The Next Best Book Club discussion
Author/Reader Discussions
>
VOLT Author/Reader Discussion
Mod
I had the wonderful opportunity to see him read at the Brooklyn Book Festival this past September, and we had a great chat. I know he's as excited to be here as I am to HAVE him here.
Let's give him a warm welcome!! Feel free to start posting comments about VOLT or asking questions about the book, the writing process, ect...
November 1st is just around the corner!
Howdy gang! I'm excited about having a chat about writing and art and whatever else you want to discuss! I'll check in regularly. Hope all is well.-Al Heathcock
Mod
I purchased the book today (November 1) and should get it in 2 days (Amazon Prime rules for that) as soon as I get my copy I will join in the discussion. Looking forward to getting the opportunity to speak to someone that has published a book since I am a creative writing minor in college currently. Though I would ask Mr. Heathcock how he approaches writing because each writer has their own unique method towards accomplishing writing. Do you write for hours at a time or do you write in shorter blocks of time?
It's good to be in Boise, where there's no snow, nice sunshine, and crisp, clean, mountain air. Not to brag (lol).Eric, you're absolutely right that each writer has their own unique process. In fact, I just wrote about this very question for the fine folks at The Story Prize. Here's a link to that post:
http://thestoryprize.blogspot.com/201...
Feel free to add comment, or ask questions, here on this Goodreads comment chain, and I'd be happy to clarify/elaborate as needed.
Be well, everyone!!
-AL
I picked up a copy of Volt: Stories from the library yesterday. I started reading last night.Boy...the first story really packs a punch in the first few paragraphs. Being from rural NJ and my husband from rural PA, I'm just curious if the incident described is based on true events, not uncommon in a farming community, or just imagined.
Sorry to start off with such an obvious, over asked question but this piqued my curiosity.
Rory,Sadly, both sides of my family (mom's side and dad's) have had incidents where children have been killed in accidents, both implicating the father of the child. Writing offers me up a way to face some of these things, though in a way that's bearable. It was incredibly difficult to write "The Staying Freight", and many a day I just sat at my desk crying. But out of the pain comes insight. I think of my own family, of what folks endured, and that gives me strength. In the case of this story, I heard from many a family member who thanked me for writing Winslow's story, and allowing them to face their own questions and grief. One of the most unexpected parts of traveling with the book is that everywhere I go people come and share their own stories of tragedy. I have friends who think I'm a nut-case because I don't mind folks unloading their tales of pain on me. But, really, that's the purpose of story. It's communication. I tell you a story, then you tell me a story. So...I see it a privilege that folks share their stories. I'm honored they share them with me.
There are lots of other personal stories that directly influenced VOLT. I won't go into all of them now, but nearly every story has some edge of autobiographic truth involved (which, once they find out, makes some folks a little nervous around me--ha).
Anyway, thanks for reading, Rory, and thanks for the question.
Best to you.
-AL
Alan,The first thing I want to know about is Roy Rogers. In a book full of startling, intense scenes and moments, this bizarre little waking dream sequence stood out to me.
It was an odd moment where a father-figure and a son actually talk. Even in a story like "Smoke" the most meaningful exchange to me was Roy Rogers finally convincing Vernon to sing. To me, it felt like Roy Roger's was a fifteen-year-old's childhood saying goodbye.
Where did Roy come from? Why did you feel like the story needed him to ride in on Trigger?
Geoff!I grew up watching old re-runs of the Roy Rogers' show on tv, and became fascinated with him as an adult. I think my fascination stems from Roy Rogers being put forward as the "ideal" American man. He's a tough-guy cowboy who everyone likes, who's on the right side of the law, who'll go toe-to-toe with you in a fight, would never get a scratch on him, and would then go off and sing a lonesome song to his horse and a campfire. There's been much written about how that generation of boys coming to age in the 40s and 50s knew Roy Rogers more than their own fathers. And, having grown up in south Chicago, where sadness and fear were seen as weakness, and where most men I knew kept everything all bottled up, I always had this secret life of my imagination a al Vernon in "Smoke". I also wanted Vernon to articulate his fears, but needed a counterpoint character that wasn't his father. So...Roy Rogers. I do recall when I first decided Roy Rogers would appear in the story that I thought it was just too weird, and thought that scene would eventually get cut. But...I went with it, mostly just to see if it took the story anywhere interesting. Then it did. And Roy stayed.
Thanks for the question! Be well!!
-AL
Oh, and I forgot to address this: "To me, it felt like Roy Roger's was a fifteen-year-old's childhood saying goodbye."Absolutely. You nailed it, Geoff. That's exactly what I was going for. The moment anyone needs to sing those songs to sing away the pain is the exact moment they've given away the innocence of childhood.
Thanks for the astute reading, man.
-AL
Glad to be considered an astute reader, and more than glad to have the opportunity to read VOLT.On the same vein as giving away the innocence of childhood is Winslow. His isn't a giving away so much as giving up, having things taken away.
The scene with the freight train, of speeding over the tracks as a train barrels forward seemed almost like a suicide attempt. Maybe he makes it, maybe he doesn't...either way Winslow doesn't seem to care. I like that you describe his situation as a "disintegration of spirit." This, I think, weights heavy in the world of Krafton's residents. Through the rest of the stories, I kept thinking of Winslow's "disintegration of spirit" and how that emotional chiseling forced character to either give up (like Vernon's father seems to) or resurrect themselves despite their disintegrated spirits.
Of course women in VOLT are different. Whether they'd murdered or experienced great loss, they seem to endure for the sake of others. I mean, even tough-ass Winslow isn't nearly as strong as his wife. Her whole life is a punch in the gut.
Not to boil the stories down too much. I certainly think more happens than those two choices, but with "Staying Freight" being the first story I couldn't help but read many of the stories in that way.
Why "Staying Freight" first? Why a story broken into numbered sections?
That was maybe not as well worded as I would have liked.
Geoff,Great stuff, man: "...that emotional chiseling forced character to either give up (like Vernon's father seems to) or resurrect themselves despite their disintegrated spirits."
