Ashley Leigh Bourne Prize for Fiction

Ploughshares is pleased to present Christie Hodgen with the fourth annual Ashley Leigh Bourne Prize for Fiction for her short story “Bush v. Gore,” which appeared in the Fall 2021 issue, edited by Editor-in-chief Ladette Randolph. The $2,500 prize, sponsored by longtime patron Hunter C. Bourne III and selected by our editors, honors a short story published in the journal in the previous year.

Hodgen’s “Bush v. Gore” centers on Mary and her boyfriend, Jack, on a visit to see his oil-rich family. The 2000 Supreme Court decision that gives the story its name is impending and causing a divide within Jack’s family. Class tensions boil as one relation “seemed to be investigating the very fabric of our democracy, considering its holes, aghast at the ragged seams he never knew existed.” At the same time, Mary examines the different dynamics between Jack’s rich Catholic family and her own poorer one. In doing so, she confronts her identity and realizes she must make a choice as to which path in life she plans to follow.

Hodgen is the author of four books, including Boy Meets Girl (New Issues Press, 2022), winner of the AWP Prize for the Novel. She lives in Kansas City, MO, and is the editor of New Letters.

What inspired “Bush v. Gore”?

I’ve been telling anyone who asks that only the most outrageous parts of this story are true. An unlikely set of circumstances really did place me in the home of an oil mogul on the weekend the Bush–Gore decision came down from the Supreme Court, and indeed, he was given many hours’ advance notice of the decision. I was twenty-five years old at the time and very naïve; I couldn’t believe what was happening in front of me.

Twenty-some years later, I have no trouble believing that the world operates this way. I suppose the naked greed and bad faith of our current political landscape got me thinking—when did all of this start, and how did we just stand by, watching? I could trace it back to that weekend. I think a character like Mary, who is young and idealistic and who comes from working people—people too busy trying to keep their lives afloat to notice what is happening—is a fitting stand-in for most of us. Now that we’re older, we’re not so much bewildered as, well, accustomed to disappointment. Not to be too much of a downer.

What did you discover or grapple with while writing the story?

This story involved a bigger cast of characters than I tend to work with in the confines of a short story. I struggled with wanting to make sure that everyone was described well, because really, at the end of the day, the conflict is between different characters, their different natures and points of view. Yes, there’s sort of this dramatic Supreme Court decision coming down as the peak point of the plot, but that doesn’t mean anything unless you understand how each character views it, what it means for them and their place in the world. Mary is struggling with her faith—wanting to believe in the goodness in people but finding it difficult. In some sense, this decision confirms her worst suspicions. Any meaning that a reader might get out of that decision would rely on how well the characters are drawn. At the same time, you have to keep the story moving. So there was a lot of back and forth, moving things around. Learning when to stop and observe and when to keep going. And I wanted there to be some humor, which had to be timed throughout as well.

How does this story fit with the rest of your work?

Much of my work operates by placing a naïve character in an unfamiliar setting, and “Bush v. Gore” certainly takes this to an extreme. So, on one hand, this story is nothing new for me. But then again, this was the first time I really stopped to consider Catholicism in a story, or to explore a character’s faith in any extended way. I was hoping this would add a layer to the piece that worked together with the political aspects of the story.

What are you working on now?

I’m finishing a long story called “The Wrestler,” which is also drawn from life—another unlikely set of circumstances. I once wound up spending several hours in a house—a former convent, actually—owned by Anne Rice, who was out of town at the time. Her bodyguard gave an impromptu tour to some friends. The top floor of the house was a wide-open room where many children were cared for during the 1918 influenza epidemic. When our current pandemic hit, I remembered that night in New Orleans and set to work placing a character in that house. It’s probably the closest thing to a ghost story I’ll ever write. I’m also working on a novel about five friends who met as Rhodes Scholars and remained friends into their fifties, meeting up each year to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Each chapter takes place on New Year’s, across an eight-year span. You see the rise and fall of everyone in the group. By the end, no one is anywhere near where they started out. This, too, is drawn from life. I suppose I’m a bit of a vampire.