Authors Interviewing Characters: Kristen Tsetsi

Author Kristen Tsetsi decided on a slightly alternative Authors Interviewing Characters piece. Graham Harrison, from her novel AGE OF THE CHILD, interviews his wife, Katherine Oxford.

Read the Daily Fact’s Exclusive Interview with Oxford Spirits Owner Katherine Oxford

As families struggle with the financial burden of providing for a deluge of unplanned children following the criminalization of abortion and birth control, and with federally funded welfare programs unlikely to return, the outlook for most Americans is dire. However, Newchester resident Katherine Oxford, owner of Oxford Spirits, is not like most Americans. It’s no surprise that bad times mean good business for liquor stores, and for Katherine Oxford, who recently celebrated the grand opening of Oxford Spirits II, business is booming. Oxford agreed to participate in a live interview for the Daily Fact’s “What’s News Today” podcast on the condition that it would be conducted by her husband, Oxford Spirits COO Graham Harrison. An unedited transcript of their live interview follows. 

GRAHAM HARRISON: Good morning, Katie.—Katherine.

KATHERINE OXFORD: Good morning, Graham.

GRAHAM: How are you today?

KATHERINE: (Long pause) Fine, thank you.

GRAHAM: (Long pause) It just doesn’t feel right to be doing th—

KATHERINE: Would you like to ask me about the store?

GRAHAM: (Unintelligible)

KATHERINE: Pardon?

GRAHAM: Ink, there, on your hand. I guess it doesn’t want to come off. There’s symbolism for you. How’s that go? “Out, you spot”?

KATHERINE: “Out damned spot,” Graham, and this is ink, not blood, and—there. Gone. If we could please move on?

GRAHAM: Sure, Katie! Everything’s about the store, after all. So, with the—

KATHERINE: Everything is not about the store. This interview we agreed to participate in for the Daily Fact is about the store. Graham, you were as excited about this as I was before we stopped at the agency, and I wish I knew what—

GRAHAM: Why did we open a second store, Katherine? What, just for us? Most people want to hand down a business to someone, teach a ch—

KATHERINE: Thank you for the excellent question, Graham. Historically, the creation of a chain has, in my opinion, been fueled by greed, but in this case the issue was customer convenience. Without tax-funded road maintenance, as we learned this past winter, the reliability of plows in the throes of a heavy snowfall is low, to put it mildly, and people from the far side of town were either finding it impossible to get to Oxford I or were quite literally dying in their effort to tunnel to a street a citizen had taken it upon themselves to pl—What are you looking at? Graham, please stop that.

GRAHAM: That’s you and me in there. You know? 

KATHERINE: We discussed—This interview will be edited, is that correct? … A child was never the plan, Graham. We agreed. It was what you wanted, too.

GRAHAM: Sure. Before.

KATHERINE: That this happened at all is only a consequence of asinine legislation that made it all but impossible not to—We should never have… Well. Too late for that now. My galaxy, is our life really so terrible as it is? Someone else will surely do an adequate job raising it.—At least adequate, we have to hope. At least. Yes, surely adequate.—Graham, everything will change if we keep it for ourselves.

GRAHAM: But don’t you see? Nothing has to change! You’ll still have me, you’ll still have the stores, and how much trouble could a little baby be? (pause) I know I already signed, but there was that clause in the contract that—

KATHERINE: Graham. No. If you love me at all—

GRAHAM: And if you love me, Katie? (long pause) C’mon, don’t cry. It’ll be fun!

KATHERINE: Graham, I… (long pause)  The…that is, Oxford Spirits II, the Tinytown location, is now open at… in Tinytown. For a long time, now, since its inception so many years ago, the store has been my… our … Graham and I had a vision, and that vision has… 

Editor’s Note: At this point in the interview, Ms. Oxford stands and walks off camera.

GRAHAM: …has, uh, been realized. Not exactly the way we thought it would be, but life’s a little kooky! Come celebrate our second location’s opening with a six pack of our new local IPA, and, uh, thanks for watching this interview, and we’ll see you at Oxford Spirits! (whispers) Leave your ideas for baby names in the comments. I think it’s a girl! 

END TRANSCRIPT

You can find the live-recorded audio version of this Daily Fact interview on your preferred podcast streaming service. The video is available on our Daily Fact YouTube channel. 

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Author bio: Kristen Tsetsi is a former cab driver, former expository-, screen-, and playwriting instructor, former adjunct prof., and former newspaper feature writer and columnist. Her first novel, Pretty Much True, is among the works studied in Owen W. Gilman, Jr.’s The Hell of War Comes Home: Imaginative Texts from the Conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Her short fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and can be found in her short story collection Carol’s Aquarium. The Age of the Child is her third novel. Her website is kristenjtsetsi.com.

THE AGE OF THE CHILD

“Tsetsi’s spare, skillful prose lets the characters struggle in front of us so that we become like people behind a two-way mirror. When we are through, we are thinking hard about things we’ve heard many say and things we’ve thought or said ourselves about children or parenting. We’re tempted into a conversation that we’ve not had with spouses, friends, or acquaintances.” Elizabeth Marro, author of Casualties

“The narrative is so engaging because it is so unsettling. Kristen Tsetsi tells a story that is no longer that improbable and that will keep you reading and wondering late into the night. I’ve never read anything like this.” James C. Moore, MSNBC commentator and New York Times best-selling author of Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential

Katherine is accidentally pregnant in a newly post-Roe v. Wade America and the last hold-out clinic, where she’d made an appointment for an abortion, has locked its doors.

A new law also demands that all miscarriages be investigated for “authenticity.” (And herbs and vitamins that might, if used the right way, end a pregnancy are rationed.)

The story follows Katherine, and then her legally-enforced daughter Millie and Millie’s friend Lenny, at different points in a near-future in which the laws aren’t kind to any of their desires. Years after the overturn, the government assesses the aftermath, and by the time Katherine’s daughter and Lenny are young adults, they’re living in a time when the laws have changed again: people are encouraged to be parents, but only under approved conditions.

THE AGE OF THE CHILD’s focus on the women’s personal stories allows for an intimate exploration of the effects of opposite government policies and the surprising pitfalls of the two extremes.

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Category: Interviews, On Writing