This week our fiction team is featuring a new short story by writer Cate LeBrun, titled 'Russian Olives', which can be read in full here.
Cate LeBrun is from the Pacific Northwest. Her work has been published in The Rising Phoenix Review and Doubleback Review. She currently lives in Austria with her husband and son.
Recently Mina El Attar, one of our fiction editors, talked with Cate about her new work, taking bold risks in her writing, and how she's experimented with narrative structure in her work and in 'Russian Olives'. This is a transcript of their conversation.
Mina El Attar: Can you describe the inspiration behind this story? Were there specific events, experiences, or influences that shaped its development?
Cate LeBrun: Definitely. I had the exact same experiences as the narrator, where I had a root canal done and then continued to experience pain. I was finally back home for the summer. I took an extended maternity leave with my son, so I was able to come back home for about two and a half months, and when I was back home, I [thought] I got to my family dentist here, so I’m just going to go check [the tooth] out. They figured out that it was a whole deal so I had a root canal. When I finally had the root canal done, it was my first experience with nitrous. Then, during the root canal, I overheard a conversation between the hygienist and the endodontist, who was performing the surgery, and during my nitrous-ed state, I was thinking that this conversation is wild. They were gossiping about other dentists, and in my loopy state I was like, I have to write a story about this. So, my initial story was just going to be the person getting a root canal kind of hearing this conversation. And then one day son had a tough time sleeping, so [while] I was just waiting for him to cry again, this story came out of it. So, the first few pages I wrote—fifteen minute stretch—then the narrator came out of nowhere. Once I heard his voice, I definitely wanted to finish it. I felt fortunate because the narrator’s voice was driving the story rather than me trying to articulate anything. That was nice, having that connection with the narrator. It was interesting for me, like, what else is going to come out of this? It started really different from what ended up happening.
Mina El Attar: Your story has a notably sarcastic tone throughout. Is this a new direction for you, or do you often gravitate toward a witty, humorous style in your writing?
Cate LeBrun: Humor in writing is something that really intimidates me. One of my greatest fears in life ever would be to write something and have someone read that [and say] it’s forced or inauthentic. This is probably the first narrator where I just leaned in and again, once I had the voice, I wanted to let him guide what was going to happen. His voice felt like it was coming from such a unique place, that I knew what he was going to say wasn’t going to be forced because that’s who he is. I shy away from any humor in my writing because in every situation other than this, it has been writer-driven, but in this one, I just let him do his thing and just write down what he says and the way he thinks, too. He looks at the world in that way so he can deal with where he’s at, so there’s a little bit of sadness in him too, which is what I tend to write more, rather than the humor because it's just too intimidating for me.
Mina El Attar: Do you typically take bold risks in your writing, exploring experiences and characters that are unfamiliar to you as they develop, or do you prefer a more decisive and controlled approach to your storytelling?
Cate LeBrun: I feel like all the times that I have tried to be the one in control, it doesn’t work out. It ends up being a piece where I feel like I spent so long on this and it’s not going anywhere, versus the ones where you’re up in the middle of the night and, all of a sudden, you see a line or hear a voice from someone and that’s the thing. I want to write it down so I don’t forget it. So when it’s coming from more unconscious experiences, I find that the writing is so much easier and the voice feels better. I tend to lean towards really sensory, heavy pieces and love and playing with language, finding a different way of looking at things. That’s when you find characters with unique perspectives—in the way that they look at the world, and that tells you so much about how they move in it. When I try to orchestrate anything, it gets really tricky.
Mina El Attar: Themes are often central to a short story. What themes do you believe are most prominent in your story, and how do you weave these themes into the narrative and character arcs?
Cate LeBrun: I feel like I know [themes] are there when I read [my story], but I feel like my writing is so often character-driven that theme is not something on my mind. With this story in particular, one of the themes is: he is where he is and he has what he has and he connects with the people and not considering anything outside of that. When he has the experience with nitrous, when he calls it a religious experience, it’s one of the few times where he has been outside of himself, which are little glimpses of possibilities. He perhaps sees that with Maudie, too, [when he thinks] that maybe there’s more to this, that maybe he can have a future with this person, and that is yanked out from underneath him, so he’s back to where [he started]. There is a bit of hopefulness [in the story], but also what so often happens in life, where as soon as you lean into something and believe it, it can go away. You’re left wondering what do I do? So, he’s leaning on quick fixes—the nitrous, or a new plan—so, having other things to rely on in the moment is where he’s focusing.
Mina El Attar: There were a couple of breaks and also a flashback in the middle of the story. In what ways did you experiment with narrative structure or form in this story? How do you think these choices affect the reader's experience or the story's impact?
Cate LeBrun: I think I really like, and am unconsciously driven, towards stories that do that, and do it well, where they pull you out of the present, and back into a moment in time, and it’s weaved really beautifully in with the present moment again. I don’t think I accomplished quite that artful twisting. Ocean Vuong is really good at this. He was one that I was recently reading and I thought that he did it so well. But, I wish I had a more intentional answer other than that’s just what was needed. I have had stories where I really wanted to play with the form or twist time a little bit, because it could be a really cool way to convey a message or tell a story. With this one, it was very much like what happened next, like ‘okay it goes back to this moment,’ and it felt like this is what the story called for. Another example was perhaps in something that [the narrator] had, like a hopeful or connective experience, and when he realized nitrous can give the same thing, that is when the magic of the experience is taken away. It goes with the larger theme of the story, where he has these moments of beauty, like the hopefulness that he sees in the receptionists smile, and in the Russian olives, of course. In terms of having that flashback, it was I guess tying into the greater themes of the story, and it also felt like the right time to sort of explain why he was drawn to it in the first place.
Cate LeBrun
Cate LeBrun is from the Pacific Northwest. Her work has been published in The Rising Phoenix Review and Doubleback Review. She currently lives in Austria with her husband and son.
Mina El Attar
Mina El Attar, a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Trinity College Dublin, crafts contemporary short stories that pulse with emotional depth. Her explorations of relationships and friendships, rendered in a captivating stream of consciousness style, invite readers into the intricate landscapes of the human heart. With an innate talent for exploring the intricate human psyche, Mina's stories offer readers a vivid and empathetic window into the complexities of human connection.
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