Interview

Lara Vapnyar discusses her first novel, Memoirs of a Muse, about a Russian immigrant determined to become the muse of a famous artist.

The protagonist of Memoirs of a Muse is a young Russian immigrant named Tanya.  Raised by her single mother, a professor, Tanya escapes the drudgery of post-Cold War Moscow life by reading about Apollinaria Suslova, Dostoevsky's mistress and muse.  Tanya romanticizes that she too one day will become a muse like Suslova. After graduating from college, she immigrates to New York, but unlike her relatives before her, who try in more conventional ways to assimilate to American culture, she holds on to her ambition to be "special," to become the muse to a great American writer.

American readers might be unfamiliar with an ambition like Tanya's, especially since the novel is set in present-day New York City where most women define success quite differently, and may initially misunderstand Tanya's idea of a muse as being intentionally subservient to the man or artist. How does Tanya define the role of muse? Would Tanya have wanted the same thing for herself in Russia? Does Tanya represent something larger about young immigrant women?

First of all, Tanya has a very idealistic view of a role of muse. She doesn't think that a muse is subservient to an artist, but...