Projection: Encounters with my Runaway Mother (Dundurn Press—imprint: Thomas Allen Publishers), by Priscila Uppal, has been shortlisted for the 2013 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction and the Governor General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction.
49th Shelf put Projection on its list of books to watch out for back in January 2013. The memoir is an account of Uppal's challenging reunion with the mother in Brazil, and their failed attempt at reconciliation twenty years after Uppal's mother abandoned her, her brother and father.
The Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction will be announced October 21, 2013. The Governor General's Literary Awards will be announced November 28, 2013.
Priscila Uppal appears in Calgary as part of WordFest. Follow all our #Fest2Fest coverage for updates and news.
49th Shelf talks to Uppal about confrontation, a mother's love, and why a book was the perfect format for this story.
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Julie Wilson: You've said there aren't enough books for people—most of us—who don't get the happy ending, and that forgiveness and reconciliation are difficult. Before you began Projection, were you aware of any other books that attempted to track a journey similar to yours?
Priscila Uppal: To be honest, I was more aware of novels and films about difficult reunions that end in complete disaster than memoirs, and I think that this might be because of the difficulty of writing honestly about family. Much of our current cultural climate valorizes the mother and valorizes rather Christian concepts of reconciliation and forgiveness. I wanted to demonstrate that you can still have a strong and positive outcome—a redemptive ending even—even if you discovered that there was no opening for forgiveness or reconciliation and even if you have no interest in maintaining a relationship with the woman who gave birth to you.
JW: To reconcile is to confront an often brutal misunderstanding of your time apart. You say, "To come face to face against the real person—whose face will never appear to you as you envisioned it—is to come up against and interrogate your own imagination and discover through cross-examination how true or false you've been to this person, to the past, and to yourself." Was there a time after meeting your mother again when you put down the pen and questioned if you'd be able to continue with writing this book?
PU: I always intended to write a book about the experience of finding my mother, as I’ve always been fascinated by how we mourn people who are still alive and what happens when we gain factual information about them, what changes in terms of our understanding of how they are, and who we are, in the imagination. The biggest challenge I faced in terms of thinking about the book was the structure. I needed to find a structure that was true to this experience. It took some time for me to think about structuring the book around movies that my mother has seen over 100 times—in the theatre—movies about mothers and daughters, or movies about Brazil, but once the thought came to me, I knew it was the correct narrative approach since it reflects my mother’s state of mind—she lives almost exclusively in a movie fantasy life so as not to deal with her actual real life—but it was also true to my own experience of looking to art for projections of the imagination, for media where I could analyze and interrogate representations of motherhood and see whether or not they fit my own experience.
JW: To continue with that, in this book, what character do you do portray?
PU: What’s really interesting about the nature of projection is how we can latch onto certain elements of characters for investigation or analysis. So, my mother is sometimes the misunderstood but sympathetic Stella Dallas, sometimes the ogre mother in Throw Momma from the Train, sometimes the narcissistic diva of Mommie Dearest. In turn, I am sometimes the homeless robotic orphan Priscilla of Blade Runner (my mother’s favourite movie), sometimes the tough-minded and cold Mia of The Myth of Fingerprints, sometimes the out-of-her-element daughter in Freaky Friday who must now sympathize with her mother by spending some time in her shoes.
I love the way that movies offered me a way of connecting to my mother as well as a way of connecting to readers, who might not have the same family experience that I do, but who also likely have some difficult relationships with members of their families and sometimes have thoughts, memories, desires, revelations, about these relationships triggered while watching movies, or absorbing other works of art.
JW: In psychoanalytical terms, projection is a defence mechanism in which a person ascribes undesirable attributes onto others . . .
PU: I interpret projection in much broader terms, more of an emotional and intellectual attempt at connection, whether positive or negative. I’ve read the book so many times during the editing and publishing process that I can tell you that I stand behind my depiction of the relationship. I kept elaborate journals of those 12 days and I’ve questioned nearly every line I’ve written to interrogate my motivation for including it. I have no intention of hurting my mother, or anyone for that matter, by writing this account. My entire reason for writing the book is to present as honest an account as possible, especially as it relates to character development of my mother and myself.
JW: So much has been written about a mother's love, but what stood out to me in your story is how a mother can withhold like. You find yourself wondering, only in those first few days of seeing her again after two decades, if you met those requirements.
PU: My mother both expected love and was afraid to ask for love when I arrived. I think she kept asking me if I liked this or that food, and that she has no time for people who do not like what she does or do not like her, as a way of telling me that she expected me to like her, and then by extension, love her. My mother is very proud of her personality—and she is at first a very charming, likable person when you meet her, since she’s outgoing and animated. But my mother doesn’t actually want anyone to really know her, who she is, and this frightens her. She also knew that I was not easily manipulated and that I did not visit her to throw myself at her feet as a daughter and express my love. She was afraid that I was there to discover who she was, as she herself no longer wants to admit or discover who she is. Later on in the story, she finds enough courage to ask me if I love her, but she does it after so many unfeeling moments and in such a manipulating and strange way—writing to me the question on a postcard and handing it to me in an art gallery—that I am no longer willing to lie to her about my feelings. And so we have that brief but very painful conversation about it (which I won't give away here).
JW: There are moments in Projection in which disappointment and anger is so palpable, it's hard for the reader to return to the page. Talk a bit, then, about why a book is the ideal container/format for this story.
PU: Exactly for the reason you mention. With a book, you can take a break, you can pause and reflect, and even put the book down for a week or two while you consider its implications. Unlike in life, you can return when you are ready to return and the same passage will be there waiting for you.
JW: Incarnations of your mother naturally appear in your other works. Now that you've examined your relationship with your mother at such length, what use do you think she'll have to you as a writer?
PU: I’ve written poems about my mother over the years, and while I was writing the memoir, I also wrote the story as a play called Six Essential Questions, which will have its World Premiere in March 2014 in Toronto as part of the Factory Theatre’s season. The play, unlike the memoir, is not bound by fact, so I take the emotional experience of our reunion and examine in in surreal, poetic, and non-realistic ways for the stage. As I’ve told the actors, the memoir details what happened, the play what it felt like.
It’s hard to write a short story or a novel or a play without family members, so I suppose I will always be bringing to some of my mother characters some of my own experiences, but I don’t feel trapped or limited by this, and I certainly no longer feel haunted. I think finding my mother ended that feeling.
JW: Projection is now a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Non-Fiction. How would you like to hear your book discussed alongside the other finalists?
PU: I’m thrilled to be among such a distinguished list of finalists and to be debated among such a distinguished list of jurors. What I hope that readers will note is that although the main storyline is an abandoned daughter reuniting with her runaway mother, the consequences and ramifications of this investigation, as I’ve written it, are far-reaching into nearly every element of what it means to be alive today in our global world. I am also very proud with how all these elements are nearly seamlessly interweaved, so that each subject is naturally and purposefully related to every other subject explored in the memoir. I took great, great pains in the word by word writing and editing of this book to ensure vivid descriptions, smooth transitions, and thoughtful meditations. I hope all readers enjoy the results!
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Priscila Uppal is an internationally acclaimed Toronto poet, fiction writer and York University professor. Among her publications are eight collections of poetry, including Ontological Necessities (shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize); and the novels The Divine Economy of Salvation and To Whom It May Concern. Time Out London dubbed her "Canada’s coolest poet."