Halle Butler’s Jillian’s the lucky thrill of a story, a first novel bursting out of its publishing gates with some of the funniest, grittiest and most devourable prose you’ll find all 2015. The story of Megan, a depressed and anxious 20-something slacker working at a dead-end job at a gastrointestinal doctor’s office, and her chatty coworker Jillian who’s about to descend on a financial meltdown after adopting a new dog, the novel revolves around attitudes—from the depths of Megan’s sarcastic remarks to Jillian’s “The Secret”-inspired too-wishful thinking. I got the chance to talk to Butler about dealing with shitty jobs, drinking too much PBR and getting Jillian published.
Kati Heng: Can you tell me about how Jillian came to be a printed story? How long was it floating around before Curbside Splendor Publishing got it? Did it change at all during production?
Halle Butler: I wrote it in May of 2011, because I thought I needed to have written a novel by the time I was 25. I edited it that summer, and then edited it some more on and off over the years. I sent it to a handful of friends, just for fun, and submitted it around, but I didn’t get many responses. One small press wanted to publish it, but it folded before that happened. In November of 2014, I sent it to Jacob (Knabb, the Senior Editor of Curbside) on the recommendation of a few friends, including the original publisher, who then wrote him and vouched for the book. I heard back from Jacob within a few weeks, and then it was published about a year later, February 2015. That’s the bland story! The manuscript didn’t change very much. I had a very clear idea of what I wanted it to sound like and feel like, and I’d been editing it for my own amusement for almost four years. I had a cover lined up by a friend of mine who’s an amazing filmmaker and comix artist, Lyra Hill, but Curbside wouldn’t let me have fully-detailed monster genitalia on my cover (here’s Lyra’s post about her version of the cover). We based the design on the original paperback cover for John Gardner’s Grendel, and the two figures are monster-id versions of Megan (crouching) and Jillian (standing). I have the drawing by my desk. But, fortunately, Curbside was cool with me commissioning my own cover, and I was lucky enough to work with another friend of mine, Jenna Caravello, whose work I’m a huge fan of. She’s an incredibly talented animator and illustrator. The cover is a joke, since it depicts the one event in the book that didn’t actually happen–the car accident. It was important for me that the cover have a specific sense of humor. Jenna and I looked at a lot of old Polish paperbacks and posters as a starting point. A big part of the process was getting the look of the book right. I’m picky. 
KH: One of the biggest flaws with Megan’s perspective is simply that, at least as readers, it doesn’t seem like she is interested in or wants to do anything. Is there something she actually wants to do that we readers don’t know about? Is this flaw because of her as a person, or is it simply a symptom of her age?
HB: If Megan had ambitions, it would be a very different story. There are a lot of stories where the protagonist has a goal and clear desires, but Megan’s storyline is about depression. To be true to that, it was important to unground her. If she were upset because no one was paying attention to her etchings or diary videos or whatever, I feel like that would change the tone too much. The feeling of being depressed is a feeling of being without a future and completely ambitionless. But, I agree that this is a huge perspective flaw. For all of those reasons, I think her ambitions are a little unimportant. But, we know that she reads, that she spends time with artists, that she’s hypercritical of what she views as ingenuine art, and that she glamorizes misery, so she probably had, at one point, some kind of creative ambition. It’s just unimportant during the timeline of the book. I’m not trying to make generalizations about people in their 20s, but I do think that her frustrations and perspective are common at that age. Not every 24-year-old will be this unhappy and angry, so that part of it is a result of her personality. It’s a combination.
KH: The obvious question: Did you used to work with a Jillian?
HB: I used to work at a doctor’s office with a string of coworkers who all shared some traits with Jillian, but she’s made up.
KH: What’s the worst job you’ve ever had? How did you slug through?
