Frances Macken: On the Intricacies of Female Friendship, Co-Dependency and her debut novel, "You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here"
As children, our friendships inform who we are and who we will become. Sometimes we become so attached to our friends, it is hard to imagine not having them in our lives. In her debut novel, Frances Macken charts the friendship between Katie, Maeve, and Evelyn—three lifelong friends as they grow up in their small town in Glenbruff. Macken flawlessly explores the intricacies of female friendship, the jealousy and dependency that come with those friendships at times.
I had a chance to speak with Frances Macken about her debut novel—You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here, the jealousy we sometimes feel towards other girls, how friendships can turn co-dependent, and how friendships change over time.
Upon first meeting Katie, Evelyn, and Maeve they seem to be great friends, but as we read on further we begin to realize that their friendship is more a friendship of convenience. Growing up in a small town, some become attached to the people that have been present in our life since childhood. Why do you feel that none of the girls attempted to befriend anyone else in their youth?
I’ve always found it interesting the way that little kids can become almost instant friends with one another. It doesn’t matter if the other kid doesn’t read the same kinds of books, or watch the same kinds of television shows. If they’re interesting to us in some way, and willing to be friends with us too, then that’s all we need. That’s why each of the girls in the book are so different to one another, and yet, they are friends. I feel that it’s true to life. Sure, their friendship is convenient, but that’s not the only factor keeping them together.
Katie, Evelyn, and Maeve don’t look beyond one another for friendship for a couple of reasons. The first and most obvious reason is that there isn’t much choice of friends in Glenbruff. It’s a small, rural community, and they are the only three girls of a similar age living close by to one another. The second reason is that they spend a lot of time together as children, and become very familiar to one another. They grow accustomed to one another’s quirks, foibles, and idiosyncrasies, and adapt to them early on. Trampling over the landscape to pass the time helps to bring the three girls together. It’s their territory, and they enjoy exploring, and all the while they are sharing ideas about what their lives might look like in the future.
Finally, their friendship needs are being met within the friendship group. Even if tensions can sometimes run high, they still find adventure and enjoyment in one another. They have someone to play with, someone to have fun with, someone who captures their imagination, and someone who excites them. Evelyn makes Katie feel important and superior. She’s in awe of Evelyn’s charisma and self-belief. It seems that Evelyn’s got it all figured out, and if Katie’s lucky, that confidence might rub off on her too. It’s Evelyn who holds the key to leaving Glenbruff and pursuing an exhilarating career in the arts, and Katie is more than willing to tag along for the ride. Evelyn enjoys lording it over Katie and Maeve, and calling the shots. And keeping Maeve around means that there’s always someone for Evelyn and Katie to take out their frustrations on. They get to feel smarter than Maeve, and more accomplished. They can treat her as they wish because Maeve won’t complain. Maeve knows that she won’t have any friends left if she stands up for herself, and she keeps her deepest secrets and desires close to her chest.
When Katie goes to the Gaeltacht one summer, she meets a girl who is interested in becoming friends with her, but Oona doesn’t make the cut. Katie deems her to be boring. The question is: do we want to surround ourselves with kind but dull people, or exciting and difficult people? For Katie, it’s the latter, and she doesn’t see that she’s in a codependent friendship with Evelyn. And yet, it’s good in a sense for Katie to have Evelyn as a friend because she challenges her to think about life’s possibilities.
The lesson is that we can learn something valuable from everyone we encounter, even from the people who hurt us. A friendship is a place where we can learn about our strengths and weaknesses, and when and how to build boundaries in order to protect ourselves.
The introduction of Pamela Cooney is one that rattles Evelyn’s standing within the group and their town and even after her disappearance, her presence weaves throughout the lives of the characters and changes their lives forever -- all except for Evelyn. She seems almost happy to see Pamela go. Even though the fate of Pamela remains a mystery, do you think that Evelyn had something to do with her disappearance?
