Clea Simon has written over 30 books, both nonfiction and fiction. Her latest book is “The Butterfly Trap,” a “he said, she said” novel set within the arts and medical community in Boston — an area that Simon has called home since her days at Harvard.
She recently joined GBH’s Henry Santoro. The interview was slightly edited for clarity.
Henry Santoro: This book plays with the readers mind in crazy ways. Please describe what a “he said, she said” book is.
Clea Simon: It is pretty much as it sounds, Henry. The book starts with the story of a relationship between two young people, Greg and Anya. And it begins with Greg’s retelling of the story, his sort of fairy tale discovery of this beautiful artist named Anya. Greg is a medical researcher. So, when he meets Anya, after he gets dragged to a party by his buddy Pete, he learns that Anya is a painter. Greg feels like it’s a whole new world that is full of mystery and creativity and all these things he doesn’t have in his life. But then halfway through, we flip [the story] and we get Anya’s perspective. And let’s just say things are a little different.
Santoro: Did you have to change your approach to how you create characters? Because these two characters are, I can’t even describe them. But you allow the reader to get to know them well. Did you have to change your style of writing to bring these characters to life?
Simon: Well, I did have to inhabit them, and I had to inhabit them for a reasonably long time. Because, yes, half the book is one and the other half of the book we learn about the other character. So, I don’t know if that’s really changing the writing. However, I did have to get into their mindset and that meant also incorporating their blind spots because, after all, we are all the heroes of our own stories. But you know, sometimes maybe we shouldn’t be.
Santoro: We should say that Greg is a medical student. And he is doing a residency at Mass General. Kind of a nerd, if I say so myself. Anya is this beautiful, starving young artist hoping to make it big. She’s freewheeling. She likes to party. She lives the bohemian lifestyle. Not that this has anything to do with anything, but tell us about your parents.
Simon: Yes, to some extent, they are very loosely based on some of the tensions I saw in my own parents’ marriage. My mother was an artist. She was a painter and a printmaker. My father was a physician. I think he fell for her because she was an artist, because of the mystery, and because of the beauty of that. But also, he was the breadwinner of the family. So, she could paint, she could create, but she had to have dinner on the table by 6 [o’clock].
Santoro: And that’s what Greg wanted to do. He wanted to make sure that she had the financial resources to be able to paint at will.
Simon: He believes he’s going to free her from a life of debt and worry.
Santoro: There is more sex in this book than any of your other books. Can sex be a character?
Simon: Sex is a means of communication, so you can read a lot into it by how people are doing it.
Santoro: Did you feel uncomfortable writing these sex scenes?
Simon: I loved writing them. I feel uncomfortable when people read them — or at least when they read them in front of me.
Clea Simon will be at Porter Square Books, on April 15 at 7 p.m.
