Keyhole Magazine

Darrin Doyle and I crossed paths, very briefly, while he was finishing his PhD at the University of Cincinnati. An undergraduate at the time, I was granted permission to enroll in the graduate fiction workshop to see if graduate school was something I’d like. It is because of fellow students like Darrin that I decided to pursue a master’s degree. That workshop was a terrific experience, and it is my understanding that Darrin—by that point well into his dissertation year—had signed up for the workshop just to be in the classroom again before heading on toward professional life. In any case, perhaps now is the time to share this anecdote (not just with you, the reader, but with Darrin, as well).

After workshopping one of Darrin’s stories, our professor, Michael Griffith, stood and walked around our seminar table to hand Darrin his story. Michael never did this; no professors did; they just slid the story onto the stack and the stack made its way around the circle. But that day, Michael leaned in and said—I (over)heard because I was sitting on Darrin’s immediate left—“This is really excellent work. Just attend to the issue we discussed, then send it out. It’s publishable.”

I remember being so blown away! Publishable! Did professors actually say this? Grad school was going to be so amazing! The issue, by the way, had to do with fact-checking how long sperm could survive in a used condom; and the story, I recall, was so creepy it oozed. This, then, seems the perfect entrance for an interview with Darrin, whose first novel, Revenge of the Teacher’s Pet: A Love Story, earned this blurb from Christine Schutt: “A deftly made, raucous tale of love and its attendant hungers and humiliations. Darrin Doyle has conceived original characters in that ‘poor twit’ Mr. Portwit and his fleshy wife, Mary Ann, whose bodily sacrifices in the name of love—self-love and other—are, finally, heartbreaking.”

1.
Writing and Writing Programs

MOLLY GAUDRY: When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?

DARRIN DOYLE:  Honestly, I never gave much thought to writing until I was probably 25 years old.  I was working at Kinko’s, playing in a band, and wondering what to do with myself.  I loved playing music, but that life is exhausting, and it’s a terribly tough field to find consistent success in.  I decided to go back to college (I’d dropped out three years prior) and complete my English degree.  I took a poetry workshop.  My teacher, the great William Olsen, suggested applying to the MFA program.  I thought, “Sure, OK.”  From a young age, I’d always enjoyed writing and reading.  I’d read a lot of so-called “serious” literature on my own in junior high and high school (Dostoevsky, Camus, Kafka, Woolf, Poe), but I never committed myself to writing until graduate school. Even after I finished the MFA, I don’t know if I ever thought, “I want to be a writer.”  I just enjoyed doing it.  I enjoyed talking about fiction and poetry.  I loved reading other peoples’ stories.  I loved waking up every morning and discovering a new thing I’d written the night before.  New words on a page to play with.  A character, a situation.  A funny phrase.  A phrase I couldn’t wait to delete.  And so on.      

MG: Where did you get your MFA? And what made you decide to go for the PhD? Any fun anecdotes? Workshop nightmares? Favorite moments?

DD: I got my MFA from Western Michigan University, and I studied primarily with Stuart Dybek and Jaimy Gordon, but also with poets Bill Olsen, Nancy Eimers, and Mark Halliday.  It was a formative experience, I must say.  There were some definitely odd and funny workshop moments, but not wanting to embarrass anyone, I’ll wait until you buy me a strong drink and my inhibitions splash to the floor in a puddle. 

After the MFA, my wife and I moved to Osaka, Japan.  We lived there for a year, teaching English, less for career purposes than because teaching was simply a good vehicle for living abroad.  Japan was wonderful, after which we backpacked through Southeast Asia and New Zealand for three months.  Then it was back to reality, back to Kalamazoo, MI.  I had no job, no plan.  I’d continued to write stories and had even gotten three or four published, which was cool, but I wasn’t on the academic job market or anything like that.  I found a job supervising two high school kids as they serviced computers for a local school district.  I did freelance writing for the Kalamazoo Gazette.  I worked as a technical writer for Pharmacia-Upjohn, a huge pharmaceutical company.  All of this occurred over a year’s time.  The tech writing job pushed me over the edge.  I missed being around other creative writers, and I certainly knew I couldn’t bear working in a cubicle for the rest of my life.  I applied to PhD programs and got into the University of Cincinnati, and this will go down as one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

MG: Let's go back and talk about teaching in Japan. I find that so romantic. What were your experiences? Would you recommend it?