On this point, that seems to be a truth of the world. On a regular basis I walk away from conversations with people who are steeped in this "disintegration of spirit", and I wonder how they go on. Certainly, one way is that they stop caring. Another way is that they accept the bad things in the world as punishment, as something they deserve (a al Winslow). Finally, there are people who find beauty in the world despite their hardships.
I just talked to a lady who was having a very very hard time, had the kind of life most middle-class folks would view as a failure of a life, and yet she said something profound (something I thought was profound). She said something like, "It's getting cold and my trailer has no insulation, but I just got three new blankets. My and the kids get piled under those blankets and were snug and bugs in a rug." I'm paraphrasing, but the point is that she made me understand how any of us survive. She found real joy in being under blankets with her kids, survival be damned.
My fiction keeps me grounded in these truths and I'm happy for it. Two weeks ago my wife and I were flying out for a little R&R in wine country. Our plane got canceled. I bitched and moaned because I was going to be late to my chance at guzzling wine. I feel that this was me at my worst as a human. In so many way I feel I'm saved by art, and writing about characters struggling to find and maintain their spirits in times of crisis makes me appreciate the joys, simple and otherwise, in my own life. It also helps me make sense of the times in my own life when I had a serious "disintegration of spirit", to face my past, to stare down the pain and not let it have power over me. The ghouls of doubt and remorse often visit me at night, when I'm tired and I'm too weak to keep my mind from awful things, but my art has given me strength to face them, and to not be afraid.
As for your comment about my females characters, I really appreciate that. I get asked often about how and why I write from a female perspective. If I ranked the "toughest" people I personally know, my top ten would be female dominated. My mom is one of the kindest and most generous people I know. She's also, hands-down, the toughest person I know. My father is tough, too, but my mom is just virtually impossible to rattle. As you pointed out, she endures for the sake of others. I could give specifics, but for now I'll just say that she's my hero. My character Helen (the town Sheriff) is largely based off of my mother (what if my mother were a Sheriff...).
Thanks again for the great comments and questions. I'm having fun with this.
Best to everyone!
-AL
Alan -I'm loving VOLT!
I'd like to ask you about the town of Krafton. I'm a huge Faulkner fan and am always fascinated when an author creates a detailed setting for his characters. But beyond the place names, the physical terrain seems to be an integral part of your stories. So I was wondering how much planning went into Krafton and its residents? Did the town and stories evolve together or did you have the framework ready before you began writing? And why did you choose to create an imaginary town? Is it based on a real place? Do you see yourself returning there in your future writings?
Sorry for the bombardment of questions - but as they all relate I'm hoping you'll forgive me.
Hi Alan,Great to see you here. By now, you know my love for "Volt" runs DEEP and STRONG. It's not just the quality of the writing (though there's that, of course), but it's the way you crawl so deeply inside the characters, grab hold of their inner fibers, then emerge from those dark places and spread those feelings and emotions across the page for readers to experience as well. You have so much empathy for your characters!
So, my question to you is: How do you get so deep inside these fake people you've created? I know when I design/build/write characters, it's hard for me to see them as little more than figures on a page. You, on the other hand, BECOME the female sheriff, the father running from his grief, the group of kids rolling bowling balls through town. How do you do it? I'm in awe, my friend.
Tara!Thanks so much for reading, and for the kind words.
As for place, both of my parents are from small towns (most all of my relatives are, in fact), and though I grew up in Chicago, I was raised with small town ethics. That said, I don’t think there’s much difference between a city neighborhood and a small town. In both, everyone knows everyone, for both good and bad, and certain behaviors are expected; a certain way to dress, talk, eat, dance, worship… The difference between a small town and Hazel Crest, where I grew up, would be in the details, a cornfield instead of an empty lot, a barn instead of a warehouse. The reason I made Krafton a rural town instead of a city neighborhood was my ability then to isolate the characters from outside influences, forcing them to have to act alone, to turn inward. Also, I suppose, I had some desire to write a book that people understood was about America, and the homogeneity of a rural town would be understood from coast to coast—I’m proud of the fact that different reviewers have placed Krafton in the south, the west, the Midwest, and the Great Plains. All of them are right, of course. I never declare a region for Krafton, and intentionally left that ambiguous so people from all parts of America can claim it as their own (or, depending, recognize Krafton as a place they know, and then disown it completely).
In some simple way, I also just like cornfields and being in the woods. I love caves. I find all these settings mysterious and contemplative, and I keep coming back to them. I'm also fascinated by floods. Floods are important to me.
My big goals was/is to write the complete moral history of a town, and I'd planned 40 or 50 stories set in the same place. So...this is still my BIG goal, and will be part of my life's work. VOLT is like Book 1 of 5. Right now I'm working on a novel not set in Krafton, but I'm very comfortable in saying that I'll come back to Krafton, and that Krafton will always be a part of my writing life.
Thanks for asking.
Best to you.
-AL
David!!!Thanks for chiming in buddy!! I've been thinking a lot about this whole empathy thing of late, about what and how I can explain the concept and practice, and I have many thoughts on the issue. That said, it's pushing midnight here and I need to get to bed. Tomorrow (Thursday, the 3rd of November) is my teaching day, so I won't have time to post. I promise I'll post a full and thoughtful answer on Friday, and I'll do my best to make it worth the wait.
Be well!!
-AL
Hi Alan--As you may remember, I've been a big fan of yours and of Volt from the time I reviewed it for Library Journal. I've followed the book's critical reception after that, I think just because I felt protective of it. I was wondering to what extent you pay attention to reviews. I know yours have been very positive. I was happy to see the review in the Sunday Times, but then I was annoyed by this sentence: "Frankly, there is little to fault in any of the eight stories that make up this collection." I thought, couldn't he show a little more enthusiasm? Is the lack of faults such a major surprise?
And then all this talk about Biblical/Old Testament language and feeling. Is that something you thought about consciously while you were writing? What kind of religious background do you come from, if that's not too personal a question.
