Gina Nutt: “How the Family Fights” is excerpted from a longer project. What were the earliest inspirational seeds for this work?
Niles Baldwin: I was thinking of deception and self-deception and then how susceptible we are to having other people’s voices in our heads, how we may even seek it out in order to find some sort of relief from how many decisions we are required to make while being alive. It got me thinking of how much I love being myself but at the same time really wish I were somebody else, how those things exist of top of each other and somehow feed one another. From those thoughts I was thinking of twins or siblings or even people in relationships who gravitate towards each other in some sort of attempt to be closer to one. So, I started writing about these cousins who were born on the same day and their moms are sisters and their dads are just their dad and their uncle. The narrator cousin has this blind faith toward the other cousin. It’s tough to say whether or not it is reciprocated. But regardless of who is in control, they are genuinely trying to become more like one person than they are like two. Then this idea of self-deception can become even trickier. I’m not sure those were the earliest inspirations, but these were the ideas that emerged that took the project from a 10-page story to a much larger project.

GN: Form and the family tensions throughout this piece seem to be in conversation. The first and third sections sweep us up in the momentum of fallouts, while the second section is shaped by brief paragraphs. How do you approach shaping paragraphs and sentences? What effects do you find emerging as you fine-tune your work?
NB: I’m not sure those forms were intentional from the outset, but I do think they’ve become a theme. Many sections are in those big blocks, and many get into and out of the paragraph within a few lines. Those two modes. Shaping paragraphs wasn’t something I thought about all that much until I started writing poetry this past year. I’m learning in poetry how I like a line break to be, and I think it’s making me more aware of the physicality of my lines, sentences, and paragraphs in my fiction. 

Looking back on these three sections, though, I see that the first and third show a conflict where the cousins are feeling aligned, while the middle section has them separated after an event where they are against one another. I wouldn’t be shocked if looking back and going forward that turned out to be a trend. A contained space for when they are together and multiple stops and starts for when they are at odds.

GN: I’m also curious about how you channeled the matter-of-fact voice that details the tumultuous events here. What did that straightforward narration open up for this piece? Did any difficulties rise to the surface as you worked?
NB: That matter-of-fact voice comes from a place of trying to understand the narrator cousin. Detailing the events of their lives with such simplicity allowed me to learn more how the narrator cousin looks at the other cousin. The battery goes “from cousin hand trough inside air” and in a way it’s not the cousin who threw it, it’s just an event that took place without percentages of blame to be assigned. Or there’s the cleaning up of the fight between their mothers. The fight is described without the cousins knowing who did what, how it escalated, who is to blame. Then, the narrator adopts “we” instead of “I” in the cleanup. Almost as if their cohesion is part of the healing of where the fight took place. Then, though, the narrator breaks from “we” and says “I breathed the chemicals in heavy…” So, the cousin is holding on to some semblance of being an individual by singling out one of the tasks that maybe there’s a wish that the other cousin could have done it.

The straightforward narration reflects how the narrator cousin absorbs the world. It’s a way to make sense of their family structure. They are in a cycle of conflict and forgiveness and the way the narrator cousin chooses not to complicate it further. The simplicity of the language reminds me of a child at play. Which helps when you pretend you are good at forgiveness, without recognizing that part of being good at something is the opportunity to have repetitive practice of that thing. They have a strange family and keeping the details of their family simple might be the only way to approach having a hold of it.

GN:What’s in your creative mosaic? Books, music, restaurants, films, visual art, fashion, ephemera, architecture, anything that energizes your writing.
NB: Lots of music in the mornings. All the other times of day too, but my mornings have become a time where I intentionally listen to albums while I get ready to write. I listen to this Emily Reo album called Olive Juice a lot. Advance Base, Ed Askew, Greg Jamie, Perfume Genius, Gia Margaret, Ruth Garbus. I listen to this one Ruth Garbus song called “Mono No Aware” on repeat whole mornings. I write a lot while watching movies. Saw a great one the other night called The Love That Remains. Another recent highlight was Chronicle of the Years of Fire. And constantly I’m energized to write by Kittery and the love and creativity of my friends.