 Drooling Fanatic: An Interview with Steve AlmondbyTom DeMarchiEver since Steve Almond’s debut story collection My Life in Heavy Metal was published, I’ve been giving my friends and family Steve Almond books as gifts for major holidays. I assign his books to my classes. Steve is part of the core faculty of the writers conference I direct. And over the years Steve and I have, on occasion, socialized, which is to say we’ve broken bread (and chocolate bars) and talked about music (feverishly), and traded stories about becoming fathers (soon to be collected as The Diaper Chronicles). In other words, we’ve become friends. I’m disclosing all this so you know up front that I am not even remotely objective about Steve Almond. I am, as they say in the journalism game, biased. But take away all those disclosures and I’d still be biased because Steve’s writing moves me the way my favorite music moves me—deeply and unreasonably. If it didn’t look so goofy, I’d shelve his books next to my Tom Waits and Elvis Costello CDs. (Actually, I shelve his books alongside works by Kurt Vonnegut, George Saunders and David Foster Wallace--writers, like Steve, whose witty and wise sentences somehow me feel both less alone and more alive.) What I’m saying is, I’m kind of a Drooling Fanatic for Steve Almond, which makes our friendship slightly lopsided, and probably more awkward for Steve than for me ‘cause I don’t exactly downplay my admiration and enthusiasm. It’s probably worth remarking here that my reaction is not unique, that Steve is used to dealing with me and my kind. Half the writers I know feel the same way about Steve and his writing. We’re all in awe of his productivity, creativity and humanity. And, recently, his hair. Don’t take it from me. The best description of Steve’s writing that I’ve seen lately comes from Art Edwards over at The Nervous Breakdown: Steve Almond is the rare talent that can take my generation's yearnings and predilections, filter them through Pigeon Feathers-era Updike, and try—successfully I think—to give us something that is both us, and art. Almond’s work—no doubt not every morsel, but much of it—transcends the minutia he's pretending to write about. He's using the fluff of our era to create literature, and that's quite a trick. So I’ll say to you what I say to everyone when I introduce them to Steve Almond’s work: Read this and enjoy. It will make you feel less lonely and more alive. Quite a trick indeed. * * * Tom DeMarchi: You started out as a journalist. When and why did you decide to start writing fiction? Steve Almond: Pure profit motive. I could see that the short story market was where all the real money was. And boy, I have to tell you, I was totally right! When me and my short fiction writing homies hit the high-end strip clubs, we make it rain. The other, slightly less glamorous reason I took up with fiction was that I started reading. I was in my mid-twenties, stumbling from one ego buzz to the next as a reporter, and I finally realized how stupendously bored I was. I was asking all these questions, but they were the wrong ones, the superficial ones, nothing about people’s internal lives. By contrast, the novelists I was reading struck me as super heroes of the heart. That’s all writers are: jealous readers. TD: How does your journalism background inform your fiction? SA: The part that’s stuck with me, sometimes to my detriment I’m sure, is a certain impatience with stories that are obscure, confusing, or evasive. I’m just like: Dude, tell me the fucking story. Don’t hold basic info back, or wrinkle up your chronology, or get all fancy with the prose. Don’t dish me some “slice of life” where we start and end with an alienated character cut off from her feelings. Give me the slice of life when it all goes to shit (or heaven or both) for your heroine. When I was a reporter in El Paso, the city editor, when he got excited, used to bellow, “Tits, tots, and tragedy! That’s what readers want.” That struck me as pretty cynical, given that it was our job to record the first draft of history, not rubberneck. But as a story writer, I tend to cleave to the city editor’s maxim. My whole agenda is to force my people into emotional danger, and see them through it. TD: You're someone who champions writers and books you think deserve greater attention and wider recognition. John Williams (Stoner), Francois Camoin (Like Love, But Not Exactly), and Barry Hannah (Airships) are just three of the writers you've written about. What impresses you enough to write appreciation pieces? Are there any recent writers/books that the rest of us should be checking out? SA: It’s just that unmistakable feeling of being in the hands of a writer who tells the sort of brutal truths that literary art should. You know it after a few pages: that the author knows his or her people, and loves them. That they’re not going to make any bad decisions. No insecurity. No evasions. The language just sort of gushes truth. I get this same feeling when I read Jane Austen. But you want modern folks. How about The Dart League King by Keith Morris, or Busy Monsters by William Giraldi? That novel, when it comes out next year, is going blow people away. Stephen Elliot. Nick Flynn. Daniel Mason. All complete badasses. TD: Speaking of