Pamela feels like a confrontation to Evelyn, triggering all of her insecurities. Pamela’s attractive, talented, and garners attention right away in Glenbruff. Even Peadar, Evelyn’s love interest, is taken in by her, which is an alarming development. Evelyn’s quite relieved when Pamela disappears: life can return to normal, and she can reign supreme again as she used to in the past.
Although Evelyn is antagonised by Pamela’s presence in the town and at school, she never demonstrates any inclination towards harming her physically. The person who harmed Pamela had their own reasons for eliminating her, and carried out their intention surreptitiously.
Why did you choose to leave Pamela’s fate ambiguous?
It is a little ambiguous, but there are some revelations of character in the book indicating who I believe to be the person who put Pamela in the quarry. It wasn’t intentional, and it was a crime of passion. And it won’t be the first person on your list of suspects.
Do you believe that had Pamela not disappeared, she and Katie would have become friends? And if they had, how would Evelyn have reacted?
When Pamela arrives in Glenbruff, Katie finds herself under pressure. She’s flattered that Pamela might have a fleeting interest in being her friend, and Pamela hints at a different type of life that Katie could have for herself: a life of glamour, and danger too. So Pamela is a very tempting prospect for friendship, but ultimately, Evelyn has more of a hold over Katie. Evelyn has more to offer. She and Katie have a stronger history as friends, plus Katie is more interested in film and photography than she is in dance.
Evelyn is a prideful person. She feels a sense of ownership over Katie and isn’t willing to share her. Had Katie chosen to continue on in a friendship with Pamela, Evelyn would have cut her out completely. She would have been devastated, but wouldn’t have shown it on the outside. Evelyn has let Katie in on her insights and epiphanies. She has shared her wisdom with Katie, and challenged her to make courageous choices. Katie gets a great deal out of her friendship with Evelyn, and that’s what cements her decision.
The novel explores the intricacies of female friendship through the lifelong friendship of Evelyn, Katie, and Maeve. The need to please your friends, the jealousy and envy that can sometimes overwhelm a friendship, and how those friendships that once seemed like they would last a lifetime can start to fall apart. Their friendship is complex, particularly between Evelyn and Katie. Were there any friendships from your own life that you used as inspiration?
I think we’re often friends with people because we want to adopt some of their traits. We admire them, and want to become like them in some way.
Like Katie, I’ve had some friendships with charismatic people that have had their dramatic moments. In my experience, I’ve found that it’s pretty tricky to know what to do when a friendship isn’t going well. We expect romantic relationships to either run their course, or lead on to the next phase, but friendship doesn’t follow the same path. There aren’t the same guidelines for manoeuvring through a troubled friendship. It’s not clear cut.
For that reason, I was interested to write about the disintegrating friendship between Katie and Evelyn and how things finally combust. The learning for Katie is that she needs to be her own person and not look to other people to idolise and idealise. She doesn’t need the domineering Evelyn to forge a trajectory for her. She’s already enough and can make things happen for herself.
I believe that our friendships hold up a mirror for us to see ourselves, and can tell us a lot about the kind of person we are at specific points in our lives. As the poet Rumi said, “Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
Evelyn’s treatment of Katie and Maeve was infuriating and sad. She constantly put them down and criticized them. Why did Katie and Maeve never stand up to her, even when it was obvious their friendship wasn’t what it once was and would never be?
Each of the girls’ personalities are fundamentally different. Katie has a passive nature, and has to grow in confidence before she can stand her ground. Sometimes in life, we need a difficult person around us in order to jolt us into action. It can be good for us. For all of her unpleasantness, Evelyn has played a valuable role in Katie’s development, provoking her to create a vision for her future and to prepare for it by going to college and moving to a city. Her criticisms often have a ring of truth, and it’s important to know the unvarnished truth sometimes. She’s a kind of ‘devil you know’ type of friend.
Katie has to reach a place where she doesn’t need Evelyn in order to pursue her dream, but before that happens, she’s willing to tolerate her, because Evelyn’s presence in her life has been enriching in so many ways. Not only that, but Evelyn’s got a route mapped out for their mutual success, and Katie wants success more than anything.
