In The Field: Conversations With Our Contributors—Jonathan Wittmaier

“Terrarium” really reflects the chaos of the family cooped up during a summer COVID lockdown. What prompted you to write this story?

Being cooped up myself during that initial COVID lockdown is what prompted me to write this particular story. At the time, I was living in a small one bedroom in Queens. And I remember reading about how certain members of the one percent had fled the city right at the start of lockdown, had stocked up on supplies and were holed up in their mansions somewhere. So then I set out to write a story about those people. 

Daniel is a very complicated character. Tell us how you developed this jealous family businessman.

I wanted to tell the story of someone experiencing the pandemic from a place of wealth and privilege. Fiction, for me, has always been about trying to understand other people, especially those with differing views and opinions. When it came to developing Daniel as a character, I really wanted to get inside the head of someone used to getting his way. I also wanted to explore what kinds of stressors exist for someone who, on the outside, might seem to have everything they could want, even during a pandemic. 

A large conversation is between Daniel and his unnamed affair partner. Can you talk about the significance of not naming her? And about the fact that her dialogue takes up most of the conversation in this story? Do you think it reflects something about communication?

The decision to keep her unnamed comes from a place rooted in character. Since the story is being told from the first person point of view, I imagined that Daniel wouldn’t want to disclose her identity to whomever he happens to be telling this story to. This of course speaks to how he might feel about her and also to what extent he may or may not feel guilty about the affair.

The reason their dialogue exchange takes up a good portion of the story was, for one, to show how someone even has an affair in a COVID lockdown. And two, I wanted to give the readers a chance to see Daniel truly open up with someone. He’s very much isolated, like many of us were during lockdown, and in his case surrounded by a family he finds mostly exasperating. So for Daniel, the affair is a much needed release from pressures of lockdown. 

The tension within the story starts out high and gets higher throughout. Is that how you usually approach a piece? How did you create this high stakes arc? How do you order the pet death, affair, escaped ants, and more, for peak chaos?

Day in the life stories can sometimes be quite boring or meandering. But I really wanted to capture, almost in real time, how the COVID lockdowns affected someone psychologically, especially someone used to getting their way. 

When it comes to structure, I typically like to start with a hook and build from there. I don’t necessarily set out to raise the stakes with each consecutive scene but I do try to make sure there is some sort of underlying tension or conflict in every scene. Otherwise, where’s the drama? 

For this particular story, I knew I wanted the death of the family rabbit and the escaped ants to bookend the story. Then it was just a matter of filling in what happens in between. The song “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” by The Smashing Pumpkins was also a big influence. There’s that famous line in the chorus, “Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.” That was the feeling I was trying to emulate. Daniel sees himself as someone who is trapped by both lockdown and his responsibilities as a father and husband. And like a rat in a cage, or even ants in an ant farm, he’s desperate to escape. 

What are some themes you notice in your writing?

The theme question is always tough for me because I write about such a wide array of topics across the different genres. When it comes to fiction, I typically write about American suburbia mainly because that was the environment I grew up in. But, as a minority who grew up in a predominately white middle-class suburb, I was always a bit of an outsider, which naturally lent me an outsider’s perspective. This is why, with most of my short fiction, I tend to focus on exploring what’s often hidden behind the myth of the white picket fence.

What are some of your favorite books? Do you have a few favorite authors? Which texts have inspired your work?

Emma Cline is my favorite writer of short prose. The way she writes about white suburbia has definitely inspired much of my fiction writing. 

I’m also a huge fan of Charif Shanhan and how he writes about male interiority and the complexities of the biracial identity. 

I’ve also been reading a lot of Jack Kerouac as of late. Some of the writing he did while living in the PNW has been a big inspiration for a music project I’ve been working on. 

What are you working on now?

Right now, I’m currently working on a revision of my first full-length poetry collection. I’ve also been trying my hand at songwriting. I’ve written a few songs with a friend of mine, who is also a guitarist, and we’re hoping to put those out in the world in near future. And as a writer by trade, I’d say we’re a hard rock band with a literary sensibility. 

Jonathan Wittmaier is a Korean American writer and educator. Born in Seoul, he was raised in southern New Jersey. His writing can be found in The Museum of Americana, WordCity Literary Journal, and Weave—a PNW Kundiman zine project. He is the winner of the 2018 Creative Writing Award fro Dramatic Writing (Adelphi University). He currently resides in Seattle, Washington.