DD:  I’d highly recommend it.  Japan is a beautiful, safe country with a long and compelling history, friendly people, amazing food, and enough quirks and contradictions to keep things interesting and inspirational.  In many ways, it reminded me of what the 1950s probably were like in the USA.  Smoking is allowed everywhere.  Job applicants are openly asked about their marital status, age, religion, etc, and there’s no law prohibiting employers from discriminating on these grounds.  Women are expected to get married and raise a family, while men are expected to devote themselves entirely to their job.  The man’s boss even delivers the toast at the wedding. 

Having said that, you won’t find friendlier, more generous people than the Japanese.  They are genuine, helpful, and very welcoming to visitors.  The sushi is cheap and abundant.  Plus there are all the surprises, like when a Sumo wrestler stands next to you on a train, or when a guy on a fishing show eats a live squid right out of the ocean, or when you can buy beer from a vending machine on your way home from work.  

MG: The University of Cincinnati is my old stomping ground, too. Why do you say it was "one of the best decisions" you ever made?

DD:  Brock Clarke and Michael Griffith, as you know, are terrific writers and teachers.  They helped me in lots of ways, not only in the workshops and with my novel, but because they helped bring so many fantastic writers to UC—Judy Budnitz, Aimee Bender, George Saunders, Sam Lipsyte, Percival Everett, and Heidi Julavits, to name a few. 

The other graduate students, too, were a great source of camaraderie and inspiration.  There’s something very special about the bond that forms when you’re going through the experiences of a grad program—it’s intensely stressful but very stimulating. 

The PhD isn’t for everyone, and I know many creative writers who still insist that the MFA is (and should be) the terminal degree.  But for me, I truly feel that the PhD “completed” my education.  It provided me the opportunity to explore areas of literature much more expansively and rigorously, and to be more exacting and rigorous with my own writing as well.

2.
Revenge of the Teacher’s Pet

MG: Who is your favorite character from Revenge of the Teacher's Pet?

DD: God, that’s like choosing a favorite eye.  I can’t do it.  Maybe Mr. Portwit.  I can go into detail as to why, but I’ll need more time.  He’s a complicated son-of-a-bitch. 

MG: Very true. Why, in your mind, is he the kind of guy who wants (or needs) to be referred to as Mr. Portwit. I mean, even his wife, Mary Ann, has to refer to him as Mr. Portwit. It's a strange character quirk.

DD:  That’s exactly what it is: a quirk.  To me, that’s what building a character is—giving them quirks (you might also just call them “traits”) and seeing what sticks.  I don’t mean to imply that any old quirk will do, or that writers should gratuitously and randomly pile on quirks for shock value or humor or what-have-you.  Ideally, the quirks will reside right alongside the character’s perceptions, ideologies, personal history, and so on, and all of these factors will operate in unison to create a whole person, and the reader will be able to put together (even unconsciously) how and why the quirks are organic to the character’s makeup.
 
In Portwit’s case, he has a disdain for language because he believes words are fundamentally untrustworthy due to their dependence on subjectivity.  In his mind, scientific evidence is the only way to prove truth.  But hovering over his head is the pesky notion that scientific knowledge is itself dependent upon language.  He can’t get around it.  So the only thing left to do is master language, or attempt to do so.  This is why he despises adjectives while simultaneously embracing them.  It’s why he takes apart his own name, figures out all of its possible meanings, and dictates precisely how he should be addressed.  Who he “is” is not going to be subject to the whims of some random observer!  

Of course, the joke on Portwit is that science is no more reliable than words for describing or, more accurately, ascribing causality to events, to human relationships.  There’s always the X, the unknown of human motivation, to contend with, and no matter what we do, certain momentous episodes in our lives are out of our control and their causations impossible to know.  This is why Portwit ultimately realizes his desperate gestures of control are “another sprig of parsley on his plate of steamed bullshit.” 

MG: I fell in love with Mary Ann—her outlook, her ways of relating to those around her. Why does she write lists? Where did you get that idea?

