Andrea Caswell
VULNERABILITY, AUDACITY, AND FREEDOM: A CRAFT CHAT WITH MARIANA SABINO
Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
In Mariana Sabino’s short story “The Undercurrent” (Issue 38), locals at a bar in a beach town are fascinated by, and unwelcoming to, a widow who arrives in their midst. The narrator’s voice is a skillful combination of serious and snarky, of young romantic and jaded old soul. Sabino spoke with senior fiction editor Andrea Caswell about the image that sets the story in motion, and how she uses POV as a lens to develop characters. “The Undercurrent” is included in her forthcoming collection, The Verdigris Stories (K + P Press, 2024).
“In writing The Verdigris Stories, I was drawn to characters whose sense of identity and interests often lie in transcending borders, arising from some form of existential wanderlust—a pull too strong to resist.”
MARIANA SABINO, “THE UNDERCURRENT” FROM CLEAVER ISSUE 38
Andrea Caswell: “The Undercurrent” begins with a mysterious woman arriving from afar. Stranger comes to town! Tell us about that opening image, and how it shaped the remainder of the story.
Mariana Sabino: This was a case of an image waiting for a story. I’d imagined a woman dragging a bulging suitcase across the pavement and having one of its wheels break, and this idea came to me long before the story itself. I kept that image in my mind for years. The mortification, the vulnerability, the audacity and freedom that comes from being on the move, from having to improvise when things go wrong.
I was also drawn to the sense of having remnants of your life in a single suitcase. I can think of one particular reference for this image—the woman with the suitcase in the film Baghdad Cafe—and there’s also my own visceral experiences of lugging suitcases from town to city, city to village, and country to country along the years. Depending on where you’re arriving, appearing with a suitcase can be a spectacle, arousing all manner of curiosity. However, as many times as I’ve done it myself, I need to first imagine another person doing it, to have that distance of a fictional character before I can begin to trail their steps. Luckily, my own wheels have also held, miraculously, in every terrain so far.
Andrea: I love the title “The Undercurrent,” which works on many different levels. Did you have a working title before landing on this one?
Mariana: The sketch of this story and its main elements—the woman’s arrival, the collective “we” point-of-view, the setting, tone, and “undercurrent” metaphor—unspooled for me one afternoon as I wrote it down. In later drafts, certain characters came to the fore, having their say and individual moments in the story. When I workshopped this piece, the collective “we” gave way to the occasional “I” of the narrator, stepping back from the herd mentality and emerging as a separate consciousness.
The process was unusual for me. I can’t think of another time when the essence and main cast of characters were there from the start. These elements had been simmering for years, though, as I’d spent extended time in the place that inspired it, observing its gradations, hearing its legends, and sensing the Lynchian undertones in the lives of many of its inhabitants. As far as the title, I was thinking of the colloquial use of the word “vala,” to mean a rip current, rip tide, or undertow. The narrator, a layperson who lives by the sea but has grown wary of it, would conflate these currents as one thing—an insidious danger zone under the surface of the immediately visible. A rip current would be the phenomenon that applies to what the narrator keeps referring to, but to him, it’s all the same. In Portuguese, vala can also mean a ditch, or a mass grave, so there! I had the undercurrent for the story.
Andrea: “The Undercurrent” is grounded in place, in a remote town the characters call “the end of the line.” The setting itself feels like a character here. Do you enjoy writing place-based fiction, and if so, why?
Mariana: I tend to be quite sensitive to atmosphere, wherever it may be. I would say a place has the characteristics of a character—certain personality traits, obvious or less obvious, depending on how long and how well you know it and under what circumstances, moods, history, slow changes, and a transcendence that defies categorization.
This place in particular, a reimagined coastal village where people come to seek refuge or to stop trying to live a certain way, stands as a microcosm for human nature playing out—the aspirations, the pitfalls, and awareness of possibilities forsaken.
“I’m struck by how many people who live near the sea stop going to the beach.”
MARIANA SABINO, “THE UNDERCURRENT” FROM CLEAVER ISSUE 38
Andrea: Of the ocean, the narrator says, “The thing about living near the sea, especially in a remote village, is you feel the roar of the ocean at all times, the presence of a constantly running engine that buzzes in your brain…Passing ships at dusk, that’s probably the only thing that still rouses us, reminders of chances come and gone.” A deep but understated emotion courses through the story. Tell us more about that dynamic, and how you used it as a guiding principle while writing.