William Giraldi, he claims he’s a reader who writes, whereas Julianna Baggott says she's a writer who reads. Which are you? You write and publish a lot, but much of it is about other writers, both in reviews or appreciations. SA: I prefer to think of myself as a masturbator who writes. (It’s a long tradition.) I do the reviews and appreciations for two reasons. First, I take it to be part of my job as a writer to make sure that people keep reading, and to direct them to the books that blew me away, so they can get blown away. Second, I am so ungodly tired of reading all this crap-ass literary punditry that passes for criticism. I mostly avoid reading the NYTBR for this reason. Rather than documenting the pleasures and disappointments a reader might encounter in a given book—offering a serious consideration of aesthetic and moral intent—they just do this stupid trend-mongering. Like a few weeks ago, they had Jay McInerney review Joshua Ferris’ new novel, The Unnamed. It was so predictable. You could just see some editor sitting there going, “Yeah, yeah, we’ll get the old It Guy writer to review the new It Guy writer!” But his review was so predictably shallow. It amounted to: “Write funny like you did before!” Totally ignored what Ferris was trying to do. The Unnamed isn’t a perfect book, but it was far more ambitious than his debut, and often astonishing. Same thing with George Saunders’ essay collection, The Braindead Megaphone. A remarkable book, one the smartest accounts of what’s happening today in America, by one of our brightest and most compassionate minds. And the NYTBR review was just callow and idiotic. And the Times is supposed to be the “gold standard” of criticism. So that’s why I review books—because rather than just bitching, I get to be part of the conversation. That’s what our critical culture used to be, after all: a conversation. These days, it’s more and more like a cable TV shout fest. This is what happens when late-model capitalism is your boss. TD: Would it be accurate to say your impatience with “crap-ass literary punditry that's supposed to pass for criticism” extends to the way many people write about music? Your new book, Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life, pokes fun at critics in a variety of ways, most overtly in your list “Ten Things You Can Say to Piss Off A Music Critic.” What is it about music criticism that pisses you off? What makes someone a good music critic? SA: I can’t stand these rock critics who try to be all cool and indie and sling all this convoluted rock critic jargon and take such great and obvious pleasure in shitting on anything they deem insufficiently cool and indie. I should mention that I was exactly this sort of critic/douche. But at a certain point—full disclosure: it was during an MC Hammer concert, and I was stoned—it dawned on me that there’s really no angle in hating on a certain kind of music because you can’t tell someone their ears are wrong. You can deride the pleasure they take in a song, but you can’t stop them from feeling joy. Besides, I honestly believe that if you listen to any song half a dozen times, you’ll start to enjoy it. I mean, if you really wanted to torture these hipster rock critics, you’d play them a Michael Bublé single over and over, until they popped a boner. As for good rock critics, the best ones are able to convey what it feels like to listen to particular pieces of music. But one of the points of the book is that music criticism is mostly doomed, because you can’t really use an abstract, symbolic language (prose) to describe a visceral, sonic one (music). This is part of the reason that the book includes a soundtrack so readers can hear the songs I’m pimping. TD: That soundtrack is based on The Official Drooling Fanatic Desert Island Playlist that concludes RaRWSYL: The Best of Gil Scott-Heron, Gil Scott-Heron Imagine a raft from Tower Records just washed ashore, containing ten additional CDs to keep you company. Which CDs would you wish for? Which CDs would you hurl back into the surf? SA: CDs? What are those? Seriously, gramps, we’re living in the digital age. Nobody listens to albums anymore. It’s all singles. But if you’re asking what else I’d want on that desert island, I’ll go with the White Album, some Mozart, Stones, Dan Bern, Living with Ghosts by Patty Griffin, Destination Failure by the Smoking Popes, Leonard Cohen, Dylan, and, of course, Paradise Theater by STYX! Of course this list would be entirely different if you asked me yesterday or tomorrow. As for throwing music away on a desert island—that doesn’t sound like something I’d do. TD: The past decade has seen a lot of changes in the publishing industry: the rise of online journals and the Kindle, consolidation of publishing houses, fewer and fewer independent bookstores, etc. How have these changes affected your approach to writing and, to put it crassly, to the way you market your work? SA: Yeah, I try to avoid the term “marketing.” It just feels weird and creepy to use terms like “platform” and “brand” when you’re talking (or trying to talk) about art. But obviously, I’m trying to get people to read my stuff. That’s the whole point. And it’s really hard to get people to read in a culture this distracted and emotionally