City is doing a great job and there are lots of places that are but it's just so spotty for kids who who are in Title 1 schools which is where I tend to teach. So you know I think it will change more now that I'm teaching. I mean that I'll be teaching high school so I'll have a chance to read a lot of the you know that I can make my students read the same things that I read. But then I should do a little bit of that with with that grade which was like my specialty for a while. But there you can I mean the way that teachers just try to teach writing and reading now is through

process based writing which is what you learn. You know it's like workshops so we did a writers workshop and a reader's workshop and it was my favorite part of classroom teaching. I'm working. I think I'm working on a novel now that's set in Virginia and Richmond in that so historical novel I'm trying to work on some research. But so that's what I'm working on now I really I love writing short stories because I was you can you know there's there's like a light at the end of the tunnel and you kind of imagine the whole thing at once. And some people are really good at that with the novel writing where they know everything that's going to happen but I don't I just write you know start to finish and I try to figure it out as I go along. But I like working on a novel because the characters you can kind of think you know you just spend so much time with the characters and I think that's why a lot of the characters in these stories appear in other stories in the book because I just wanted to continue to work with them. So that's sort of how it became my

collection was that I started wanting after I wrote and I would want the character more to say about what character that was not the point of view character and things like that. There are a couple of characters who grew up and lived or and moved away from and came back to the Indian reservation and I spent some time on the map and I Indian reservation I mean really like it's not a small county but not that many people live there. There's like one elementary school and one elementary middle and one high school and that's it for the entire county. So all of the different cultural things about the community. You know you have an opportunity to learn about all of them because there's just not that much else to do. So you know that was a part of you know my growing up you know knowing people and then I was able to spend time with some people on the Indian reservation to find out a little bit more about how how and who worked there and things like that. I think my favorite

living writer is Edward P. Jones. And I just like I just adore his writing and it's also kind of particular. I mean it's special to me also because of that North Carolina Virginia D.C. area that I spent so much time in I think you can really read his stories in there like novels I love his novels to and from the south Flannery O'Connor and Eudora Welty. I really love Richard Yates and those are like writers I can think of off the top. I had Alice Munro as short story writer you know so those are like I thought would say my my top favorites top five I guess. I thought I had one class. I was just teaching the sewing class this past semester of English students and they were seniors and we were reading Southern women writers so I they wanted and this was before my book came out so because it hasn't been out for a

long so they want to I gave them a copy of a short story because they asked me and we were talking and they were writing short stories too. But I think I would just like let it be on the shelf if I wanted to borrow it. They can borrow it but I don't want to make them read it I would rather than going to read plenary O'Connor. But but so yeah we'll see. I mean I'm excited to see me and read a lot of stuff. It's a really it's a struggle for me because not because the universities are like beating down my door or anything but because. When I first started I did I have taught composition and creative writing that was part of the you know that's the Irvine that's part of the experience. I was like I was really young when I went to school so it's not that you know I was right out of college and and I just thought that I was unprepared to do it. And I felt you know kind of like fraud. And I don't think I would feel that way so much now but

it kind of pushed me in the direction of wanting to learn. First of all like Why are college freshman such bad writers where you know where does that come from. I mean probably here there are good writers but I mean Irvine is a good school and they were not they it was really unintelligible and it was. And so I was trying to figure that out and then you know why are they so not interested in like what I'm trying to get them to read. So I wanted to figure that out so I started working with younger kids and I also like really have a I mean I try to work somewhere where I'm needed and it's not like a thousand people trying to work there you know somewhere where I like I fit in and I'm needed. But on the other hand it's really really hard to have a writing schedule and teach you know from 7:30 in the morning and still three four o'clock and then plan the next day it's like giving four presentations in a day and then planning more for the next day so it's so hard. But but then you know it's rewarding too. So I don't know. I guess we'll see.

I think about it but I don't know. I will apply for jobs that are in my North Carolina area. We'll see what happens.