DD:  I’m glad to hear that you connected to her.  I loved writing in Mary Ann’s POV.  In talking to other people about the book, she seems to be the emotional center, and people are rooting for her in ways they aren’t rooting for Mr. Portwit.  Still, she has flaws, which is what makes a character likeable (right?).  I see the lists as one of her flaws.  Over the years, she has turned a routine of documenting and ordering her life into a straitjacket, of sorts.  I’ve never thought about it in this way before, but I am now, so I’m sticking with it.  The list-writing begins as a response to her father’s untimely death, and it proceeds in this fashion—as a way for Mary Ann to feel some semblance of control over her daily life, to vent her frustrations, to compartmentalize the people she likes or dislikes, and so on.  Unfortunately, it also freezes her into a routine and makes it so she is only thinking and not doing.  Dwelling in the moment and not looking to the future, maybe.  So the lists are a security blanket, too.  Ultimately, I don’t think Mary Ann is fundamentally different from Mr. Portwit—they both are seeking to understand the why and how of their lives.  For Mr. Portwit, it’s through the scientific method; for Mary Ann, it’s through meticulous documentation of her inner life. 

Not that the lists aren’t a positive thing.  She has this incredible record tracing back to her teenage years.  Like a diary, but much more fun to read! As for where I got the idea?  I don’t know.  I make To-Do lists now and then.  When I was a kid I went through a phase and wrote “Five Best Albums of All-Time” and “Five Best Jack Nicholson Movies” and things of that nature that would be embarrassing to run across.  Now we have Facebook for that kind of thing.

MG: One year after the novel ends, what will Mary Ann's Facebook status be?

DD:  Funny you should ask.  When I was going through the process of finding a publisher, one editor (who was going to pitch Revenge to his colleagues) suggested I come up with a Top Ten list to “hook” the reader and give some indication of the “type” of novel they were in for—a foreshadowing, of sorts.  The following list was written by Mary Ann some eight months after the novel ends:

Excerpted from Mary Ann Portwit’s Lists: Volume 2—For a Happier New Year
 
Ten Things I’ve Learned Since Marrying Dale (current mood:  sarcastic)

10.    Fish deserve my profound respect
9.    Hospitals are terrible
8.    Adjectives are even worse
7.    The wordsmiths were wise when they used the root “man” to create “manic” and “maniac”
6.    A human leg may way as much as 39 lbs., 10oz
5.    Sex is a messy, delicious business    
4.    Absence makes the heart choose less fatty foods   
3.    Crutches are overrated      
2.    Top Ten Lists—who needs ‘em?            
1.    Sometimes a mercy killing is the best thing for a marriage    

                  
MG: Without giving too much away, do you consider the ending a happy ending?

DD:  Absolutely.  I don’t know what this view says about me vis-à-vis the possibility of happiness between two people.  I think I’m terrified by, or at least nagged by, the notion that when it gets down to it, nobody can ever really know anybody else.  No matter how connected we feel in fleeting moments—of love, of chemicals, of symbiosis—we’re ultimately prisoners in our own worlds, and we can never truly inhabit another person.  Flannery O’Connor was comfortable with this idea—the wonder of mystery, the impossibility of comprehending human motivation—and she transformed it into an eerie sort of hope in her fiction.  The Christian faith—any faith—requires the embracing of mystery, and I guess I lack such faith.  I’m more like that guy in Camus’s The Stranger.  OK, maybe not that bad.  But in my fiction, I’ve probably unconsciously portrayed solitude and separation as positive traits as a result of this fear.  In other words, I want to make myself feel better by asserting that even though I can’t ever connect with someone, I can still be content.

But I’m happy to report that many people have said the ending of Revenge is very satisfying.  I’ve even heard the word “perfect” applied to it, so that makes me feel less alone.

MG: The novel's complete title is Revenge of the Teacher's Pet: A Love Story. What kind of love story is this?

