Emerging Writers Series: Miranda Darling
Miranda Darling is a self-proclaimed “iceberg”: a writer with a lifetime of varied experiences as a model, poet, scholar, podcaster and more. She drew on this wealth of knowledge to create her latest novel THUNDERHEAD.
Billed as “a black comedy, set in suburbia, about one woman’s struggle to be free”, the novella follows the life of Winona Dalloway over the course of one day as she prepares for a dinner party. She struggles under the control of her husband, works on her romance novel, completes household chores and looks after her children – but all the while her inner life is teeming with vivid voices, fragments and lists.
We chat to Miranda about the invisible stories of women, the subversive potential of humour and why her latest heroine isn’t a ‘sad girl.’
Thunderhead is your fifth book, having already written two thrillers, a novel and a non-fiction work on the Empress of Iran. Can you tell me a bit about your journey to writing this book?
All my books are very different genres, but the red thread that links them would have to be illuminating the invisible stories of women, the ones that remain untold: in B Model it was the stories of the ubiquitous, nameless, young faces we see in magazines; in my Stevie Duveen thrillers, the vulnerable young women – the silencing effect of fear, of power – and in IRAN MODERN, the exiled empress of Iran whose cultural legacy the regime have tried to erase. THUNDERHEAD is the silent scream of suburban domesticity…
Winona Dalloway, a writer and young mother, is our narrator who has a vivid and somewhat manic inner life. How did you go about capturing her many voices?
Each voice for me was very distinct in writing: each has a particular lens and tone (almost like another character, but within the same person). We used different but related fonts on the page to bring it to life and to try to make the distinctions clear for the reader. As the novel progresses, the voices grow closer together as Winona tries to coalesce into action.
The book has been described as a black comedy of life in suburbia, and it explores complex themes like domestic abuse, submission and freedom. Why was it important to you to use humour when exploring these themes?
Humour is subversive. That appeals to me, appeals to Winona. It allows me to address the harder issues in a way that circumvents our natural instinct to protect ourselves from these difficult stories: the arrow pierces the undefended heart. It also offers relief for the reader: humour is energy, hope, and optimism: Winona is not a 'sad girl', she is funny and absurd. We laugh with Winona, then suddenly we find we are now laughing at her, the reader has become somewhat complicit in her humiliation. . . I like blurring that line and drawing attention to the small ways in which we might be implicated in the silencing of others.
The novel has a short timeframe, unfolding and building to a crescendo over the course of one day. What challenges did you face in structuring the narrative within such a compressed timeframe, and what opportunities did it offer for storytelling?
The whirling chaos of Winona's inner life has no linear time. It was therefore important to have a clear, intractable, contrasting structure for the novel: it also represents the forces she is fighting against with her circular conception of Being in Time. It's 24 hours on the clock but unquantifiable aeons of time in her head.
Thunderhead is made up of vivid, impressionistic scenes and vignettes. What do you find generative about this fragmentary style?
The fragmented style reflects the lack of cohesion in Winona's life narrative. Fragments are how we experience the world; they also generate an energy and immediacy of pacing, often even an urgency. The novel becomes a kaleidoscope of shifting planes.
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway is a clear reference point for the novel, and Winona is herself a writer. What were some of your other literary or cultural influences for the book?
I read a lot of science, philosophy, and poetry. I love nature writers like Nan Shepherd, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Robert McFarlane. . . I look at art, especially photographs – I take photographs – and I listen to music. I have a playlist I wrote the book to, atmospheric with no lyrics I can understand. (You can find it on Spotify as THUNDERHEAD).
You have an incredibly diverse and varied career. How have all your experiences shaped your writing?
I am an iceberg. Everything comes from a deeply considered place and draws from my rather labyrinthine knowledge.
I’d love to hear more about your work as co-founder of Vanishing Pictures Press, which publishes books and movies about the muses, monarchs, mistresses and moguls who have changed history. What excites you about history-changing women?
I co-founded Vanishing Pictures with Viola Raikhel and our aim is to illuminate the stories of extraordinary women that remain untold. We focus very much on soft power and the way women exert influence, often from behind the scenes and from a position of 'powerlessness' when direct confrontation with historical forces is impossible or unwise. This idea also shows up in THUNDERHEAD: How do you circumvent power structures? Whose story gets listened to – and whose is silenced?
Can you tell us about any other projects you're currently working on, or any future writing endeavours you have planned?
I'm currently recording a podcast with Viola for Vanishing Pictures about female spies. It's called SPIES LIKE US: Her License to Kill and there will be a book to follow that. I'm continuing with my spoken word poetry performances, and I've written another Winona book which will be out in the second half of next year: FIREWEATHER
Miranda Darling is the author of THUNDERHEAD, Scribe Publishing, $29.99, Available now. Read an exclusive extract here.
Miranda Darling is a writer, poet, and co-founder of Vanishing Pictures. She read English and Modern Languages at Oxford then took a Masters in Strategic Studies and Defence from the ANU (GSSD). She became an adjunct scholar at a public policy think tank, specialising in non-traditional security threats. She has published both fiction and nonfiction; Thunderhead is her fifth book.
Emily Riches is a writer and editor from Mullumbimby, currently living on Cammeraygal land (Sydney). She founded Aniko Press to bring passionate writers and curious readers together, discover new voices and create a space for creative community. You can get in touch at emily@anikopress.com.