Mariana: Small coastal areas tend to have a strict, often unspoken way of operating and communicating their codes. You feel it. There’s also this dissonance between the magnitude and expansiveness of the sea, its ability to invite reflection and widen one’s perspective, and the traps people fall into in recoiling from this.
There’s a palpable tension. I’m struck by how many people who live near the sea stop going to the beach. It’s as though they grow to resent the sea, become afraid of it, reluctant to hear its language and commune with it. If this sounds esoteric, well, so be it. The sea is a tremendous, often mysterious force. For many people, it’s also a source of livelihood—whether directly or indirectly. It can also be corrosive and volatile, with strong winds and currents, keeping you on your toes. Living in a remote coastal area requires constant upkeep, of course. Roofs have to be redone, cars and metal are prone to rust, doors and windows rattle and slam violently, plants grow wild in an instant. Not to mention the insects and animals that pay regular visits.
Amid all this, there are the illusory tricks of Time. Not of how fast it goes, but how slow. That is, time seems to stretch, as if in very slow motion. One’s sense of time is more aligned with the time of day, the shifting colors in the sky, and the minute gradations between morning and night, not to mention seasons. I’ve eavesdropped on a conversation about having to watch “time go by.” Some people get bored and it’s easy to get restless, or even fall into despair. There’s a lot of time to think—or seemingly to waste.
For those who arrive from elsewhere, as I imagine many of the characters in this story did years before, once the exhilarating phase of living in an idyllic setting wears off, frustrations get magnified. It’s almost as though the sea is taunting them to face something. Fewer distractions. The internet isn’t always reliable. Initially, the draw of a rustic setting whose beauty is the main attraction is an equalizer: alliances are made, and there’s a mutual respect for each other’s appreciation of, and contributions to, the place. Then, misunderstandings, slights, and oversights just as often take over. Certain events raise the pitch of the roaring undercurrents—such as the death of someone, a suicide, someone going mad—only to be buried and engulfed by the sea and turned into local legends.
Andrea: Could you share some thoughts about the themes you’re exploring here, such as exile and escapism, or classism and exclusion? Mortality? You know, the big ones!
Mariana: When I was writing the story, at least on the first draft, I wasn’t overtly conscious of themes. They emerged on their own as I pulled the thread of how this not-really-a-stranger gets treated when she returns on her own, without status or an identity that can be easily accepted or recognized.
On classism: I find it intriguing, as Jean Rhys put it in Wide Sargasso Sea, how blithely “people close ranks” when given the chance, and how animosity works like a poison in the air you didn’t know was there until it has done its damage.
Andrea: How does “The Undercurrent” fit in with other stories in your collection?
Mariana: This story is part of a trilogy, each from different point of view of the main characters. In writing these stories, I was interested in how POV can limit, widen, or twist the lens that lets us into characters’ lives. When combined they give a fuller picture, regardless of how unreliable the narrator may be. I wrote “The Undercurrent” first. By restricting access to the woman who sets the story in motion, hearing about her only through how others see or talk about her, we learn little about her and more about everyone else and the setting. Switching POV in the next two stories allowed me to get progressively closer to the main characters.
These three stories, starting with “The Undercurrent,” can stand alone, but they interact with the others in the collection, such as when a character suddenly reappears and just as quickly recedes into the background. The collection has a decidedly international flavor, one in which characters from many places and cultures mingle. In writing The Verdigris Stories, I was drawn to characters whose sense of identity and interests often lie in transcending borders, arising from some form of existential wanderlust—a pull too strong to resist. “Verdigris” has been called the hue of impermanence, its nuances reflecting the elements with which it interacts, and it felt like the right word to convey these characters’ sense of dislocation, either by choice or by circumstance, as perpetual wanderers or outsiders.
Mariana Sabino was raised in Brazil and the US, and has lived in many countries. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Literature from Bennington College. Shortlisted for the Granum Foundation Prize in 2021, her writing has also received support from The Kenyon Review. Her stories have recently appeared in Four Way Review, Cleaver Magazine, and Paris Lit Up. Find her at marianasabino.com. The Verdigris Stories, her debut short story collection, is forthcoming and available to order at K + P Press and other booksellers.
Andrea Caswell runs Cleaver’s Short Story Clinic, offering detailed feedback on fiction up to 5500 words. Whether you’re wondering how to improve a story, getting ready to submit one to a lit mag, or preparing an MFA application portfolio, editorial feedback will be personalized to help you reach your fiction goals. Writers may also schedule a conference with Andrea as a one-on-one workshop to discuss their work further.
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