Authors Interviewing Characters: Nan Sanders Pokerwinski

The Utterly Unacceptable Atrocity of Isabelle Marsden: A Novel

Fans of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine will be drawn to this tale of a woman whose search for a healing refuge leads instead to entanglements, discovery of untapped talent, and a found family that steers her back from the brink of madness.

All Isabelle Marsden wants when she moves from Chicago to Kansas is a place to retreat, reassess, and regain control of her life after an ugly #MeToo experience. But after a chance encounter with a free-spirited artist who carries a wallaby in a baby sling and makes assemblages from roadkill, she’s drawn into a community of eccentrics who soon have her lobbying to rescue their Summer Solstice parade, conducting surveillance at a roadside zoo, and visiting an outsider artist’s strange, yet intriguing, sculpture garden.

Inspired by that wild creation, Belle starts her own peculiar assemblage, convinced it’s the key to repairing her fractured life. As she uncovers her hidden creativity—and madness—her project lands her in trouble with her landlady, the city zoning department, and even the police. Ultimately, her only way through is to rely on help from her found family of oddball characters—and on her newly redefined self.

Isabelle (Belle) Marsden Character Interview by Nan Sanders Pokerwinski

NSP: Fox, wallaby, or other, which of the animals you met in Kansas are you most like?

Belle: If you had asked me six months ago, I would have said a fox. Like Ozzy the fox, I was skittish, wary of strangers and unfamiliar settings. I just wanted to curl up in a corner and be left alone. But now, I see elements of Wallace the wallaby in myself. Like Wallace, I’ve become more adventurous, curious to explore the unknown, even if those explorations sometimes get me into trouble.

And more trusting, but still cautious about who I trust. I guess I’m most like the coati, though. Its ringed tail is raccoonish, yet it’s not a raccoon. It’s a bit doglike, but it’s not a dog. As Jax said, “It’s not like any other animal. It just is what it is, its authentic self, and there’s nothing wrong with that.” I’ve come to realize my authentic self doesn’t fit neatly into any pre-defined role. And there’s nothing wrong with that!

NSP: Not long after you arrive in Kansas, you’re sent “for inspiration” to a bizarre sculpture garden, S.P. Dinsmoor’s Garden of Eden. As your story unfolds, you keep returning to the site, alternately intrigued and scared. What was your first impression of the place?

Belle: Omigod, Nan. It’s the kind of place that makes you want to say, “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” Only I was in Kansas, and it was far stranger than anything I’d ever experienced. I mean, this was art?

It was certainly nothing like Monet’s water lilies or O’Keeffe’s symmetrical clouds, soothing images I gravitated to in my previous lunch-hour visits to Chicago’s art institute. Even Picasso’s cubed and jumbled body parts were no match for Dinsmoor’s disturbing concrete creations—and his own mummified corpse in its glass-topped coffin. But once the shock wore off, I did want to spend more time in Dinsmoor’s garden and to draw inspiration from his wild imagination.

NSP: You’ve always been a planner, yet you had no blueprint for your creation, your “utterly unacceptable atrocity.” How did that feel?

Belle: Scary. Unfamiliar. Yet oddly exhilarating at the same time. I felt free to explore, experiment, take risks in my creation. And that led me to be more daring in my whole life. Not to be constrained by fear of failure or the need to live up to anyone else’s standards. To make things up as I go along.

NSP: What’s next for you? Another assemblage? A tour of outsider art sites around the country? Organizing another gala? Trying your hand at other art forms (roadkill wall hangings anyone)?

Belle: I’ll leave the roadkill to my uninhibited friend Reba. The wild quilt designs, too. And you can be sure I’ll keep returning to S.P. Dinsmoor’s Garden of Eden—that place has a mysterious hold on me. As for my own art—and I have no qualms about calling it art, now that I’m more familiar with outsider art—I trust my muse and my imagination (are they one and the same?) to guide me and my Solstice gang friends to inspire and encourage me. 

NSP: So, you and Ezra—what’s up between you two? Will the sequel to your Atrocity tale be a romance—a friends-to-lovers story? Inquiring minds want to know.

Belle: Whose inquiring minds, may I ask? Ezra’s and his uncle Mitchell’s, perhaps? Well, who can say where my friendship with Ezra will lead. Romance? That would be a big leap. Let’s just say I trust Ezra—really trust him—and that’s huge for me.

NSP: Any parting words for your fans?

Belle: COLOR OUTSIDE THE LINES!

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Nan Sanders Pokerwinski is a former journalist who has appreciated unconventional art and eccentric people all her life. A daughter of the Heartland who grew up in Oklahoma and lived in Kansas, she spent one pivotal year on a tropical island, chronicled in her memoir Mango Rash: Coming of Age in the Land of Frangipani and Fanta (Behler Publications, 2019). Nan now writes from Newaygo, Michigan. In addition to writing, Nan takes award-winning photographs and makes colorful collages. Find her at https://www.nanpokerwinski.com/.

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Interviews