Lauren Groff is ‘joyful.’ But she still wants ‘Brawler’ to break your heart

Lauren Groff’s novels, like “Fates and Furies” and “Matrix,” and short story collections, like “Florida,” not only tend to land on bestseller and best-of lists – but all three were nominated for the National Book Award. Her just-published eighth book, “Brawler,” which features nine devastating but resonant short stories, has received rapturous reviews, too.  

The stories explore the ties among kin as well as found family, either of which can disappoint and wound in equal measure. There’s alcoholism and violence – especially by men against women – but there’s also a yearning that can stir up grit or fortitude.

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The book opens with “The Wind,” about a girl whose mother is trying to peel herself and her children away from an abusive husband; Groff writes with precision, and the generational trauma echoes loudly. A stoic young girl, who excels at diving, is at the heart of the title story, in which another family crumbles. 

“To Sunland” revolves around another girl forced to assume family burdens and responsibilities as she tries to find her way in the world. The young woman in the final tale, “Annunciation,” is slightly older and is out in the world, where she’s forced to face harsh realities about the way lives can dwindle or fall apart. A novella-length story, “What’s the Time, Mr. Wolf?”  has a male protagonist, a scion of a wealthy family, who founders under the weight of his privilege and family expectations.

Groff, who’s warm and friendly in conversation, promises that being inside her brain would be “joyful.” She spoke recently by video from a room with wall-to-wall books in her Gainesville, Florida home. Her love of books inspired her to open a bookstore in Gainesville in 2024 called The Lynx – its name a pun about the building of bonds within the community – in reaction to Governor Ron DeSantis’ encouragement of book bans in schools and libraries. 

“A strong community has to have a strong bookstore,” she says, adding that they have five events a week and give away banned books to Floridians, including those who are unhoused or in prison. “The political part of owning the store is inextricable from the rest of it.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Q. First off, this book, “Brawler,” breaks readers’ hearts over and over again. 

I want to break your heart.

I think it comes from the form itself. My novels are in a major key, but my short stories tend to be in a minor key. They have such a small canvas on which to work, and so much information needs to be withheld, so you linger in the really intense moments. Our lives can be full of joy on a daily basis, but in a compressed version, I think we tend to linger on minor key things, the bittersweet or maybe just the bitter.

Q. Despite the bleakness, there’s also resilience in the face of dire circumstances. It made me think of Samuel Beckett.

I named my first son Beckett because I love Samuel Beckett so much.

I love [Beckett’s 1961 play] “Happy Days” and the frantic nature of Winnie. She’s yearning toward something beyond the gender role she’s been given, which is to be swallowed by a sand pile. I love her brightness in the face of all the gloom, her weird resilience, which is born of ignoring what’s going on. 

I’m the opposite of a fatalist. I am a utopianist; I actually believe in the goodness of people, so every time they prove that they’re not good, it breaks my heart. I see Beckett as someone who sees what we would be, and it makes him depressed that we’re not.

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Q. You’ve said you treasure your anxiety and OCD because they’ve changed the way you work for the better. Can you explain that?

My anxiety makes me very aware of my surroundings, of what’s going on culturally. My anxious imagination just spins constantly into possible futures. When bad things happen, I’m calm because I’ve already envisaged them and gone through it. Bruno Bettelheim, the great folklorist and studier of narrative, said fairy tales were an inoculation against terrible things happening. Maybe my anxiety is an inoculation against the horrible things in the world, giving me a small dose before things actually arrive. 

I’ve had to create impermeable structures in order to deal with both anxiety and OCD. With my anxiety, if I were to work in the middle of the day, I’d get nothing done. So as soon as I wake up, I go upstairs and start writing – I’m still dreaming, in that beautiful, liminal space I want to be making work from, and I don’t have time to click into “The sky’s falling” mode.

With OCD, I have a compulsion toward perfection, which is impossible in art. I’ve created processes – I write by hand until the very end – which allow me to actually cultivate failure in the best possible way, so I have to understand that those are just the faultlines where I haven’t yet been able to figure something out yet. Then I have to learn how to fix it or find a bridge across it. 

Also, I don’t even write a short story until I can see the whole thing in my mind’s eye. I let them sit in the subconscious for a really long time. And then one day, it feels really urgent that I need to write it. By then, all the beats are there, all of the imagery, and I just need to find the language. 

But before I even begin, I’m in my dark room. I shut down my eyes, my ears, my smell. My animal body is completely shut down. Then, in the world of the scene, I slowly open up my senses. I’ll start with hearing. Then I’ll slowly open up touch, taste, and then finally the visual. By that time, the scene is deeply embodied. 

And, I have 100 hardware store paint chips that I look at because I have almost an emotional synesthesia with color, so I like to write toward a specific color sometimes.

Q. “To Sunland” is flavored by Flannery O’Connor; “What’s the Time, Mr. Wolf” feels like  Tennessee Williams in the North – there’s even a poster of Paul Newman, who played Brick in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” – and that story and “Annunciation” have elements of fairy tales. Are you consciously embracing those influences?

For me, it’s part of the joy of being a writer to be able to converse with the people I love, to have a conversation with their works. It’s pure pleasure to evoke, pay homage to, let myself be steeped in these things that I deeply love.

Q. In the back of the book, you offer a paragraph of insight about each story. Why?

They’re a bit of a cheeky gift for the reader. I’ve always had so much fun with the closeness and distance in the author-reader relationship. It’s a deeply intimate relationship, and it can be a parasocial relationship when the reader projects thoughts about the writer back into the work. I wanted to embrace that and say, “You’re not wrong.”  We’re conversing, and if you wanted a bit more insight into this story, here’s a tiny little candle in the dark. It’s not going to illuminate the whole thing, but it’ll show you a couple of signs.

Lauren Groff discusses & signs ‘Brawler’ with Danzy Senna

When: 7 p.m., March 3

Where: Pasadena Presbyterian Church, 585 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena

Tickets and information: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-03-03/ticketed-lauren-groff