DD:  Hopefully an honest one.  I don’t mean “real” or God-forbid, “realistic,” but honest with regard to the human experience of love in all its awkwardness and inflation, as well as its potential for giving meaning to our lives.  Also, it’s a funny love story, I hope.  A perverse and sexually charged one, too, though not in a conventional fashion.  I’m a huge fan of pre-Cry Baby John Waters movies (the filthy ones like Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble), and my novel was definitely reaching for those heights, although ultimately I restrained myself in this department for fear of never finding a publisher.   

MG: Would you say you compromised any of your creative interests in the interest of "finding a publisher"?

DD:  Thankfully, no.  All of the impulses I reined in were reined in because they were misplaced and/or gratuitous.  I learned through the process that “less is more” with regard to things like sex, bodily fluids, and profanity. 

MG: This book reminds me of Jane Shapiro's The Dangerous Husband. Have you read? Would you agree or disagree?

DD:  It’s amazing that you made that connection, because yes, I’ve read it.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I read it as I was writing the first draft of Revenge!  I loved Dangerous Husband and felt inspired by the notion that a darkly comic domestic story had been published.  That book is funny as hell, and I need to read it again.

Another influence on Revenge was Joyce’s Ulysses.  The wordplay, the close 3rd POV, the two alternating perspectives (not counting Molly Bloom’s), and so on.  The opening line of Revenge actually mirrors (steals?) the opening sentence structure of Ulysses.  Obviously, my dinky book is nowhere near the divine logorrhea of Joyce, but I was able to light a match off of his brilliant star.  Ha ha, that just made me laugh.  Anyway, I’ve always admired Ulysses and have almost finished it three times.

3.
The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo

MG: You have another book coming out soon, right? Can you tell us about that?

DD:  It’s titled The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo, and it comes out from St. Martin’s Press in early 2010.  What else would you like to know?  Seriously, I need a prompt. 

MG: Does she literally eat Kalamazoo? Sorry, that's the best I've got. Um, is it a novel or stories? Did you have second-book anxiety? Is there a third book in the works? Feel free to answer any or all . . .

DD:  The titular girl’s name is Audrey Mapes, and she does indeed eat the city.  It may surprise you, but very few people nowadays even remember the 1999-2000 devouring of Kalamazoo, MI.  How quickly we forget in this day-and-age of rapid-fire news! 

My book, though, is different from the numerous others that have been published about Audrey and her family.  The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo is actually compiled from the personal journals of Audrey’s older sister, McKenna.  As you probably know, the Mapeses have been notoriously private for the past ten years—not granting a single interview, being seen only rarely in public—but at long last we get to step inside the mysterious Mapes home and witness what went on behind those doors that might have motivated Audrey to transform herself into the “world’s most gifted eatist.” 

I would categorize the book as dark, humorous, tragic, and scary.  It’s quite shocking, really, to see how Audrey evolved from munching crayons as a baby to devouring refrigerators and stop signs as a young woman.  But I think readers will find the Mapes family to be endearing in their peculiarity.  I certainly did.

* * *

For more, including a full list of reviews, please visit Darrin’s website, http://www.darrindoyle.com

Lydia Millet, winner of the PEN-USA Award for Fiction, is the author of the novels Omnivores; George Bush, Dark Prince of Love; Everyone's Pretty; Oh Pure and Radiant Heart; How the Dead Dream; and, the novel we're here to talk about today, My Happy Life. Ms. Millet was gracious enough to take time out of her busy schedule to answer the following three questions I've been dying to ask since I finished this incredible novel.

1.

MOLLY GAUDRY: What can you tell us about the voice of this narrator? How did you find it, craft it, develop it?

LYDIA MILLET: I wanted to write in a first-person voice utterly unlike myself, so I wrote away from me. In the direction of a utopian and also half-blind personality and one I could love.

2.

MG: Is the torture instrument real? What is it?

LM: There were various instruments, as I recall, modeled on old-fashioned torture devices and also sex toys. If you can quote me the one you mean maybe I can be more specific. Memory fades.

MG: p.61, "And soon [Mr. D.] brought a tool into the room. It was of old and strange design, sharp in places and black and very heavy. He said it was authentic and historical, and could be in a very fine museum indeed." And on p.77, "And I would gaze absently at the chair in the corner with sailboats and tillers on the upholstery where, if you looked closely at the backs of the wooden legs a few inches from the floor, you would be able to see thin, deep lines etched horizontally. These were places where wires had rubbed and dug into the wood while they were looped around my ankles."

