Interview with Denise Haynes

1. You were a lawyer for 16 years. Why have you now dedicated yourself to writing?

I’ve always been a writer. It’s been a lifelong ambition to have a published work. Siblings tell me that I was only 5 or 6 when I first declared this. I remember reading books by Enid Blyton when I was a child and being in awe of the way a book could transport me into another world and allow me to experience the adventures of other children. That’s probably why I made this declaration. That desire has endured for my entire adult life, and I have in fact always written pieces, even while working as a teacher and a lawyer, so the transition to more or less full-time writing was an easy and obvious one. In fact, while I was a teacher, I saw it as preparation for being a writer, and while I was a lawyer, I also saw the discipline of legal writing as part of the general practice and art of writing.

2. What is your debut novel about? 

The novel is about a family, viewed from the inside by both a father and the children. The father tells of the changes brought about in the life of a couple as they become parents, try to preserve their individuality, and take on the responsibilities of parenthood. He also talks about the changes in his wife as she became a mother and about his own personal challenges and how he saw each of his children. Then the children respond with their versions, filling in the stories told by the father and revealing a little about themselves. The reader sees several sides to of this family.

3. What inspired you to write it?

During the pandemic, family seemed to be at the forefront of my thoughts. I wasn’t able to see my family as I had done so frequently before, as we live in several different locations- USA, Trinidad, Venezuela, Barbados. Friends all lamented this situation as well in terms of their own families and when I decided to use the space given by the pandemic to write, it seemed an obvious theme. The book really flowed very well, and I began to realize that I had written pieces of it many years before. In a sense it was the book of my dreams, the book I was writing and preparing to write all my life up to that point.

4. How much of you and your life are in these pages?

I like to say that it’s an alternate version of my family. There are definitely autobiographical elements, but also elements from families observed and families that I knew. I remember asking my sister about an event that is recounted in the book and she told me that it was actually something that happened to a family in the neighborhood. I was very young and seem to have integrated it into my version of the family story, but it was in fact lived by my family as observers. Some of the outcomes were also changed in telling the story and some of the personalities were definitely different from the ones that emerged in writing the book.

5. What was it like growing up in Trinidad, the youngest of 10 children?

Trinidad was and is a very creative country. As a child, in my neighborhood, there was an air of artistic excitement- someone was recording an album, someone else was writing poems, others were dancers, painters. I grew up with this artistic vibrancy around me and drank it all in. Trinidad is the place where steel pan as an instrument was created and innovations in the instrument and the music created for it were always happening. Apart from that, as the youngest of 10 children, I lived in a world where everyone knew me and my parents, I was known as the last of the brood. I spent lots of time observing the older siblings and trying to understand life from what I observed. When I went to a new school at the age of 11, it was the first time that I wasn’t known by reference to my family, as the last of the brood and it was a life-changing experience. On a day-to day level in the family, there were lots of pranks and practical jokes, and my siblings were always trying to outdo each other in this regard. A successfully executed prank would certainly be followed, even if a few weeks later, with one that tried to outdo it.

6. Your story takes place on the island nation of Trinidad. How does that setting help the story unfold?

I think the story could not have unfolded anywhere else. The heavy Roman Catholic influence in the country is the background for the story, and the norms of society and the influence of the church are all very much part of life in Trinidad back in the day. Trinidad was also growing-up, just as the children in the family were doing. In the course of the story the country went from British Rule to Independence to Post- Independence. The story touches on the cocoa-planter culture, which is unique to Trinidad. While cocoa is grown in a few Caribbean islands, Trinidad was really the country with the largest scale of cocoa production at a given time. The vibrancy of Trinidad culture also created the perfect setting for the story-Talent Show- in a nation where talent was abundant, and the people loved displaying their talent. They still do.

7. Your book asks the reader: “Do you really know your parents?” What do you mean by that?

We all look at our parents as figures of authority, as providers, as role models even. But do we ever think of who they would be without children? Who they were before the children and who is that individual inside of the parent? What do the parents talk about when they’re alone? What are their private jokes? When I became a parent, I realized that my children probably would not reconcile who I was as a young adult with the person who was their mother. Being a role model and an example for my children meant that they didn’t necessarily see all of me as a person, although I never hid myself from them. A child’s world doesn’t easily accommodate a broader view of the parents. I’ve also noted that couples sometimes get divorced when the children leave. It’s as if they assume a different persona once the major parenting is behind them.

8. How does your book force readers to reflect differently on their families?

I think that the different perspectives offered in the book help readers to think of and question how they see or saw their families- as a unit and in terms of parents and siblings. We often take our parents for granted, and focus on the support and guidance they provide or don’t provide, without knowing, understanding or even reflecting on why they do what they do. In reading the book I think readers might recognize some of the family dynamics and revisit their own families with the benefit of hindsight.

