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What are the parallels between Under the Bridge and The Torn Skirt? They're both about teenage girls involved in a murder, but they're completely different stories. The girls in the novel are more punk, more rebellious. The girls in the true story were much more the "popular" girls. When I saw them in juvie, just after they were arrested, they looked terrified and bewildered, just like girls you would see in a mall. Both books are set in a strange part of Canada. Victoria has this Twin Peaks vibe, this gothic element of hidden, creepy happenings, all fog and forests. There was one kid in my high school who hired two friends to kill his mother and grandmother, after he'd starred in a high school production of Caligula. Apparently, it's also the Satanic capital of the world, whatever that means. Under the Bridge has been compared to In Cold Blood. Were you influenced by that book? I did study it, because I'd never written any nonfiction and I had to teach myself about the form. I was influenced by the way he explored the consequences of a crime on a community, and the social worlds that clash. Every crime has a story of the hidden world and the official world clashing against one another, hating and mistrusting each other, which makes for great drama. Capote's story is different, more '50s, in the sense that it's about this evil force coming into the good heart of Middle America. In the Reena Virk case, as with Columbine, the violence isn't committed by outsiders. The violence erupts within the supposedly perfect neighborhood and is perpetuated by hidden forces nobody is willing to recognize.
I did have a more romantic notion of criminals before I began my research. A lot of artists see the criminal as a persecuted outsider figure. There's an element of fascination with those who are literally contained or despised by society, and that played out in the description of street girls in The Torn Skirt. But I met so many "criminals" doing research for this book, everyone from small-time drug dealers to hardcore sadistic killers who were in prison with Warren, and it definitely made me realize I'd been naive. Criminals can be a lot more stupid and banal than the romantic outlaw portrayal would suggest. You portray Reena Virk in a sympathetic light, yet also show her flaws and negative attributes. In many ways she seems similar to the girls who beat her so mercilessly. One can imagine that under different circumstances she might have become a victimizer as well. Reena was a difficult character to write about. She had no close friends, no one who knew her well. I had a few anecdotes — from her uncle, from her counselor, and from a boy she had a crush on — and I had to make those vivid enough so the reader would have a sense of her. She was quite bold and mischievous, and I felt it was important to portray that, because the media tended to portray her as this hapless loser. People like to believe victims are both pure and weak, when in fact she was neither. Did you find yourself becoming emotionally attached to the kids you interviewed? After a while, it did become distressing because a lot of the kids were getting older and starting to drift into this permanent criminal underclass, and I felt like I should be pulling them out of it, or telling them, "It's not a good idea to steal coke from your dealer." I remember one of the kids calling me after his parents kicked him out and asking if he could stay at my house. There were constant ethically problematic situations like that. You seem to have a certain sympathy, as do many of the girls in the book, for Warren G., one of the boys accused of Reena Virk's murder. What was it about Warren that made him a more sympathetic character? I sent him The Torn Skirt, and he read it and called me. He was very forthcoming and polite, but not in a manipulative, unctuous way. He asked me, "What's your impression of me?" He seemed genuinely lost himself. I talked to him a lot on the phone, visited him a few times, went to his parole hearing — I kept waiting to see some flash of cruelty or ignorance, and I never did. When I would tell my boyfriend or family, "he's a nice guy," they would all roll their eyes. Everyone thought I was conned. But then when they saw him testify at Kelly's trial, they were impressed. He's clearly smart and sensitive, and with conscience, so there's no easy explanation for how he came to take part in a murder and in covering up a murder. I don't think anyone gets it. Even one of his prison shrinks said, "It's a complete mystery." Did the experience change your perception of the justice system? Ironically, it made me really like cops, and I'd always hated cops. In The Torn Skirt, I portray them as this lecherous and malevolent force, the embodiment of patriarchy. I regret that now, because when I spent time with the police, I saw how wrong I was. They're outsiders, and most of them come from rough backgrounds and deal with so much incomprehensible tragedy every day — suicides and runaways and overdoses — and you realize they're really humane and tough and smart. The police don't have much power in the system. They're like foot soldiers who do the dirty work. Occasionally you allow an arch editorial comment, as with the line, "Mrs. Smith, who believed in the teachings of Jesus Christ and Oprah Winfrey . . . ". How difficult was it to refrain from editorializing or succumbing to irony? I really didn't want to put myself in the book and I think some American critics seem to almost resent that, as if it's such an accepted style by now that it's a failing not to do it. It's the New Yorker voice, which is supposedly the voice of authority and reason, this arch and privileged tone. It gives the reader a person to identify with, comforting and trustworthy. People are so used to that first person narrative that it's disorienting when it's absent. I wanted to force the reader to listen to the people in the book. The last half of the book gets into the actual murder. Dark details emerge, such as the image of the bruise in the shape of a sneaker print on the back of Reena Virk's brain, which is revealed in the autopsy report. Did you ever get overwhelmed by the sadness of the story? There were no autopsy photos in the police file I received, and I made no effort to get them. Somehow it felt disrespectful to look at them, or describe them, though I suppose some would say that was bad reporting on my part. I found the autopsy scene the hardest to write. When the police officer describes how they take out Reena's heart, and how her heart looks — I wasn't sure if I should put that in, and yet I did. I felt a lot of despair writing the book. The scene at the end of Under the Bridge in which two of the girls discover that Josephine, who is arguably the linchpin of the crime against Reena Virk, has become a strutting stripper, seems like it could have been taken from the pages of The Torn Skirt. Did you ever question whether Josephine was more directly responsible for the murder than evidence suggested? Josephine is like some classic film noir villain. She was beautiful and alluring and ruthless and both Kelly and Reena worshipped her. She set the events in motion. She wanted revenge. There was a murder. She emerged unscathed and her best friend Kelly's in jail and her enemy Reena is dead. Dateline did a show on the book, and she agreed to be interviewed for it, especially if she could stay at the Chateau Marmont. I didn't think of her that way until I saw her on the screen, because she wore this red lipstick, and her manner was both ruthless and regal. She was very nonchalant and confident. She's always been that way, though. When they arrested her, she just said, "Get me Gotti's lawyer," which is probably not what police are used to hearing when they arrest a teenage girl. Like Kelly, she looks like this typical, attractive suburban girl and adults were stunned by the things she'd say to them. Her own mother heard her planning the murder and just shrugged it off and later took Josephine shopping. It's telling to me that when she was fifteen she wanted to join the Mob but ended up becoming a stripper. At least, in a demented way, there's something unconventional about a girl wanting to be a gangster. And then she ends up getting her power in the most conventional way. She disappeared after the Dateline episode was filmed. Nobody knows where she is right now. n°
©2005 Bruce LaBruce and hooksexup.com. |
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