Finally, right after Library Journal sent me your book to review, they sent me Daniel Orozco's Orientation, another terrific collection. What's going on up there in Idaho? They must be putting something in the water.
Here's the content of the post I wrote for The Story Prize, which covers some thoughts on being an empathetic writer (then I'll add a few thoughts):Process is a curiosity to folks, and I understand the interest. People want a behind-the-scenes look into an author’s day, and want to know an artist’s mind. Tragically, though, I think many aspiring writers are looking for a mythical fountain-of-greatness, thinking that if they work in the manner of their favorite author then the quality of their work will match that of the author. This is why I feel the need to explain that my process is ever changing, and the process I use now has developed over my sixteen years of being a writer, and it may be different at this time next month. It’s my process. I believe the process of being a writer is that you must find your own process.
That said, here’s how I’ve been working lately, with a description of my last writing day as an example:
STEP 1: Being a writer has ruined me to reading. I don’t really mind. I’m ruined because I always hold a yellow crayon or marker while reading, and as I read I highlight any passage I think has value. I might highlight a great line of dialog, a great image, a great noun or verb, an interesting mannerism, whatever.
I start off each writing day by going through what I’d read the day(s) before, and hand-writing out every newly highlighted passage into a composition notebook. The idea is that I’m training my brain and eyes and hand to write at the same high quality as the highlighted passages. I have dozens of notebooks filled with passages, my own personal library of greatness. On this day, I entered passages from James Salter’s Dusk and Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone. Here’s a couple of examples of passages I jotted into my notebook:
From Salter: “In the harbor the boats lay still, not the slightest stirring of masts, not the softest clink of a sheave.”
From Woodrell: “Snow covered the tracks and made humps over the rails and the twin humps guided her.”
STEP 2: I decide my task for the day. I don’t believe in demanding a word count for myself, as I feel word counts are generally arbitrary and hedge toward quantity instead of quality. I try and choose a reasonable task, usually one scene or moment in the story. I usually write a story chronologically, so, naturally, I usually decide to write the next scene/moment in the narrative. On this day, I task myself to write a scene where my protagonist is floating in a house on the roiling currents of a great flood while talking with a recovering meth-addict/dealer, who’s telling her why he’s done certain bad things in his past.
STEP 3: I’m what I call an “empathetic writer”, which means I believe the most powerful place from which to write is through a character, and to have as few touches of a narrator as possible. I work to fully inhabit my point-of-view character, to see though their eyes, hear through their ears, think and feel and imagine, in full, as the character. Much of my day is working to get my imagination all the way into the place of empathetic truth. This means I need to fully realize the world and the events of the scene, the scene’s choreography and timing, and the sensory experiences and emotional content of the character.
The way I write has a closer kinship to acting than to journalism, though I use techniques from both disciplines. From my training as a journalist, I use research. On this day, I need to get my head around how floating in floodwaters might feel and smell and look. I turn to videos online, watching home videos of floods from Alabama and Iowa, and also look at a few videos from the tsunami that ravaged Japan. I take notes. I make sketches. From this, eventually the flood becomes realized in my imagination.
Next, I have to figure out the content of the dialog, and specifically what the drug-dealer will offer up in terms of insight as to why humans do awful things like sell drugs to others or commit crimes of violence. I try and think of any books I’ve read, any plays or films or tv shows I’ve seen, that might help. On this day, I read a bit of Trainspotting, Ask the Dust, a bit of Flannery O’Conner, a touch of Nietzsche. I read the Sermon on the Mount. Then, I watch a bit of Sons of Anarchy, and scenes from Pulp Fiction and There Will Be Blood. After all of this, I come away with the gist of the dialog, and the philosophical insight the dialog must convey (something I believe to be true and will attempt to prove with the scene).
Finally, I try and place myself inside the character, which in this case is a twenty-three year old pregnant woman, a former Army mechanic, who is now, with her father incapacitated and her brother ill, in charge of the well being of this floating house/ark. I take the setting I’ve imagined, and the dialog written for the drug-dealer, and now must figure out how she might feel, think, and imagine, in this situation. I read a book on the Stanislavski System of method acting, and find it very useful to take the emotional content of my own past and place those feelings into the character. I work all this out in my imagination, playing the scene in my mind over and over until it feels both true and dramatically potent.
Step 3 takes up most of my day.
STEP 4: I sit down at the computer and do my best to find the words to capture the empathetic experience of my character, as it’s vividly alive in my imagination.
STEP 5: I revise, scrutinizing every word, phase, sentence, and paragraph, until I’ve delivered the scene into absolute truth and clarity.
STEP 6: I do whatever I need to disconnect from the empathetic experience of my character before my wife and kids get home. On this day, a beautiful autumn day in Idaho, I go for a long run while listening to the new Wilco album, and stop by the Gyros Shack for a little treat. I come home smiling.
To add a couple of thoughts, as per David's question about empathy:As I stated in the essay above, the bulk of my effort as a writer goes into getting my imagination all the way into that empathetic experience. All we have are our own life experiences, and so I'm constantly drawing from my past, taking an event from my own life, isolating out the emotional content, and imbuing my character with that content. I generally always start with the emotional content, because I feel our emotions (our desires, our wants) drive our intellectual curiosities, determine the way we feel in our bodies, and draw out our imaginations to help us cope. I start here, too, because I understand that storytelling is a dramatic art, and that drama is most interested in the emotional connection of the reader. Don't get me wrong--I also want to make you think and imagine, but mainly I want to make you FEEL.
