Lauren Groff has a go bag and says so should you
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Author Lauren Groff's new book, The Vaster Wilds, is a tight and tense novel that takes place in 1610 Jamestown.Elizabeth Gillis / NPR -
Riverhead Books -
Groff recently visited the library at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.Elizabeth Gillis / NPR
Lauren Groff has been thinking about the end of the world a lot lately. She says she's got a stockpile of food and supplies should her family need it — MREs, machetes. No guns, but maybe soon. "I think everyone should have a go bag right now," she says. "I think every household should have enough food to last through at least two weeks. This is just logical at this point."
These prepper tendencies stemmed from the pandemic, sure. But there's also the ever present worry about the climate catastrophe. The three-time National Book Award finalist famously (and begrudgingly) lives in Gainesville, Fla., where hurricanes are a constant worry. So she's ready for survival.
You can feel that spirit all throughout Groff's new book The Vaster Wilds. It's a tight and tense novel that takes place in 1610 Jamestown — the starving time. The Powhatan people have the colony under siege, and food is scarce. Colonists are hungry, sick, dying, or dead. Groff's protagonist is a girl. She's got so many different names, she might as well have none. She was adopted from an English poor house and taken over to the colony by a well-off family. And now, at the start of the book, she's run away.
The myths of captivity and the stories we're told about ourselves
Groff's jumping off point for The Vaster Wilds was early American captivity narratives. We meet at a library at Johns Hopkins University, where we got to see a few editions of A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. First published in 1682, it's a firsthand account of Mary Rowlandson's kidnapping, captivity and release by Indigenous people.
Puritan leaders took the story and framed it in a way that dehumanized Indigenous people, says Birgit Brander Rasmussen, a professor of English at SUNY Binghamton who is working on a new critical edition of Mary Rowlandson's narrative. "In this way as the Native people [were shown as] these sort of savages that are not even human. They're really just devils or manifestations of Satan," she says. Whereas, the Puritans come off as being "on this godly mission."
Groff says these accounts functionally served as pro-genocidal propaganda. But read deeply into the texts themselves and she says "there are moments of actual humanity."
As the girl in The Vaster Wilds is running, she starts to question everything she's been told about this new world and its supposedly murderous inhabitants — it's back in London where heads on pikes along the bridge were such a common occurrence that nobody seemed to care. "For verily, godlessness and murder, the girl knew, were certainly not limited to the people of this new country," Groff writes.
It's a story about loss of faith. And in Groff's hands, it's a very physical loss. The girl runs and hunts and cooks and pukes all through the book. Or, if she's not eating and puking, she's hungry and weak. It's reminiscent of the famous stories of men surviving alone in the wilderness — think Hemingway, McCarthy, or even Gary Paulsen. But the recasting of a young girl in the survival story in Vaster is more than just surface-level, what-if-style feminism. The girl is going through something "ecstatic," Groff calls it. She's either seeing visions or seeing clearer than ever.
Historical fiction and heroes
The Vaster Wilds is tonally and stylistically different from Groff's last book, Matrix — that book is about Marie de France and a medieval nunnery — but they play with the same themes: feminism, God, the body. Groff was in the middle of writing The Vaster Wilds when the idea for Matrix came to her. So she knocked that out first before coming back to Vaster. The two are actually part of a larger project she's working on. A triptych of sorts, "where I'm sort of seeing from the outside about a thousand years of how we got to where we are now," Groff said.
While Matrix dealt with 12th century Catholicism, and Vaster with 17th century Protestantism, Groff is currently working on the third installment that will take place now.
"What I really want to do is talk about ideas of God, right? And the changeable ideas of God and how those ideas have sent us careening through the Anthropocene to the cusp of absolute catastrophic climate times," she said.
Groff's best known work, Fates and Furies, was a current-day examination of domesticity. She used to be a snob about historical fiction, she said. But working in it for the past two books, she found that the genre can help democratize history. It can help untether us from the hero narratives that litter the Western canon. "It doesn't have to be Napoleon standing on the mountain. It can be the masses of people swarming to create that historical moment. That could be the interesting thing," she says. "Not this 'single hero,' which I find a very corrosive and almost evil narrative that we have brought into."
From centuries old religious texts to superhero blockbusters, we've all been fed stories about the bad guys and the people coming to save us from the bad guys. The thrust of Groff's literary ambitions seem to be about not waiting to be saved, but a call for survival.
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Transcript
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Lauren Groff's novels and short stories deal with big topics like marriage, feminism and God. Critics and general readers love it, one reason each of her last three books was nominated for the National Book Award. Her new novel, "The Vaster Wilds," is a tight and tense story about a girl on the run set in 1610 Jamestown. She spoke with NPR's Andrew Limbong about what drew her to that period of American history.
ANDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE: We met at a library at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The semester wasn't quite in full swing yet, but there was enough activity on campus that people stopped Groff to say hi, take a selfie. She signed a couple of books. But we were here on a mission to ogle an old book, "A Narrative Of The Captivity And Restoration Of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson."
