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Homing Instinct S ena Jeter Naslund's new novel Te Fountain of St. James Court, subtitled Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman, braids two distinct narratives from the lives of two women artists into alternating chapters for a compelling novel-within-a-novel. Seventy-year-old novelist Kathryn Callaghan has just completed the draft of a new work and left it for her childhood friend and St. James Court neighbor to read. We follow Callaghan through a day that fnds her recalling and reconciling epiphanous moments in her life as writer, wife (twice-divorced), mother and friend. Te manuscript she has left at midnight for her friend to read is Te Fountain of St. James Court's second thread: the story of Elisabeth Vigee-LeBrun, the celebrated historical painter of Marie Antoinette who lived through the French Revolution to see international recognition as a portrait painter. Tough separated by time and circumstance, the lives of the two women resonate passionately with enduring questions: What does it mean to be a woman and an artist? How do we (or simply, do we) fnd satisfaction in our lives as mothers and wives and friends as well as artists? Where shall we fnd the communities that sustain and champion us? Here, Naslund shares some refections on Te Fountain of St. James Court and her own life as a writer. Could you tell us a little bit about your process for writing this book — did you complete the two narratives separately or independently of each other and then stitch them together? "I moved back and forth between the two narratives during the composition process. Te book went through four complete revisions, so parts got cut, expanded and rearranged. In the fourth revision, I decided mostly to tell the story of the historic French painter, Elisabeth Vigee-LeBrun, from early childhood to old age, her mid-80s. Tis chronology played against the more free-associative backstory for the fctitious contemporary fction writer who lives on St. James Court, Kathryn Callaghan." Te book's narrative structure is fascinating and complex. Te opening and closing chapters, however, are dedicated to the contemporary protagonist, the novelist Kathryn Callaghan. Should we consider her story the primary one? By Lynnell Edwards Photo by Chris Witzke "No, she simply comes frst; her story is not the primary one. Te braid of the two stories represents the book's essence. Sometimes I think of it as like a Bach two-part invention." Elisabeth Vigee-LeBrun appeared in your 2006 novel Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette. Clearly, she was someone you thought had a story to tell. What more did you discover about her as you wrote her story in companion with Kathryn's? Or, what particularly has compelled you about her? "I found the French painter a compelling character because I admired her work and discovered that she had succeeded spectacularly in a time when few women artists got any encouragement or recognition. I liked her courage to leave France when she acknowledged how dangerous her situation was and her courage in traveling throughout Europe as far as Russia. I also appreciated her devotion to her daughter." Te use of references to the contemporary "real" world can be slippery, but you have not shied away from populating Kathryn's world with real people, real events and real places that will be immediately familiar to many Louisville readers. What did you enjoy about or gain artistically from this approach to creating setting? "I love my home on St. James Court in Old Louisville, and I wanted to honor it and the neighborhood by making them central to a piece of fction that would be widely read. Essentially, I lent my home and furniture and paintings to my fctive character." In your major novels — Sherlock in Love, Ahab's Wife, Abundance, Four Spirits, Adam and Eve, and now Te Fountain of St. James Court — you have chosen to use elements from a historical past in service of a literary narrative. While this approach might seem constraining for a writer, what do you fnd liberating or satisfying about immersing yourself in this way? "When I wrote short stories, they were always contemporary stories (at the time of their writing). When I moved from writing short stories to novels, I wrote a detective narrative (Sherlock in Love) because I wanted to better understand how to handle plot over a larger canvas, and because Holmes' intelligence and appreciation of music appealed to me, I chose him. Te year 1886, the setting for that novel, was a blank among Sherlockian scholars. And so I used that particular blank so as not to contradict established chronology for his original exploits. "Ahab's Wife, or Te Star-Gazer, came to me as a vision and a voice (with a particular time and place), so I embraced that. I consider Four Spirits to be a contemporary novel, as it took place during my own lifetime, and it used some of my own experiences. Abundance has a setting and situation where long-standing social injustice was met not with non-violent action, as was the case of the Civil Rights Movement, but with increasing violence, escalating to the Terror, to a vacuum in leadership, and to the rise of Napoleon, resulting in war all over Europe and millions of deaths. Te two books are mirror images of each other — nonviolent change vs. violent change — and that idea involved a particular historical setting. Adam and Eve is set in the future, in 2020. Te contemporary side of the new novel represents my desire to return to looking at the world I live in now." What advice do you give to the young writers you frequently work with as teacher and mentor? "One, I've found there are times, because of family or other work, when it's impossible to write. It's best to face this realistically and cheerfully: I'm not going to write a word this weekend, but I'm going to enjoy my life anyway and enter into it fully. Two, I advise people to look at the week to come, box those hours in each day which are blank, and commit yourself to writing during that time. If you use the time writing, congratulate yourself; don't be critical about either the quantity or quality of the work." Sena Jeter Naslund, 71, is writer-in-residence at the University of Louisville, co-founder and director of Spalding University's brief-residency Master of Fine Arts in Writing program, and editor of Te Louisville Review and the Fleurde-Lis Press. A native of Birmingham, Ala., she has lived in her home on St. James Court since 2000. 12.13 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 93