LM: I think I pictured the tool on p.61 as a kind of mace, although I also recollect a kind of iron maiden type deal, possibly elsewhere in the book. As to p.77, unrelated tool use, I believe.

3.

MG: In your mind, what happens to this narrator in the time and space after the novel ends?

LM: She doesn't live in my mind after the novel ends. She's the last page forever. Though I do wish I could believe in an afterlife.

For more information, please visit Lydia Millet's website. For an excerpt from My Happy Life, click here.

Certain books cast light on our future selves: think 1984, Brave New World, Infinite Jest even, and usually in doing so, forewarn us of what dire circumstances we could be muddling our way into. Often times these tomes are moralistic in nature: stray too far this way and look at what could be in store. While Scorch Atlas does scrawl out a black ash of a future, it doesn't necessarily come off as a what could be, rather as a what will. And in times that dark, it reminds us of what last vestiges of humanity we need to retain to keep ourselves sacrosanct.

The stories contained within Scorch Atlas are about families. Homes. In a future riddled with doubt and unease. Where an unnamed cataclysmic event has rendered everything but survival moot. Diseases run rampant and houses barely stand on their foundations. The skies crack and blacken. Food is scarce and bodies distend and crust over. But even in this desolation, Blake Butler's characters still cling to things. To spaces. To family. "I'd make this world somewhere to rest in. He'd remember. We would not grow old alone," a mother says in reference to her bloated baby boy in "Want for Wish for Nowhere." Later, in describing her environs Butler writes of "the earth's plates snapping; the flies at the window cracking the glass; the stitch of rhythm in the incision of the earth sinking in itself."

The stories tend to coalesce around certain thematic strains. Even so, the pieces are rendered in such jagged glass craftsmanship that they retain their individuality like the whorls of separate fingerprints on the same hand. In "The Gown From Mother's Stomach," a mother devours anything and everything in sight to fashion a gown for her daughter through consumption and excretion. There is also mention of a talking bear. "The Ruined Child" is a diseased boy (a theme that threads through various of Butler's stories) that haunts the attic of his parents' house, a constant reminder to his father of his failings as a husband, father, human being. In "Television Milk" a mother is held hostage by her three, near feral boys who only allow her temporary release to feed them her breast milk. The boys range in age from just losing their baby teeth to being on the verge of pubescence. The pervading oddities and grotesqueries bring to mind the fiction of Brian Evenson or the filmic work of Harmony Korine or David Lynch. Still, nothing is done solely for the squeamish factor, rather, things are what they are in this twisted world and throughout, the people that inhabit Butler's stories still grope for their humanity. They fight for their homes. Their schools. Their blood lines.

Butler's writing has what the writer Gary Lutz refers to as "verbal topography." Words grind and froth against other words and while narrative momentum is still evident, reading the sentences for their acoustical qualities alone is worth re-reading pages the second you reach their end. The writing is visceral in a way that not only do the sounds of words playing off each other cause you to stir and gape, they have enough resonance to make you physically ill afterward. Try reading: "Her neck sat crumpled with the burden of her head. He moved to shake her shoulder. Gnats muddled in and around her mouth. The tongue, the meat, already rotting. She'd jabbed a kitchen knife into her stomach. Blood spread around her in an oval. Static seemed to gather at her face," without feeling your tongue swell in your throat.

Lastly, it'd be doing the book an injustice not to mention how beautiful the thing is as an objet d'art. Zach Dodson, designer and co-founder of Featherproof Books, truly outdid himself with Scorch Atlas. The edges of pages are dyed black, giving it a sinister, charred look from the outset. Short passages titled "Blood," "Light," "Gravel," etc. have appropriate splatters or blotches on the page, rendered deftly with Dodson's keen eye. The design truly stands up to the content and vice-versa.

In the same way that Infinite Jest, written thirteen years ago, presupposed communication being fragmented via technology, in particular, the internet, Scorch Atlas presupposes a bleak, dystopian future (although let's hope it's farther off than thirteen years from now) where people bloat and grime, the world is a cracked shell of its former self and families do what they must to eke out an existence.