I spend a great deal of time figuring out how it feels to be in certain situations. I'll think, "It's night, and Sheriff Helen Faralley is by herself, outside of the cabin of a man who killed a young girl. What's the emotional content of that moment? Well, she's scared. She's angry. She's all alone. What does her body feel like? She's tense. Her knees might ache from all the walking, and from the cold. She's cold. She can't wear a glove and hold the gun, so her hand might be cold. She's probably a little shaky. Her back might hurt. Is she consciously thinking about anything right now? Probably not. This is a time of action, and not thinking. What environment influences effect her human experience? It's cold and windy. It's dark. She's holding a gun..." So...I think all of this through, always adding this information to my imagination. As it becomes real in my imagination, I find my own body starts to feel different. I let this happen. I don't fight it. I take on the transformation. I once read an interview with N. Scott Momaday, and he said that when he writes he "becomes the bear." I allow myself to become the bear. If I'm doing my work right, there's a physical toll. Often my face breaks out the day after I've written a tough scene. There are times when I'm sitting at my desk just crying. I'm often physically sore after writing. Whatever the scene requires, I do not hedge, do not toe the water--I go all the way in.
I'm very self-conscious about this now, telling you all about it, because it's a bit freakish. It's weird. Or at least I feel weird telling you about it. Really, I think most authors don't allow themselves to fully inhabit their characters because it's just too awful, or because it feels too indulgent, or because we've had that "play-pretend" part of us completely destroyed by the process of "becoming an adult". I'll add that I write completely alone. I sit in my trailer and become the bear, and I often feel like a mad scientist, warning my kids to not come in the trailer while daddy's working.
But I do what I have to do. My dad had this saying" "There ain't no secrets to the universe, kid." He used it for just about everything. "You want to buy new sneakers? And they cost $85? There ain't no secrets to the universe, kid. You want to buy $85 shoes then you'd better go make $85 somehow." With this whole empathy thing, I don't think there are any secrets to the universe. If you want to capture the empathetic truths of your character then you must become your character, think what they think, feel what they feel, see and hear and imagine as they would. If I begin writing before I have fully become the character, then what I will capture on the page will be less than fully real.
Sue!!!!!Great to hear from you, and thanks again for all the support!!
1. Reviews.
I'm always happy for a good review, because on the business side of things I know reviews help validate the brand that is "Alan Heathcock" and "VOLT", and because reviews help spread the word about my book to booksellers and libarians and individual readers. Though it also does validate the artistic expression, this means less to me. What I mean is that I spent more than a dozen years writing this book, really consciously contemplating my own preoccupations, my own style, and all qualitative issues attached to the art and craft of writing stories. I only let my agent shop VOLT because it was the exact artistic statement I wanted to make. Sometimes I hear authors talk about quality as if it's out of their control, as if artistic ambition is out of their control. Nobody was begging me for the book. I could've worked on VOLT for another five year if I wanted. I understood/understand that ambition and quality are in MY control. So...this is all to say that the book I sent into the world was the book I wanted to write. Though it feels wonderful to have my artistic abilities praised by very smart reviewers like yourself and Donald Ray Pollock and David Abrams, the work itself had already given me all the validating I needed. I believe that's the only healthy way to negotiate the world of readers. If you go into publication wondering about the quality of your work, you're probably in big trouble.
By the way, you all are owed a huge thanks from us authors--the job you do is very important to our existence, and to the health of the world of literature. Thanks much, Sue. Thank much, David, and any other reviewer reading this post.
2. Biblical voice: I almost became a preacher. I was raised Baptist. I've read the Bible cover to cover a couple of times over. I also had a great pastor growing up, who was a power storyteller, and an incredibly generous spirit. In general, there are two types of preachers. One type believes we must separate ourselves from the world of sinners, and preaches a general damnation against the fallen. The other type believes that "There but for the grace of God..", and that we must love the sinners as God loves us. I'm thankful I was raised into the second view of the world. It's been said that I love my characters, and I do. The language I use sounds like the language of church, I'm sure, because of the profound effect all of those Sundays had on me.
3. Idaho. I just wrote a piece for Tin House about what's happening in my home state, and I couldn't be more excited. This place is crackling with positive energy, and great things are happening. We're now in a place where we see what the other authors are doing, accomplishing, and we understand that we can/must match their passion. Passion feeds passion. I've been in other places where the norm is mediocrity attacking excellence, and that type of community is absolutely poisonous to art. I'm very happy to live in Idaho, and think the best is yet to come--I have some students who are as passionate and talented as I've ever known, and I can't wait for them to hone their voices into full formation (and because I can't wait to read their books).
Thanks for the questions, Sue!!! Best to you!!
-AL
Alan Heathcock,My name is Heath Wilcock. Your last name is my full name in squished form. Strange? Yes, I also thought so.
My goodness you have given some fantastic insights on this Goodreads wall. (By the way, I've taken your advice and I now read with a yellow crayon.)
I've wanted to ask/mention a few things, some that have already been touched on. One of them was the definite parallel between the teachings from the Bible prophets and your stories. I'm moderately familiar with the Bible lessons (being raised in a strong God-fearing home), and I couldn't help but notice numerous times of when a character starts the path of repentance. For example: Winslow in "The Staying Freight" journeyed away from his home (symbol of leaving his past transgressions?) to be lashed and tried, to become clean again. By the end of the story, I really had the sense that he was now a clean spirited individual and that God has forgiven his wrongs. (The white hair, I thought, could also be taken as a symbol of purity?)
Question: You mentioned you have read the Bible front to back. With that knowledge, do you think back to Bible lessons or specific stories for inspiration?
I must say, your writing has some heartbreaking moments that have actually choked me up. I'm a husband and a father, and some of the experiences in these stories are almost hard to imagine (e.g., the entire dialogue between Vernon and his father in "Smoke", Winslow in "The Staying Freight" trying to think about his son but instead has the image of the train operator [that scene in particular gave me the chills because it was so terrifyingly sad]).
Okay, so I kind of wanted to do some fun questions.
Question: When you're not writing, teaching, reading, what other hobbies do you have?
Question: What is your current favorite dish?
Question: When are you going to visit Arizona, and maybe say hello to the fine students at Arizona State University? I'll show you around. I know a great gyro joint you'd love.
Alan, you're awesome and I can't wait to see what other haunting tales you have in the future.
Heath Wilcock
Mod
THIS is why I do author/reader discussions :)
carry on!