9. There is the death of a child in your book. How does a family come to grips with that?

Even with acceptance after many years, it is an event that draws a line in the sand. Those who were around for the event think in terms of a timeline that’s before or after the death. Those who come after, know about the event as a loss for the family, even if they weren’t yet born and only hear about it as a story. Somehow, it feels as if the pain of the event is conveyed to the younger ones who were not yet born when it happened, and is remembered by the older ones who were alive when it happened, probably because of the deep loss experienced by the parents, and the sadness in the household. It is an event that defies our notions of life and death- parents aren’t meant to bury children and so on. Eventually, the family comes to grips with it as time passes, with support of family and friends and to some extent through their faith, whether they are religious or not.

10. Is this a love story?

I would say that it is. It starts with the first encounter and the development of the love between the couple, and goes beyond that to the birth of the children, born out of the couple’s love. The narrator of the first part speaks of his love for his wife, and although she never speaks in the novel, we get a sense of her love for her husband. The love for his wife and family is the force that guides and motivates the father. The love between the parents changes as time passes and with the birth of the children, but doesn’t disappear.

11. There are secrets hidden by your characters. What happens when some of them get exposed?

Exposure of secrets always changes things. When some of the secrets get exposed, the reader gets a more complete view of the events and understands the perspective of the parent and the child. It’s almost like the effect of connecting the dots- the picture is clearer after the dots have been filled in, after the secrets are exposed. Some of the revelations explain an event that occurs or a personality that was introduced in an earlier section of the book and the reader can understand the other side of the story when the secrets are revealed. It’s what happens in life so often. As a lawyer I was always struck by how each party in a lawsuit thought that their version of events was complete and true, without ever considering another perspective or a detail that could change everything. Then, when a hidden fact came to light, it changed everything.

12. Pain is often hidden in the busyness of family life until family members speak honestly. How does this play out in your story?

Until Eddie speaks honestly about his wife, her pain is a mystery to her children. They knew it was there, but didn’t know the reason for it, didn’t understand it. On her part, she was focused on being a good mother- teaching her children good manners, making sure they were well- dressed and attended church every Sunday. She did what she had to, in order to parent 10 children, and the impact of her background would have remained unknown if her husband didn’t speak honestly about the cruelty of her father. She was doing what many do- getting through one day at a time and finding a little fun and relief where she could. We often take people as we see and experience them, without knowing the reason for some of their more challenging ways. Her father, Carlos, is another example of this. He’s a cruel, brutish man but only when his story is shared, do we get any sense of the person behind that exterior and the reason for his cruel ways.

13. Why is your book called Talent Show?

Talent shows have become popular again these days, especially on TV. In Trinidad for about two decades-1970s and 1980s- there was a local talent show on television and it was widely viewed by people from all walks of life. The contestants came from different backgrounds but when one of them belted out a brilliant version of a well-known ballad they were all equals. There were also children’s talent shows on TV and the radio. People in Trinidad are performers. The family in the book is a slice of this. There’s also the fact that a family of that size is like a talent show- everyone wants to be seen and heard, and to shine. Finally, there is a talent show in the novel, and this is one of the contexts in which the parents relax and enjoy their family. That talent show was an opportunity to surprise the family with something outlandish, or to show a talent that may have been hidden before. Even the introverted father performs in a manner of speaking as he takes the microphone at the beginning of the novel and speaks. The idea of the talent show is illustrated on many levels. In the novel

14. How would you describe your writing style?

That’s truly a difficult question to answer. I try to write from a feeling, an emotion, and to let the story flow, so I really have not analyzed my writing style. I’m currently writing my second novel, and perhaps when I finish that and have a look, I’ll be able to say whether I have an identifiable style. I would then be able to look at 2 pieces of my work and see whther there’s a discernable style. I think I’ve always liked a certain style of writing- intimate, honest, as simple as possible. I tried, over a period of time, to write with short sentences. It was the opposite of the legal writing that I’d done for so many years and signaled to me that I was writing fiction and not legal documents or arguments. I taught Latin American Literature at a point in time and am perhaps influenced by those amazing writers-Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Luisa Valenzuela. I’d say that there must also be some influence of the great Caribbean writers, of which there are so many- English-speaking as well as Spanish and French-speaking- V.S. Naipaul, Earl Lovelace, Maryse Condé, Olive Senior, Alejo Carpentier, to name only a few. Some of my favorite authors are from India, and there’s undoubtedly some influence from them also. I would also have to mention the fabulous Canadian author- Margaret Atwood.

15. What challenges, if any, did you have in writing your book?

The challenge of wanting more time once the world began to wake up from the pandemic was one. Having started when the world went quiet, and not having cleaned, cleared or re-arranged a single closet, I wanted more time when life resumed in bits and pieces. Still, by then I was so wrapped up in writing that I managed to overcome that challenge. Another challenge might have been deciding how much local content to include. I wanted the book to have universal appeal but needed to tell the story from the culture in which it was set. Apart from that, there weren’t too many challenges. I had incredible support from family and friends, who knew, if they’d been listening to me over the years, that this was my biggest dream