In the future, when scrabbling through rubble for any sort of roughage to burn, I assume our progeny will come across Scorch Atlas and say, "Yes, yes, of course. This Butler, a seer." But let's hope for all our sakes, that future is far off.

Youth can have its advantages. Take the body, for example. At twenty, it can endure a night that lasts from seven p.m. until sunrise and still survive an eight hour work day before unconsciousness hits; usually in the shower ten minutes after a microwave dinner and a Simpson's repeat. Responsibilities are few. Kids are just screamers in the grocery store, marriage is years and a few bad break-ups away and outside of putting in enough hours at work to pay the cable bill, there isn't much holding you down. Flawless skin is possible. A two-seater V-8 is possible. Anything is possible.

Little Mother is about youth, or rather the loss of it, along with a couple of meals and the control of some hormones. Hormones can be hell when you're young and so can long car rides in the afternoon. So can mothers, for that matter, and so can conversations from the passenger seat. But silence is easy and sometimes necessary to hold on to youth a little longer. Childhood is fleeting. For the lucky, it dies slowly. For those who aren't, it ends suddenly and that's pretty much what it's all about; youth or the death thereof.

I'm pretty familiar with the subject. Four years ago, plus or minus a few months and credits, I finished high school. In those four years, like every twenty something in history, I've done quite a bit. Also typical for the age, most of it isn't important and the rest probably shouldn't be mentioned for civility's sake. But that doesn't matter. That's youth and it's littered with bad decisions. What does matter is that among the late night visits to tattoo shops, impromptu flights to Key West and two p.m. mornings, some good decisions are made. Sitting down and making a serious attempt at writing was my good decision and Little Mother was my first venture into online publishing, thanks to the editors at Toasted Cheese. It was my first real success at publishing period. Getting your work out there isn't easy. That's a given. Granted, it seems easy at first - crank out a short story or two and send them off to as many big name or smaller literary magazines as possible. Five or ten rejection letters later (or a few hundred, depending on your level of patience), the brick hits the head. Or the computer screen; depends on your level of patience.

The road to publication can be hard—very hard. Traditional print journals can be tougher to breach than a military installation. Rejection letters can be plentiful. Frustration can be unbelievable. That's where online publishing steps in to bridge the gap. It's an outlet for free expression, experimentation and it's the perfect place for young or simply new writers to get started. The whole world is going virtual. Everything and everybody have a place on the web and now literature does too. There's something out there for everybody, whether deep and insightful, lust and champagne or cross-bred aliens is your thing. The web allows literature to evolve in a way that hasn't been possible until now and it makes it accessible, which is even better. All in all, technology is a pretty awesome thing. Well, mostly. If I could just learn to work a fax machine without my fists, life would be good.

MOLLY GAUDRY: Hi Kyle. Thanks for agreeing to this interview. When I first contacted you about it, I thought we would discuss your first book, The Slide, and leave it at that. Instead, over time, the interview evolved into a sort of multi-layered discussion. Likewise, most interviews include an introduction of some sort, but because we cover so much I thought we should just jump right in.

KYLE BEACHY: I'm happy to talk with you, Molly. You're interesting and friendly.

MG: Well, thank you. I feel the same about you, obviously, and am grateful for your time and willingness to take part in this Writers Respond interview.

1. Divorce, Sadness, and Autobiography

MG: I'd like to begin by asking you about the parents' divorce in The Slide. It seems to me that their split is one of the final sadnesses in your novel. I know this book is sort of loosely autobiographical, but I'm interested in the fictional element of creating this character, Potter Mays, having him return home after graduating from college, and then having him witness (among other perhaps less-personal tragedies) the end of his parents' marriage. I wonder, how does their divorce work on a larger, more symbolic level for the novel as a whole? Or does it?

KB: I always thought of the divorce as one of several rifts. I see the book sort of like a network of arrows of forces and different colors that all operate at the same time. Like that Faulkner line, what he calls trying to move your arms and legs with strings when the same strings are hitched to everyone else's arms and legs. But I see rifts over strings and I wanted big rifts and little rifts, and I also wanted collisions, forces working in opposition and concurrence. I would hope the divorce connects somehow to the other sadnesses.

