Woodman’s influence on Rory’s photographs, especially in a scene in which she photographs Vivian in the abandoned house, is apparent if you know Woodman’s work. I sensed I wasn’t done with them, that I needed a larger structure to capture their experience and the world that shaped them, but it wasn’t until I came across a series of photographs by Francesca Woodman in an old issue of The Missouri Review that I recognized the feeling I needed to write toward. Kate Milliken: My first book was a collection of stories in which two friends, two teenage girls, reappear. I spoke with Milliken over email about horseback riding, celebrity, and the potent history of Los Angeles in the early 1990s.Įlizabeth Gonzalez James: Can you tell me your inspiration for writing the book? What was the seed? Here Charlie begins narrating the story of her mother Rory-a ranch hand at the stable her stepfather manages-and unraveling what happened that unseasonably warm fall before the fire took everything. It’s November 1993, and a fire is burning through Topanga Canyon, a dry, dusty place outside Los Angeles that’s reliant on horses and hierarchies. In the opening sentence of her debut novel, Kept Animals, Kate Milliken doesn’t meander through florid establishing shots: she lights a wildfire.
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