Alan -So what authors/books blow your mind?
Howdy gang! Happy Saturday!Heath,
1. I totally did a double-take on your name (GREAT name!). My first thought was that you were spam, and I was going to getting bombarded with penis enlargement ads (ha).
2. Bible stories?
I don't think I'm consciously retelling specific stories from the Bible with my stories, though clearly the influence of several biblical stories have found their way in. I've always been fascinated with Job, the man who loses everything, which certain has some resonance with "The Staying Freight". The story of David and Goliath brings up certain moral questions about violence and killing. I'm totally fascinated by Noah's ark, of one person being "chosen" to represent the separation from the world, the death of the world stemming from God's profound disappointment in what the world of human had become. Isaac and Abraham must be in there, too (God testing Abraham's faith by asking him to kill his son).
Of course, Christ's life is endlessly interesting from a dramatic and intellectual standpoint. I’m taken by the story of Christ’s march to the cross, his resurrection, because I find the story told so often to the cliché center, the Bible-school version and not much more. I just feel there’s more to it than that Christ died for the sins of Christians. What I find so interesting are some of the human truths involved. I think of how lonesome Jesus must have felt carrying that cross all alone through the streets. Why had he worked so hard? Had he not spoken the truth? Of course, he called out on the cross that God had forsaken him. And then he went off into the tomb. In a church I attended for years, every week we read a section of scripture about Christ’s resurrection. There’s one line that says while in the tomb Jesus descended into Hell to later return to earth. For me, that was a big realization. Christ descended into Hell and then came back for the rock to be rolled away. I find this story to work as a perfect metaphor for how people overcome tragedy. The loneliness of carrying the cross, the forsaken feeling of being crucified, the time spent in the dark tomb, the descent into Hell, and then the fact that we have to face the sunlight, and get to go live so more.
I could write on and on about this stuff, but I think you get the gist.
3. Hobbies?
I don't have many. My son's a very talented young jazz singer, and I work with him on his music, follow him around. I watch my daughters play soccer, do ballet. We have a great theater scene in Boise, and I take my wife to as many plays as we can work into our schedule. I watch a LOT of movies--I keep a movie log, and I've averaged 225 movies a year for the past 16 years. I love Boise State football, and go to as many games as I can. I exercise every day, though I don't know if that's a hobby so much as a necessity--I need to exercise to keep my body capable of keeping up with all the travel and readings and such (I've been on the road pretty much non-stop since March).
4. Favorite dish:
I've been into curry dishes lately. I dig spicy foods.
5.
I'd love to come to Arizona (one of the few state I haven't been in my recent travels). Talk to the powers-that-be on your end, and let them know I'd love to come down for a visit. Let's make it happen!
Best to you, man. Thanks again for reading, and for the great questions!!
-AL
Tara,What authors blow my mind?
I’m kind of an old soul, and find that most of my influences are dead writers, including (besides those you mentioned) Hemingway (especially his stories featuring Nick Adams), James Joyce (especially The Dubliners), Sherwood Anderson, Albert Camus, Carson McCullers, Ralph Ellison, Truman Capote, and Harper Lee (to name a few). From contemporary writers there’s Anthony Doerr, Rick Bass, Richard Bausch, Richard Ford, Daniel Woodrell, Dan Chaon, Chris Offutt, Tony Earley, and Joyce Carol Oates. My work is influenced by the playwrights Edward Albee, Harold Pinter, and Horton Foote, and filmmakers like Joel and Ethan Coen, Michael Haneke, Michaelangelo Antonioni, and Francis Ford Coppola.
But really I have two main influences. One is Cormac McCarthy, whose books in style and substance resonate with me deeper and longer than anything else I’ve ever read. I think The Road is a perfect book. Second is Ingmar Bergman, whose films are often savage and raw, always beautiful, are like instruction manuals on human frailty and motivation. I admired his film Winter Light so much that I literally wrote down every word of dialog in my notebook.
And how about you all?! What books are you loving these days? Tell me what I should be reading!
Happy Saturday to you!
-AL
Alan, I noticed in your credits that a couple of your stories had appeared in mystery anthologies, and somehow this didn't surprise me. Many of the best mystery novels work from the premise that the potential to cause the death of another resides in all of us, that a murderer is just another human with whom we can empathize. I felt this particularly in "The Daughter'" in which a truly evil act appears outside of the frame of the story, while within the story the buildup of anger, grief, and dissociation opens the possibility for desperate acts to be committed by "insiders."I see that one of the current writers you admire is Joyce Carol Oates. I read her latest story collection, Sourland, around the same time I read yours, and I could see a similar tension there and also a great sense of story. Oates is sometimes criticized for the relentless violence in some of her work, and I know that she also has written mystery novels under a pseudonym and individual stories have appeared under the heading of mystery and horror.
Have you been influenced by writers of what gets referred to as genre fiction?
And recent books that have blown my mind---The Family Fang, by Kevin Wilson.
Alan:Nope, not going to send you penis enlargement ads--not my line of work (haha).
Thanks for answering my questions. I've been interested in Western Literature lately (e.g., Thomas McGuane "Nobody's Angel", Cormac McCarthy's "All The Pretty Horses", and Salvador Plascencia's "The People of Paper."). Your VOLT has been a fascinating read because it has many of those western motifs that I've been in love with lately. Your book is definitely one of the best I've read this year.
I absolutely was thinking Job while reading "The Staying Freight"! I loved loved the line, "It's just folks don't see you as a real man" (21), whew man, it gave me the chills when I read this line.
Question: Your story "Peacekeeper" was so eerie to read. Did this story frighten you as you wrote it? I hope this doesn't sound stupid to ask, I think this whole message board would be easier in person, that's why a trip to Arizona would be fantastic. (By the way, you need to approach the Coen brothers with this story and have them make it into a film.)
Yes! I also love curry. I lived in Trinidad and Guyana for a long time and that is what I ate on a daily basis. I got sick of it, but then I craved it and I still miss the atmosphere of a small woman in a galvanized shack making chicken curry.