flighty, so I do whatever I can to lure readers to my books. The best way for me, the most organic and personal, is readings. But I do a lot of journalism, too, and publishing in lit journals. I’m slutty like that. About my only limit is: no nude scenes. Unless they’re for a reality TV vehicle. TD: You mentioned Stephen Elliott before. Can you tell me about your involvement with his online magazine, The Rumpus? SA: I’m a big fan of Stephen’s work, and his role as a kind of literary organizer. (He is also, by the way, a very gentle lover.) So anyway, when he started The Rumpus, I suspected that it would be a great antidote to all those allegedly literary venues that specialize in gossip and punditry. And it has been. So I’ve written a couple of columns for them, and a number of pieces that allow me to indulge in my prophetic mishagoss. TD: Why did you decide to self-publish This Won't Take But a Minute, Honey and Letters From People Who Hate Me? What’s been the reaction from your readers and writer friends? SA: The general reaction from writer friends is: “Another Almond book? Two of them? Oh Christ.” In my defense, they are both very short. The reason I went the DIY route is because I didn’t want these strange creatures to travel into the world as commodities, with the weight of financial expectation crushing their soft little bones. I wanted to hand them to people, at readings, as more like an artifact of our time together. I realize that sounds all hippie dippie, but the hippies were basically right. We should make love, not war, and we should give a shit about the planet and we should question authority. Also, it’s important to remember that for most of human history, storytelling has been in person and communal. TD: Just this morning I read that Richard Russo chose your story "Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched" for the Best American Short Stories 2010. The story's protagonist, Dr. Raymond Oss, is a psychoanalyst. It might be worth mentioning here that both of your parents are psychoanalysts. Tell me about your mother. This is a safe place, Steve. Do you love your father? Ignore the banana I’m eating. SA: How can I ignore the banana you’re eating? It reminds me of my father. Who is, yes, a psychoanalyst and a total poker shark. Like, he wins tournaments. When I sent him a draft of the story, his reply was one line. “Did you want feedback, or should I consider this an homage?” Classic Rick Almond. As for my mom, she has a book of her own coming out in the fall. It’s called “The Monster Within: The Hidden Side of Motherhood.” It’s an incredibly awesome book about women’s fears of giving birth to monsters. It is not—she insists—autobiographical. Let me say it like this: I’m incredibly lucky to have parents who not only tolerate, but support what I do. TD: Whenever I assign your books to my students, the immediate reaction is gratitude. They love that I’ve assigned something humorous. But then I have to play killjoy and point out that beyond the humor your work is actually exploring some very dark themes—loneliness, shame, doubt, fear, resentment. For example, the essay "You're What?" from (Not That You Asked) made my students convulse with laughter, but for the most part they were laughing so hard they missed the point: that your wife Erin's unplanned pregnancy forced you to confront some serious fears and insecurities about “slipp[ing] to number two in [Erin's] book,” about being “resentful . . . and frightened.” In the end you realize that parenthood is about self-sacrifice for the good of the child and the marriage, that you had to “bid adieu to the flashy armor of narcissism.” And you wrestle with whether you're up to the task because “to feel such unprecedented love runs against the monstrous self-regard of the era.” Again, most of my students laughed right past this. How do you determine when to use humor and when to play it straight? And do you ever worry that the humor will eclipse the more serious points you're exploring? SA: Oh look: I’m just grateful you put down the banana. And that you (or anyone else) teaches my books. I realize there’s a risk to comic writing, that people glance over the serious stuff. But I have a lot of faith in readers, even young ones. They’re absorbing more than they might want to discuss, and more than they think. Plus, you really can’t control what people take from your books, because once they move into the world, they’re not yours anymore. Not trying to be all Zen. That’s just the facts. Books are a collaboration. So I’ve learned to be thankful that anyone is reading my stuff, and if they get the stuff beneath the laughs, all the better. TD: How do you know when something you've written is finished? Do you have friends read it? SA: The short answer is you don’t ever really know. You just have to make your best guess. Erin helps out as my first reader. And I’m lucky enough to have a bunch of trusted friends, such as, for instance, you. (You’ve been saddled with at least two of my manuscripts in rough draft form.) But even this process is fraught, because my readers have different, often conflicting takes. So then I have to weigh all these against what my own gut is telling me. This is why I say: you just have to let it go at a certain