Art of Moving On – or at least writing about it

Barbara Ludman is an American journalist who has lived in South Africa since April 1976, and has deep roots in Parkview, Johannesburg. Ludman, who has had a long association with the Mail & Guardian newspaper, has written a book of short stories titled Moving On. The SA Jewish Report speaks to her about it.

How would you describe Moving On?

It’s a collection of short stories about people finding ways to move on – or not – after trauma.

What drew you to write this book?

Anger, initially. When my husband died, I discovered how unfriendly the world was to the people left behind, from banks to the master’s office, medical aids, and specialists. But when I began writing the stories, I found so much light and quite a lot of humour. People are amazingly resilient, and find the most interesting ways to survive what life throws at them.

What made you choose the title?

I don’t think I did. My working title was, So Now What? I could have called it New Lives because so many of the characters in the book move on to new lives.

What was your process of researching and writing the book?

It was multifaceted. I’ve been a journalist all my life, and I approached the project first with interviews. A niece and a wonderful woman in Cape Town went to Everest, and they spoke of incredible cold and guest houses with what felt like cardboard walls. Another niece married the widower of her best friend, with her blessing. I know several people who look after spouses who have descended into various levels of dementia – that took prodigious research to get it right. I remember my mother-in-law’s unhappiness at having lived so long. She had survived all her friends, so I looked into how one would actually commit suicide.

But for the most part, once I started writing, stories just began to happen. I’m not good at keeping secrets – I talk too much about what I’m working on, no doubt to the irritation of my friends – but it has made the book so much better than if I had just relied on my imagination. People had suggestions and opinions, and they were so generous about my using slices of their lives.

How and why did you choose the individual stories?

I didn’t actually choose them. They chose me. The first story in the book, about a woman looking for a shallow, meaningless relationship – it was wonderful to watch what she got up to. The Everest stories landed at the right time, inviting me to write about them. And another example: I’d got to nine stories, and my editor, Pat Tucker, told me that I needed another story. And just like that, I realised the book needed a mother/daughter chapter, and there it was, its hand raised, saying, “Yes, what about us?”

Why place the stories in Parkview?

I found Parkview to be the perfect place to set the book. It’s as much a village as a suburb, and has just about everything – a high street with restaurants and interesting shops, a park with a lake, a fruit shop whose owners are engaged in the community, a first-rate library – actually everything but a cinema, but that might be returning. It’s home to the kind of people I wanted to write about – older residents and young families, all very different sorts of people who make the suburb so warm and interesting. Community in fiction is important – as it is in life – and I wanted the characters linked, if loosely. In Moving On, people wander in and out of each other’s stories.

Are the stories and the people from your life? If so, explain.

I never write about myself. Other people have much better stories to tell. I’m a listener, and stories I thought I’d forgotten years ago began to surface as soon as I started writing. Somehow they’d been filed away in the hard drive of my brain and showed up when they were needed.

As for the characters, some are based on relatives. Some are combinations of people I know. Some just appeared – I have no idea where they came from but I was happy to get to know them. And many of the events are real. The home invasion happened to a close friend. The trip up Africa, swimming with crocodiles, that happened to good friends.

In some cases, I put real people in new situations. For example, I wanted to see how my sister would have done if she’d had my life – and she thrived. I wanted to know what my husband would have been like if he’d been gay. One begins these stories, and then the characters take over and one has to run to keep up.

Why do you believe these stories are important for people to read?

I would like to think people might like to meet my characters. I had a lovely time watching them develop, and enjoy the stories.

Who makes up the audience you hope to read this book?

Oh everyone, I hope, over the age of 19.

What do you hope people will take home from the book?

It depends. Hopefully a bit of joy, some appreciation of life in Johannesburg, and the power of the human spirit. For people like me who have lost their spouses, the point is that there’s a way to move on from tragedy. I haven’t – I’ve continued to work as a journalist, still haven’t learned to cook as well as my husband did – but moving on after a loss or any kind of trauma is a good idea, and maybe one day I’ll try it.