I will see what I can do on my end to make sure you set foot on our fine soil. I'm going to be working with Hayden's Ferry Review at ASU next semester, so I think I'll have more say then.
Recent books that have blown my mind--Seth Fried's "The Great Frustration." (The rest of my reading has been for school, not necessarily "mind-blowing", more of a "mind-building.")
Thanks for writing such lengthy responses. Again, you're awesome.
Heath
Alan -Love all the authors you mentioned. I was surprised you didn't include Tennessee Williams, because your dialogue reminds me of his plays. It's very natural, but at the same time there's a lot to read into.
By the way, I thought it was a brilliant touch that the father in Smoke always referred to "Mr. Augusto" - the small formality conveyed so much. It (and your mention of method acting) reminded me of an interview with Anthony Hopkins where he said that when he acted in - I think it was Howard's End - that he gave his character the physical tick of holding his hand to the side of his face when he was nervous or emotional. Is that why you did it that way?
I've been reading some great Argentinian authors lately and would recommend Cesar Aira, Sergio Chejfec & Eduardo Sacheri. Their writing is beautiful and very cerebral. I don't know if it's a characteristic of South/Central American authors to avoid straightforward narratives. What I love about these three is that they take the reader in through the back door. The plots of their stories fall together differently than I'm used to.
Sue!Yes, I've been influenced greatly by books/authors who write in the mystery/suspense genre, and well as films/directors/screenwriters. Personally, I don't differentiate genres the way a bookstore would. My definition of "literary" is that it's fiction that gets better with subsequent readings. It doesn't matter to me if it has cops or aliens or orcs in it, so long as there's a great story, depth of truth, and great execution of the art.
Joyce Carol Oates is one of my biggest influences when it comes to writing about violence. I've recently been championing her collection Upon the Sweeping Flood because I think it's a book that doesn't get as much attention as it deserves. And, yes, her work is brutal. But...never gratuitous. I think the problem some folks (not me) have with her work is that the violence is so real, so raw. It's literary violence instead of "fun" pulp violence, and it's too real for some to bear. I greatly admire her work, and when I'm feeling cowardly I read her stories--she's incredibly brave.
Otherwise, I've read all the great noir and crime masterpieces, Chandler, James M. Cain, Horace McCoy, Kenneth Fearing, Jim Thompson, Patricia Highsmith, Chester Himes. I love the French author Georges Simenon, who writes these strange little mystery/crime books that have some solid literary chops. Then there's all the filmmakers: Scorcese, DePalma, Copolla, Mann, Coens, Hanake, both Kurosawas (the young master and the old). I've always found that the world of film doesn't have the hang-ups that the world of books has in terms of understanding that just because it has a cop/wizard/alien in it doesn't mean it isn't (can't be) literary.
Really, though, I read everything. I'm a complete bibliophile. I read romance and westerns and horror and sci-fi and fantasy. I just love great stories and don't put much value in all the irrational snooty silliness some literary authors have toward genre.
Hope all is well.
-AL
Heath!!Thanks again for all the kind words-- they mean a lot to me.
Your question:
Your story "Peacekeeper" was so eerie to read. Did this story frighten you as you wrote it?
That story was incredibly difficult to write. Things have happened in my proximity that deeply altered my ability to understand the moral truths I’d been taught in school/church/home. In this case, I used to visit a small town in Minnesota named Waseca. I had friends who lived there. It was a lovely little town, nice Main Street, beautiful lakes, kind people. In winter, I went ice fishing, which I loved. In summer, we’d take long walks down these country roads, looking out over the still fields, listening to the locust drone. Then, in 1999, a twelve-year old girl came home from school to find a man robbing her house. The man raped and killed the girl, and her parents found her dead body in the house. I visited Waseca about a month after this happened, and the town had changed. My friends, who used to leave their doors unlocked, now locked their doors and kept a rifle by their bed. Waseca felt tainted, even the air and water changed. It touched everything. I couldn’t shake the desire to have Waseca returned to what it was, and wondered what could possibly be done to restore the peace. So…I wrote the story “Peacekeeper” as a means of unpacking some of my questions, a bit of grief, too, trying to see if I could find any answers and heel my troubled mind. Again and again I find myself drawn to questions that plague me, and use story writing as a means to root out any possibly insight that might settle my equilibrium just a bit.
Writing "Peacekeeper" was a long slog of day after day inhabiting the world of my fears and troubling questions. It was tough. But I got through it, and was all the better through the work.
Keep me in the loop for ASU!
Be well, man!!
-AL
Alan, you might enjoy the new biography of Pauline Kael, who reviewed movies for the New Yorker for a couple of decades. The movies were really her life, so a lot of the biography is tracking her responses, which were idiosyncratic but intelligent and vibrant. She had a lot to say about Scocese and others, like Jonathan Demme.Patricia Highsmith is one of my people, too, especially the Ripley books. And I will read almost anything in almost any genre. I tend to avoid science fiction/fantasy,, but I often find I like particular authors or novels/stories if I give them a chance. Reviewing by assignment is good for that.
Tara!!Yep, I LOVE Tennessee Williams. I was just teaching from T.W. this past week because I had a student who wrote a story about a husband and wife struggling to recover from tragedy, but the husband and wife never said anything to each other about their issues. It was all simmer and no boil. She had a background in theater, so I told her, "You got to get all Tennessee Williams in your story", meaning that eventually T.W. has folks say what all they'd been holding in the first 2/3 of the play. In other words, he simmers to a roil, then lets it all boil over--this makes for great story-telling.
As for the Anthony Hopkins tip, I think that's great advice. I have a notebook I keep with me while I watch movies, and I'm constantly jotting down mannerisms actors use. These little quirks make all the difference. I think the joy of watching Hopkins or Daniel Day Lewis or Brando or Meryl Streep is that they're just a little odd, a bit unpredictable, and because of this we can't take our eyes off of them. It's like those Argentinian authors you're reading--there stories light up in your imagination because they "fall together differently than [you're] used to." I think we should strive to write stories this way, write images, characters, dialog, everything--different is good for business.