HB: I went to the Cleveland Institute of Art for a semester, then dropped out to move back in with my parents in Michigan. I got a job as a dishwasher at a franchise coffee shop in a strip mall. The owners were twins who were married to twins, and their little sister, a depressed, nasty woman, ran the shop. Touching all the water-logged food was pretty gross, and I wasn’t allowed to listen to headphones, because the manager thought I would get “electrocuted” and then she would get sued. No one at work could pronounce my name. 20-minute lunch breaks. Pretty conservative, anti-intellectual staff. Basic bad job stuff. My coping tactic was just to act like a brat. I read The Killer Inside Me as ostentatiously as I could on my breaks, dyed my hair turquoise, smoked cigarettes by the dumpster. I’m sure I rolled my eyes a lot, too. I was 18. Pretty standard fuck the system stuff. But, at the same time, I was applying for other schools, drawing every day, and spending time with a group of really funny people. The best thing for making a bad job seem easier is to plot your escape from it.
KH: One of the big things I connected with as a writer was, kind of from Megan’s perspective, that feeling of watching your friends find success/jobs they enjoy while I’m still just doing stints to pay the bills. As a young writer, did you find the same thing? Did other artist friends of yours seem to find their niche a lot sooner than writers do? Or was this simply a reflection on the way Megan can’t find her niche because she’s hardly interested in anything?
HB: I know very few people who are able to pay their bills as artists or as writers. It’s sad to me that art doesn’t seem to have an important place in our culture, and that people are expected to do it just out of love, or as some kind of weird religion or hobby. Megan’s opinions about the graphic designers in her circle are a kind of confused expression of that frustration–she sees people making money off of their work, she sees it being valued, so she attempts to psychically devalue it by dissing it as not “real” art. She’s jealous, definitely. But, that aside, I don’t think that visual artists have an easier time than writers, if that’s what you’re asking. I think it’s equally hard for everyone.
KH: So the first time I heard pieces of Jillian was at a reading you gave at Chicago’s Women & Children First bookstore. One of the things that struck me during your Q&A section was the emcee’s (again, Jacob Knabb) question or like insinuation that Megan is an alcoholic because she drinks three beers a night. You’re reply was like “naw, she’s just 24 and hates her job,” which is the most encouraging thing for me, 24, and a 2 to 3-beer-a-night girl to hear… What changes? Hangovers get worse or life just gets better?
HB: Oh, Jesus. Well, alcoholic is a strong word, and alcoholism is a real thing. Megan is depressed, and she’s not practicing much self control with drinking, this is true, but I really don’t think this is a warning story about budding alcoholism. So many people go a little hard with booze in their 20s, and I don’t think that, on its own, is any cause for alarm. Splitting a six-pack of PBR with your boyfriend is not alcoholism, that’s my opinion. I’d been getting annoyed with people casually calling Megan an alcoholic. My friend Susan, after the reading, told me that my answer (the one you’re referring to) made me sound like I had a drinking problem. Whoops! But, what changes? I’m 29. Not really all that much. It’s my feeling that most people have the same basic emotional perspective their whole lives, and only the landscape changes. I’m maybe not the best person to come to for encouragement.
KH: Finally, What’s on your bookshelves? What are your bookshelves like? Do you alphabetize? How do you sort books? What have you had since you were 14? What never stays on your shelves because you’re always using it?
HB: A lot of Henry James, Barthelme, Ovid, Patricia Highsmith, psychology books, folktale collections, art books. I like to lend out books, and I’m not a book fetishist, so my shelves are missing most of my favorites. If I loved reading a book, I usually give it away within a week or two (for some reason no one ever wants the Henry James, but seriously, the Golden Bowl, oof). I categorize (fiction, poetry, etc.) and then alphabetize by author. I’ve had my copies of Lolita, Catcher in the Rye, and As I Lay Dying since I was 14. I thought Lolita was just a cool love story when I was that age, I wonder if anyone else has had that problem. I still have my childhood copy of Outside Over There. I keep a rotating stack of short story books and folktales by my bed. I read those in the morning while I drink coffee. I hate waking up, so it’s like a little treat or something. Right now I have the Penguin collection of Russian Magic Tales and Barthelme’s Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts. Probably the most remarkable thing about my book collection is that my pet rabbit has eaten the spines off of about half of my paperbacks. This is also a problem with library books.
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