MG: Why sadness?

KB: It's not too removed from that great notion of I am trying to break your heart—here we all are, post-millenial and cool, yes yes we're terminally evolved and disaffected and far too enlightened to be touched, sentimentality has been written off, we all sigh in unison and say, of course. But if you can succeed at sadness you've at least reached into the reader somehow and twisted something or other. It's not the only way, but it was the way I thought to try. Now I can try something else.

MG: And what can you share with us about the autobiographical elements in The Slide? From other interviews I've read, I gather you're pretty open to the novel being read as loosely autobiographical.

KB: I'm open to the book being read however people choose to read it. There is overlap between Potter's life and my life at age twenty-two, but it stops the moment the book becomes interesting. Writing this was a process moving further and further away from what I had experienced, and as this happened the writing became easier. But yes I drove a water delivery van briefly, yes. I have had troubles with love and jealousy and betrayal, yes. I have found myself unable to decide what's right and wrong given the circumstances, definitely. And I do truly love the St. Louis Cardinals.

2. Character, Mystery, and Fucked-Up Gifts

MG: Who is your favorite character in The Slide and why?

KB: Audrey, absolutely. I spent so much time with everyone else. She is still a ghost.

MG: Oh, that's a good answer. She's something of a mystery to me, too, and probably to other readers as well. One reason for this might be that she enters the novel mysteriously, by sending Potter a starfish with two broken legs. Why, in your mind, does she send Potter the starfish? And is there any particular reason it winds up where it does?

KB: It's a confusing gift. Maybe she wants to confuse him. Probably she sends it for a lot of different reasons, and definitely not for other reasons. I would guess it's a complicated mixture she doesn't totally understand. Vengeance and cowardice, at least. Justice. And I'm not
totally sure where it does end up. Have you ever sent fucked up gifts to someone you're not sure if you love?

MG: I don't think I've ever sent anyone a fucked-up gift. I don't think I've ever been unsure about those I've loved. It's backfired, certainly, but anyway. So I think the next question is: What fucked-up gifts have you sent in the past?

KB: No bad gifts since elementary school, which was a dog bone I handed to a pretty girl to make a point and look funny in front of other kids. It was mean and fucked-up. Generally I try to give good gifts.

MG: That is so mean! I did something terrible like that, too, but to a friend who, for some reason, I arbitrarily decided I didn't need or want as a friend anymore. I was a piece of shit back in my junior high days, definitely. Mostly because I was unhappy and tired all the time.
The last gift I gave someone that really went over well was maybe two or three years back: a steamroller. That went over better than I'd expected. I have no idea how or where that person is now. Alas. And you? The last good gift you gave someone?

KB: I gave my nephew this super rad bulldozer toy with working parts everywhere, rubber plastic metal and big and strong and sharp and pointy and probably unsafe. I really enjoying giving books to my mother because it's so easy. The big secret is this: my mother will like
almost any book I choose simply by virtue of me thinking she will like it. It is almost like throwing a ball and trying to hit the ground.

3. Character, the Seven-Year Novel, and Popularity

MG: Hands down, my favorite character is Ian. Would you mind telling us about the genesis of his role in this novel?

KB: The book originally included a number of these divergent vignettes that started with Potter's water deliveries. He'd deliver somewhere and the narrative would flop over to this other character from the delivery, then it would catch back up to Potter. I liked Ian and started making his story bigger. I wanted a kid who wasn't precocious, and I wanted certain reflections of Potter's life, certain concavities in the mirror. There's a line in there about
a dog staring at a horse. Like that.

MG: Here it is (as if by magic): "I felt like a dog might feel, staring at a horse. We were the same shape, roughly, but the difference in scale and skills were immense." It is lovely. It is moments, lines, like these that make The Slide such a touching novel. Well done. So I think I read somewhere that it took seven years for you to complete this novel. If the original format was a series of vignettes, then I'm curious to know if there were other formats and how you ended up with the traditionally narrated sort of novel that you did.