Best to you, Tara!!!
I'll have to check out those Argentinian authors! Thanks for the tip.
-AL
Sue!I read a whole collection of Kael's reviews. I didn't always agree with her takes on certain films, but she was an absolutely brilliant critic, and a great writer, too. I still read a lot of film reviews. Ebert is my guy now. He's one person I would love to meet in person--I greatly admire his passion and intellect for stories.
Just reread The Talented Mr. Ripley--love that book.
Be well.
-AL
Dear Alan,First off, thank you so much for participating in this discussion! It means the world to me when authors are willing to converse with their readers.
Do you happen to know when your Tin House piece on Idaho writers will run? Anthony Doerr is one of my favorites, and I have yet to get around to reading Orozco but I've heard magnificent things. Any other Idaho writers I should know about? (Maybe that's answered in the piece.)
I picked up VOLT a few months back in a bookstore for the sole reason that I happened to stumble upon pictures of your writing trailer (of which I am still in awe) online. As I read the cover blurbs in the store, I realized most of my favorite contemporary writers were present in praising you and your stories. Hooray! Sold. And then, sadly, I've had too much reading for work and book clubs until this present moment. I just put on a pot of (curried!) lentil soup, and will be reading your stories while it simmers.
And since you're a movie fan, it seems worth mentioning that I'm planning to watch Terrence Malick's Badlands tonight. I've never seen it before, but I loved Tree of Life and Days of Heaven. Plus Badlands seems like it might be a pretty good filmic counterpart to VOLT... we'll see! Ditto on the Ebert love... he won my heart the day I heard him say that Rififi was one of his favorite films.
Cheers!,
Janine
Just piping up to say hi. What a rich discussion this is! Feels like I'm getting a free MFA course. VOLT blew me away the first time, now I can't wait to savor it all over again. You are incredibly generous with your time and talent, Al. Thank you!
Janine!!!Here's a link to the Tin House piece:
http://www.tinhouse.com/blog/9757/cor...
I love Badlands (I own it on VHS and DVD--dating myself), and Terrance Malick is a big influence. Hope you enjoy VOLT!! Best to you!
A.K.!!!!!!!So cool to see my peeps piping up in the discussion. Thanks for being so cool, for being such a badass writer, and for all the support you've given to me and VOLT. Be well, sista!
-AL
Finally, a little good news that came in this morning:VOLT was named a Publishers Weekly "Best Book 2011"!! Here's the link:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/be...
Mod
Hi Alan, Lori, everyone. The discussion so far has been incredibly insightful, so thank you.I finished reading Peacekeeper this afternoon during my lunch break and I loved it. The Staying Freight and Smoke were also fantastic reads; full of tough writing and deeply felt characters. I'm also a long-time fan of Tennessee Williams, and agree with Tara's comparison re: your dialogue.
I have a little two-part question to start: Which story in VOLT is the oldest? And re: the oldest story, do you recall how you felt when you finished the first draft?
Dawn!! Thanks for reading, and for chiming in on our discussion. The oldest story is either "The Staying Freight" or "Peacekeeper", though I can't exactly remember which I started first. I was, over the course of many years, working on both at the same time. In both cases, it took FOREVER to figure out exactly what I was trying to communicate, and to get all my ducks in a row. In both cases, I remember figuring out the ending, of feeling I'd cracked the code of the narrative, and everything felt right. I'm being a bit romantic here, but it's a bit like falling in love with my wife. I felt affection for a number of women before I met my wife, but when I met my wife it felt like I'd known her forever, and I knew I'd spend the rest of my days with her. Cracking the code of the stories felt the same way, like they were the exact right fit, and that everything fell into place with ease (after much struggle and failure). This taught me to be patient and diligent with my work.
In a similar vein, I know it often feels like we're in a race. A race to finish a story as quickly as possible. A race to get published. A race against our fellow writers. I have a sticky note in my trailer/writing studio (the VOLT-mobile) that says this: THIS IS NOT A RACE. The idea (a very romantic idea, yet one I earnestly believe) I work with every day is that I want to finish a story with the feeling that this story has existed for 1,000 years before I wrote it, and it will exist for 1,000 years more because I wrote it. I don't let that intimidate me. I let it inspire me into ambition.
Hope all is well, Dawn. Have a great weekend!
-AL
You're quite welcome Alan. I was totally panicking for a couple days now because I thought I'd lost my book, but it turned out I'd left it in the backseat of a friend's car haha. So I'm back in the saddle again.I love how you compare cracking a narrative code to falling in love with your wife. What a lovely thing to say. I've never heard it described that way yet it feels so immediately true.
Your answer to my question somewhat answers the question I was going to ask next: How long, on average, does it take you to write (meaning "finish") a story? It really does feel like a race sometimes--a race to accomplish personal goals, a race to be noticed, a race to publish. Snuffing out that feeling has been vital to me lately. I definitely need to work on my patience. I may have to steal your sticky note idea. THIS IS NOT A RACE. Amen.
The idea (a very romantic idea, yet one I earnestly believe) I work with every day is that I want to finish a story with the feeling that this story has existed for 1,000 years before I wrote it, and it will exist for 1,000 years more because I wrote it. I don't let that intimidate me. I let it inspire me into ambition.
So far I have to say that you have successfully transferred that feeling to your reader. Especially with Peacekeeper. Certain scenes of that story are still haunting me, days later. Man. Now I want to go read it again!
Alan -What a great idea, that the story you're writing existed before you wrote it. It reminds me of Michelangelo's belief that he was releasing the sculpture that was hidden within the stone.
I want to ask you a dumb question because I'm a complete sucker for minutia. In SMOKE we learn from Vernon that "the Nordgren brothers had stolen three fifths of whiskey from the Old Fox, and Vernon finished an entire one himself during last night's double feature at the picture show." I keep wondering - are Walt & Lonnie the Nordgren brothers? I know it's probably an insignificant thing, but I'd love to know if there's that connection between "SMOKE" & "Fort Apache"... other than the reference to the fire at the bowling alley.