As I understand it, it was, like, low-key propaganda.
LAUREN GROFF: It was high-key propaganda (laughter).
LIMBONG: It was high-key propaganda, OK.
Mary Rowlandson was a colonist who was kidnapped for ransom by Indigenous people and released. This book was her firsthand account of the experience. First published in 1682, it was super popular at the time. And it became a staple of the genre known as captivity narratives.
GROFF: These are not subtle texts whatsoever. I mean, they are meant to basically justify genocide and sort of the European expansion across North America. At the same time, it is true, especially in this one, Mrs. Mary Rowlandson's captivity narrative, there are moments of actual humanity that are sort of boiling up through the story that is being told.
LIMBONG: These stories were the starting point for Groff's new novel, "The Vaster Wilds." It takes place in Jamestown, 1610, during a period historians call the starving time. The Powhatan people have the colony under siege, and colonists are hungry and sick, dying or dead.
Can I have you read a little bit?
GROFF: Oh, sure.
LIMBONG: Groff's protagonist, a girl with many names, was adopted from an English poorhouse and taken to the colony by a well-off family. At the start of the book, she's run away, and she's scared. But she's starting to question all the stories she's been told about this new world and its murderous inhabitants.
GROFF: (Reading) And likewise, while the men of the fort whispered and spoke these stories of fear, there was a part of the girl that resisted, that sang in low counterpoint, reminding her of the bridge over the river in the city of her birth and the way the enemies of the late queen had had their heads stuck aloft on pikes, their beards flapping in a hard wind and their mouths open in death so it seemed that they were silently screaming. And all the while beneath this vaunting of death, the carts heavy with their vegetables, their turnips and their cabbages, rolled serenely on. And the farmers thought of the beer and bread awaiting them and took no notice of these horrid tokens of death. For, verily, godlessness and murder, the girl knew, were certainly not limited to the people of this new country.
What I was at least attempting to do in this book was trying to show the mindset of a person who comes to the new world sort of having been raised in Christianity - right? - in the Protestantism of England, London, at that time, really believes narratives that have been told to her about her own worth, about the worth of the people around her. And then through the famine in the starving time in Jamestown, she starts to lose some of those narratives. And then through the really rugged and actually kind of somewhat also ecstatic motion of her body through the landscape, she starts to see even more past the scrim of the narratives that have been received in her.
LIMBONG: The stories we tell ourselves, what women are told about their worth, the stuff about bodily ecstasy in the face of God, it's similar territory to Groff's the last book, "Matrix," about a medieval nunnery. Groff was actually in the middle of writing "The Vaster Wilds" when the idea for a "Matrix" came to her, so she knocked that out first before coming back to "Vaster Wilds." She says the two books are part of an even larger project.
GROFF: I have this idea to make a triptych - so not trilogy, but a triptych - where I'm sort of seeing, from the outside, about a thousand years of how we got to where we are now. So "Matrix" is 12th century - right? - Catholic Church. And then "Vaster Wilds" is 1610, obviously very Protestant. And the third one, which is killing me, actually - I'm dying, like, it's murdering me in my sleep at night - is set now. And so what I really want to do is talk about ideas of God - right? - and the changeable ideas of God and how those ideas have sent us careening through the Anthropocene to the cusp of absolute catastrophic climate times at the moment, which is where we are right now.
LIMBONG: Groff's been thinking about the end of the world a lot lately. She tells me she's a secret survivalist these days. No guns, but she stocked up on food and other supplies should her family need it. And "Vaster Wilds" calls to mind the famous stories of men surviving alone in the wild. You know, think, like, Ernest Hemingway or Cormac McCarthy or even Gary Paulsen. But while the Western canon is littered with narratives of men as singular heroes, Groff found that historical fiction can help untether us from saviors.
GROFF: It can democratize history in a way. It doesn't have to be Napoleon standing on the top of a mountain, right? It can be the masses of people swarming to create that historical moment that could be the interesting thing, not this single hero, which I find a very corrosive and almost evil narrative that we have bought into. And we keep perpetuating the single hero. And I think that that has brought us immense grief culturally.
LIMBONG: Yeah, because, like, everyone has to deal with the world ending.
GROFF: I mean, right? And not everyone is the great hero, right?
LIMBONG: Yeah, sometimes you just die.
GROFF: Sometimes you just die.
LIMBONG: Yeah.
GROFF: Elon Musk is not going to save us.
LIMBONG: Right.
GROFF: Technology is not going to save us. The only thing that's going to save us is all of us working together, that's it. We cannot rely on one person. If we think we're going to rely on one person, we are going to die.
LIMBONG: If that sounds heavy and harsh, well, the natural world of "The Vaster Wilds" is heavy and harsh. There's all these scenes of the girl hungrily and miserably facing nature, starting fires and hunting food in the cold and wet of winter, because what else is she supposed to do but survive?
Andrew Limbong, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF CLEM LEEK'S "BURLESON, TX") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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