point. My published books are full of decisions I now regret. TD: In RaRWSYL you label yourself a Drooling Fanatic—someone whose zealous devotion to certain music and musicians approaches the spiritual (or pathological). You argue that “we are all Drooling Fanatics . . . and that we differ only in matters of degree and expression.” What characterizes Acute Drooling Fanaticism? Should the DF wipe his chin and seek counseling, or should he embrace his inner freak? SA: Acute Drooling Fanaticism. OK. Warning signs would include a huge music collection. Persistent ideation. Referring to favorite musicians by their first names. Aggressive lobbying on behalf of favorite bands/albums. Loaning money to musicians. Indulging in fantasies of light petting. But the point of the book is that everyone is a DF to some extent. We all use music as a pathway to our deepest emotions. We all use it as a time machine that can instantly transport us to particular eras and relationship and moments. We all listen, in other words, to feel more alive. It’s the one art form that cuts through all the bullshit and speaks directly to our hearts. And this is why it’s been so important to my writing, because musicians don’t play coy. Their agenda is excessive emotional involvement. They’re trying to break your heart. I’m not suggesting that there aren’t plenty of songs and stories that fail at this, that overshoot candor and descend into false sentiment. But that’s the place to aim, in my view. Life is too short for sophisticated poses. TD: Some of the best moments in RaRWSYL are the descriptions of you and Erin bonding over certain music. Is a successful marriage dependent on a shared Drooling Fanaticism? SA: We’re coming up on our fourth anniversary, so I’m in no position to offer expert advice on marriage. But we’ve found that communication is about ninety-five percent of the ballgame. You have to be honest with one another about your feelings, negative or positive. Music, in this sense, helps. You know, Erin and I went to see Chuck Prophet a few days ago. We listened to him a ton at the beginning of our relationship. In a lot of ways, music kept us together. It was something that helped us reach certain volatile emotions, ones that we might otherwise have been able to suppress, the ones that allowed us to admit how much we needed each other. So listening to Chuck (see, I call him Chuck) reminded us of that, the way love is always commemorated in song. TD: Do you still plan on touring with some of the musicians featured in RaRWSYL? Will you at any point shake a tambourine? SA: Yeah, in fact my pal Boris McCutcheon will be reuniting his band for the book’s debut. And I talked with other folks like Ike Reilly and Dayna Kurtz about doing shows together. That could still happen. The real limiting factor is that they have their own schedule of shows, and I have two little kids at home. So the idea of a full-scale tour—as much as it would be a dream come true for me—would be a nightmare for Erin and the kids. TD: You and Erin are full-time writers and stay-at-home parents. How do you balance the challenges of parenting and writing? SA: Pretty awkwardly. We both try hard to be supportive, and to give the other person time and space to work. But the bottom line is that kids are a very compelling (and demanding) narrative. I’m not getting as much done as I used to, and having a much harder time with longer projects. On the other hand, the children are (in our view) quite cute, and probably too old to sell at this point. TD: You say you don’t write as much as you used to, yet you're still incredibly prolific. Hardly a week goes by where I don’t see something from you—a review, an editorial, an essay, a short story—in some journal, newspaper or magazine. What's your writing regimen? SA: “Writing regimen” is dignifying things a bit. I basically get stuff stuck in my craw and let it rip. I realize how bad this looks, but that’s the basic process. On my better days, I’m engaged in some long, doomed project, such as a novel. But even then, I tend to dart away to vent about the latest outrage. There’s so much bullshit out there, we’re swimming in the stuff, mostly thanks to the tireless inducements of capitalism, and I often feel it is incumbent upon me to explain all this to the folks at home. It’s not really, and I should make like a real artist and finish the novel. But I can’t help myself. My deluded prophetic impulse calls most of the shots. TD: What did you learn from writing the 856-page novel called The Unauthorized Autobiography of Shabbati Zvi? SA: That you shouldn’t write a novel unless you’re genuinely fascinated by the characters. A great plot isn’t enough. Also: I’m really stubborn. Also: I’m really dumb. TD: Are you working on a novel now? SA: Maybe. TD: Please provide a brief reaction to each of the following: Toto Styx Kip Winger Rick DeMarinis Song of Solomon Rachel Maddow Sarah Palin CK Williams Gil Scott-Heron Tom DeMarchi lives in Ft. Myers, FL, and teaches at Florida Gulf Coast University. He’s published stories, poems, articles, reviews and interviews in Gulfshore Life, The Writer's Chronicle, the Miami Herald, the Southeast Review, the Pinch, Quick Fiction, and GulfStream. You can contact him at tdemarchi [at] fgcu.edu.
|