Vancouver-based Myriam Lacroix’s debut novel, How It Works Out, explores the different outcomes of a single relationship.charles anthony/Supplied
Vancouver-based Myriam Lacroix’s debut novel, How It Works Out, explores the different outcomes of a single relationship. It follows a couple, Myriam and Allison, across several alternate realities, with each chapter presenting a new timeline. In every story, they find themselves facing the gut-wrenching, the uncanny, the absurd. In one timeline, they’re lesbian influencers – in another, they accidentally steal a baby. In another, they’re literally a reptile and a dog. Each one is a fantasy that slowly unravels over time.
Lacroix spoke with The Globe and Mail about the real-life relationship that inspired the book, pushing boundaries as a writer and the alternate timeline she’d most like to be living in.
Why did you decide to write across multiple timelines?
At the time I was grappling with the end of my first big queer relationship. My expectations going in were dreamy and optimistic. The book is about a multiverse exploring all the ways that a relationship can go – all the fantasies or nightmares that you might have about even the very concept of relationship. I was trying to use the book to make sense of how this particular relationship of mine went.
Having one of the book’s main characters bear your name obviously raises questions about how much of you is in the book.
It does raise those questions. And I think that’s very intentional – and intentionally not answered. I will say, it is a work of fiction. While there is a lot of truth, it is mostly emotional truth.
Books we're reading and loving this week: Globe staffers share their book picks
Are you someone who believes in alternate realities or was this more of a thought exercise?
It was more of an emotional project for me. I had a lot of anxiety come up in this particular relationship. I’m sure many people have experienced this, but anxiety is very speculative. You’re always imagining you’re one step ahead of what’s going to happen. And so that’s more where the form came from for me.
No matter how great Allison and Myriam’s love story starts out in each chapter, there’s always a foreboding feeling that creeps in. As a reader, I often found myself waiting for something bad to happen. Was that also a part of your emotional project?
The book’s concept comes from a list of outcomes I’d written early on in my relationship, and they were all super rose-tinted. I tried to make it artsy, but when I look back at it, I was, like, 24 and in love. Years later, after the relationship had fallen apart, I went back to that list to see what my expectations had been. So, yes, I think the project was quite personal for me: It was a way to trace how I could have had such high hopes. And how could things have gone the way that they went? It helped me process things.
I don’t think that it’s what I wanted to write about. I think it’s what I needed to write about because I was in such a constant brain loop about a chunk of years that I couldn’t make sense of.
This is all making the book sound quite serious. But there’s a lot of humour in it, too – I laughed out loud reading it.
I resort to humour a lot to process difficult things. I think that’s healthy for me, and in this case, it hopefully makes for an enjoyable read, too. My first draft was always just, like, a big joke – just thinking up all sorts of absurd plotlines. My revision process was like, “Okay, what’s the actual heart here? Because it’s not really a big joke. What’s the emotional truth?”
Supplied
Some of these stories made me feel a bit sick – in a way that was totally thrilling. What draws you to discomfort as a writer?
I really appreciate a certain level of reverence in art. I get kind of bored when things are too polite. My mom complains about how I love to push boundaries. I think if you do something a little differently, then you might start to see things a little differently and that’s interesting to me.
Did you draw from any influences as you were writing?
George Saunders was my professor in university and he was an obvious influence of mine. I was really into his writing before going into the program and I think I learned a lot from his writing. He’s very funny and boundary-pushy, but always does it with this incredible vulnerability that I really admire. It’s something that I wanted to accomplish in my own work.
Do you have any favourite multiverse stories?
It took me a long time to realize that the book even was a multiverse. I started this book a long time ago, before the term was popular. I remember seeing Everything Everywhere All at Once and being like, “Oh no! I’m not original?!”
And for yourself personally, if you exist in another timeline, what do you hope you’re doing?
Oh, man. I don’t know … just like swimming in a lake for all of eternity. Can I do that?
I mean, it’s your fantasy timeline – you can do whatever you want.
Okay, eating, like, only cake. Cake on a lake. That’s my preferred timeline.