Alice Bolin’s “Pool” appeared in our December issue (and also made the longlist for 2012’s Wigleaf Top 50). Here, we talk about the desolation of childhood, BLACK HOLE, and abandonment.

1. This piece reads almost like a ritual to me: in the autumn, the narrator treks to the empty pool at the abandoned house at the end of the block, avoiding the boys who lurk in the abandoned lot, and, once she arrives at the pool, curls inward – it feels like something that happens again and again. What might we make of the places we are drawn to, the processes we repeat over and over?

Personal rituals are something I am extremely interested in. I was a furtive, emotional, mystically-minded child and I did many strange things out of varying ratios of boredom and anxiety. I hid my belongings outside, hoarded stones and other outside things inside, wrote things on my body, named the places and landmarks I discovered. The places and procedures of rituals like the one in “Pool” are huge in distinguishing the child world from the adult world it exists alongside.

2. The detail in “Pool” is beautifully stark, to the point where, to me, it seems almost desolate. It may be autumn in a back alley anywhere, but it feels troublingly like the end of the world. What inspired the setting of this piece?

I like that you picked up on the end-of-the world feeling, because I think that has a lot to do with the mood and setting I’m evoking in this piece. It comes from a full-length hybrid manuscript called BLACK HOLE that is very concerned with the powerlessness and emotional apocalypses of childhood. I’m pretty interested in the uncanny element of domesticity, the menace found in wholesome scenes. Continue reading →