In her early years, Maeve is deeply unpopular and socially inept. She’s reliant on her cousin Evelyn for companionship, and unable to stand up to her until she has been pushed to the edge, mistreated by her birth mother and abandoned for a second time. By this point, she too is beginning to create a plan for her future and is looking beyond Glenbruff. She’s coming into her own for the first time, and making a new life for herself. There’s a hint of a new romance, and she’s starting to feel more empowered than ever before. Maeve can finally cut her losses and kick Evelyn to the curb.
Whilst reading the book, we clearly saw how attached to Evelyn Katie was and how much she looked up to her. It was almost like she needed her by her side, yet Evelyn seemed to behave as if she would be fine with or without Maeve or Katie. Why did Evelyn continue to maintain a friendship with the two of them if she thought she didn’t need them?
Evelyn talks a good game, but she doesn’t have any other friends than Katie and Maeve. They’re the only people who’re willing and eager to have her around. She needs Katie and Maeve just as much as they need her, though she’d never admit it.
Evelyn doesn’t have a positive home life. Her mother is disinterested in her, and lavishes her with new clothes to make up for it. Her father has affairs, and her brother is an embarrassment. When Katie leaves for Dublin, Evelyn relies all the more on her romantic relationship with Peadar, but he’s just using her.
Though she talks at length about her grandiose, fantastical ambitions, Evelyn falls at the first hurdle when she is rejected from art school. She relies on Katie as a stable, down to earth presence in her life, and on Maeve as a sort of loyal, gormless dependent.
I really enjoyed that we got to witness the three girls grow up from 10-year-olds dreaming about their future and making plans to young women in their 20s trying to find themselves. For Katie and Maeve, even when they were struggling they were growing up and changing from their past selves, but Evelyn seemed to be the only one who didn’t really change or progress in any significant way. As Katie’s mother said, “Evelyn Cassidy is the sort of person who likes to be a big fish in a small pond.”Do you feel that part of Evelyn’s treatment of Katie and Maeve and her behavior was her fear of growing up and leaving Glenbruff and the place where she was the popular girl from a wealthy family?
In spite of all of Evelyn’s bluster, she’s somewhat risk averse. While she’d like to be the kind of person who can go out and take on the world, being rejected from art college sent her scuttling back to the familiarity of Glenbruff. Her infatuation with Peadar is a further tie to her hometown, and she also has a certain status there, coming from a well-to-do family in comparison to most of the other families in the locality. If she leaves the area, she’s just another person. She’s not special anymore, and it’s all too much to want to jeopardise.
Do you have a writing routine that you follow and did you adjust it at all while writing your novel?
I don’t have a writing routine per se. I just write as much as I can, whenever I can.
What was your process writing the novel? How long did it take?
When it came to You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here, I had words and images and ideas coming at me at all hours. I’d have to go searching for a notebook and pen to capture all of it. And then I’d lock myself in a room and write for as long as possible. It was a compulsion. A round-the-clock event.
All in all, it took about two and a half years from conceiving the initial concept - which absolutely altered with time - to getting to a completed draft.
With You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here your debut novel, do you have any plans as of yet for your next novel?
I have been scrapbooking and collecting ideas and images, and doing research on the era and world my next novel is set in. I am really excited to work on this new story. It’s going to be a very visual piece of work. That’s kind of my style. I am thinking about my characters a lot, and what their motivations are, and how I am going to bring them to life on the page. I’ve written about forty thousand words, but the work is still in its early stages. This is the fun part, assimilating and creating with no boundaries or restrictions.
Frances Macken is from Claremorris, Co. Mayo. She completed a BA in Film and Television Production at the National Film School, Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology. She has a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Oxford and is the author of several short stories. You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here is her debut work of literary fiction.
About Karla Mendez
Karla Mendez is a writer and artist based in Florida. She is obsessed with buying books at a faster pace than she can read. An avid journal keeper, her favorite part of the day is watching the sun rise as she writes. She is always happy to discuss books and films - find her on Instagram at @kmmendez