A couple new questions.From Dawn: how long on average does it take me to finish a story?
I'm tempted not to answer because I do my best to write like I have all the time in the world, and that time doesn't matter. That's not to say that I don't hit my work as hard as I can each day, but just that I don't place value of time. The feeling of being in a race is caused by a sense that there is a giant clock ticking over our heads. Destroy the clock!!
But...to be a good sport I'll say that the shortest amount of time I took on any one story in VOLT was six months (the title story, "Volt"), and the longest was six or seven years ("The Staying Freight" and "Peacekeeper" both took me a loooong time).
From Tara: Are Walt and Lonnie the Nordgren brothers?
Nope. The timing is a little off for this. "Fort Apache" is set in the late 1940s while "Smoke" is moving into the Vietnam era (Roy Rogers played in movie houses for a very long time). Vernon from "Smoke" becomes pastor Vernon Hamby from "Lazarus" (with appearances in others). Though I never really mention it, in my mind Walt from "Fort Apache" becomes Walt Freely (I actually wrote a story detailing how Walt became owner of the diner and grocery as a young man, but the story wasn't very good and didn't make the cut to be in the book). Again, my big goal was to 30 or 40 of these stories, with all gaps in time and development filled--I still have that goal, though it'll be my life's work instead of just one book.
Thanks for the great questions!! Hope all is well.
-AL
Mod
Did you ever worry over your family and friends reaction toward the stories in VOLT? The collection is so dark and violent at times...
Lori,Great question, and one that I get a lot.
The truth is/was that if I worry at all I worry about what other people think, other people being folks to whom I have no familial relation. My family's history, from my generation on back, includes violence and tragedy. There's been the deaths of children, untimely death by disease, suicides, murders, you name it. I grew up being told stories about headless coal miners running through fields of corn, and stories about indian massacres. There's the story of a great aunt who had three of her children die before the age of five, and then reportedly took her own life because she "kept seeing her boys post-death in the barn." (that's a quote someone wrote in the margins of our family tree book--spooky!). Here's a quote from the diary of Floyd Barker, my great uncle five generations back: "After passing the present site of Brandenburg, Ky., the part was attacked by Indians and those not killed were made prisoners. It is said that one of the Barker boys tried to escape by swimming the river but was killed in the water and his body caught and the heart taken out and broiled and an effort made to compel his mother to eat it. However, this she refused to do."
This stuff is in my genes.
Beyond family history, there's my own personal history of growing up in a tough neighborhood in Hazel Crest (south Chicago). Growing up there, I found the threat of violence ever-present. I remember seeing a vicious bar fight when I was very little. I've seen people stabbed, I've seen gun play. I saw gang-bangers beat up my brother right in front me, two guys holding me and making me watch. I once helped pull a dead body out of a lake. I've been in more than a few fist-fights myself. On and on...
It's taken me most of my adult life to be able to face this stuff. One thing I can promise is that when I write about violence and tragedy that I'm not doing it to entertain you, and not doing it to entertain myself. The violence in my work, most of which is implied (rarely do I have violence on the page), was not written to be action movie nonsense. My book has less violence that your average episode of CSI, and yet people always ask about the violence in VOLT. Why? Because this is not fun and games to me. Because I made it real.
On a recent visit to my relatives down in southern Indiana, my uncle took me on a tour of the town where he lives. "That's where the tree fell and killed my granddad," he'd say, pointing out over a ridge. A little later he'd say, "That's the lagoon where we found the truck upside down," and later "This is the exact spot where the guy dumped the bodies. He killed his wife's parents and left them here." My aunt told me that she like my book, that it was "just life", and then went on to tell me about a terrible accident where she'd seen a man decapitated. Twenty relatives sat around a big table on a rainy Sunday afternoon telling me story after story...
It's a hard world for many.
So I don't worry about my family. I come from my family, and they understand me because I'm one of them. My mom and dad are my biggest fans. My dad, who's almost 80 years old, traveled with me for two weeks while I was on the midwest leg of my book tour, listening to me read "Smoke" night after night after night. You want to see violence? Talk smack about VOLT around my family.
What I do worry about is going to give talks to suburban book clubs, in a room of women (mostly) who largely haven't seen much tragedy or violence, and if they have they certainly don't talk about it to the group. There's a part of me that feels their judgement, and wants to educate them about how the world works outside of their world view. But then something happens. At just about every book club I've visited (I've visited many), after our group discussion (where we sip wine and awkwardly talk around the ugly things in my book), once folks are free to mingle, there are always a couple individuals who come up to me and, like a confession, quietly say, "You know, I had this thing happen when I was a kid..."
The big lesson here is that as an artist I feel no obligation to express anything but my own preoccupations. My greatest preoccupations include the invasive nature of violence, and the tenuous nature of peace. I have questions. I have things inside me that must come out. What I've found is that if you say something pure and true, if you do your work with the right kind of conviction, then people (some, not all) will find their way into empathy. Once empathy is enabled, we are no longer alone with out preoccupations. We are understood. I may have said this already somewhere in our discussion, but I think the highest purpose of literature is to allow us to see ourselves, though in a way that's bearable. My only hope is that the book finds its way into the hands of folks who need to see themselves in the ways my stories allow. I try not to worry about the rest.
Hope all is well.
-AL
The Next Best Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
Volt (other topics)Volt: Stories (other topics)
Authors mentioned in this topic
Sergio Chejfec (other topics)César Aira (other topics)
Eduardo Sacheri (other topics)
Alan Heathcock (other topics)
Alan Heathcock (other topics)
Author Alan Heathcock will be joining us for the month of November to discuss his short story collection Volt: Stories.
To stimulate discussion we have 10 domestic copies to give away:
http://thenextbestbookblog.blogspot.c...
Come and get 'em!!!