KB: It was like shaking one of those archeology screens, how they dump dirt onto it and shake and the fossil or gold nugget is either there or it's not there. I just had to shake for a long long time because the dirt I put onto the screen didn't know what the hell it was doing. Did you watch Voyage of the Mimi at any point in school? It was about discovering things and I think also about whales. As for the traditional narrative, I wanted propulsion, things moving quickly and cohesively. Plus I don't fall into this camp that treats this word traditional as derogatory.

MG: What is Voyage of the Mimi? Oh god, I feel unpopular again. Like, is this something I was supposed to have been watching? Is this what all the cool kids were watching?
Were you a cool kid? And popularity—overrated or a necessary thing?

KB:
It's what seventh graders watched in Social Studies class, a PBS mini-series starring a tiny Ben Affleck. I am 95% sure that I was cool. I played sports and felt up girls and rode a skateboard and smoked cigarettes at the mall. I think of popularity as an artificial value system, like Beanie Babies. I'm also curious of longer-view popularity narratives, like e.g. people today who were nerds growing up and now find themselves at the center of attention because they're talented, because adult nerds are talented and valuable and smart, but when
they're popular suddenly they turn into vengeful smug assholes. It's like Fortune's wheel. Here's an unglamorous thing I believe wholeheartedly: people should just be nice. Forget who is writing what and who is reading where and with whom and why aren't I reading, why isn't this my show, and just be a friendly motherfucker. It's so much easier. Make pleasantness the only factor for popularity and I'll get on board.

4. Blogs, Websites, and the Internet

MG: You have a blog. Will you tell us about why you began blogging? And will you direct us to your favorite blog post and tell us about it?

KB: I'm not good at blogging. I come and go in waves. I tried to be a baseball blogger and write something about every Cardinals game this season, then after one game I realized it was going to be hard. I retired. My favorite post is so totally obviously this one here, in which I address a beautiful photograph of a squirrel that died
marvelously outside my home. I read the thing you wrote about impermanence and love and the challenges. That strikes me as a personal thing to throw out there; do you ever overstep and say too much?

MG: I didn't know you read my blog! Aw, thanks, Kyle! So yeah, that squirrel picture is crazy. What a good neighbor you have! Oh man, I don't know. I mean, the truth is I don't feel I put anything personal on my blog. It's a very tricky, very fine line. For instance, my friends and family rarely make appearances. Even so, they have on more than one occasion requested I not blog things they share in confidence . . . um, despite the fact I never have before. Still, I know what you (and they) mean: I can really emo it up sometimes. But if you notice, those are the posts that generate the most comments, and I think people connect to those posts, the things I share, and then feel compelled to respond. And this is why I began blogging in the first place: to connect with others. I also do my fair share of commenting on others' blogs. And it's true: I always respond to posts that detail someone's personal struggles. If it seems someone needs encouragement or a pat on the back, I like to provide that, if I can. What about you? Are you much of a commenter? And what, if any, blogs or websites do you visit every day?

KB: My instinct has been to go without comments on the site. My thought is: toss the thing into the void and let it live or die, then move on to the next thing. Comments complicate this arrangement, and it becomes a question of who's listening. But I like your point about connection, like a conversation. I don't often comment, and everyday blogs and websites of mine are sort of embarrassing. Certain gossip sites and Drudgereport to see how other people think. Gauge public interest, like palpating. I come to yours rather often because there's always something. There's drama there, a lot of moments leading up to what feel like important
decisions. How much do you see your blog as its own narrative?

MG: I do see it as a narrative, though I've never thought about it in this way. It is, though, definitely. I mean, so far it's seen me in four different cities, through four different jobs, has been, incredibly, perhaps the only constant throughout. Weird. And yes, regarding drama, I certainly blog about sadness and confusion and angst fairly regularly. But while the sadness and confusion and angst are true and real, I feel the blogging about them, the public sharing of them, is writing, and that the language embellishes, perhaps. As a writer, though, I like having an outlet to share that kind of emotion-heavy language, which I probably couldn't get away with in fiction—probably not even in non-fiction. That those emotions are real and true is an added bonus: that others respond is the only reason I've kept it up.

5. Teaching and the MFA

MG: Although this interview is a living document, currently, that won't resemble the final product exactly, I'll share with readers that you're in Iowa City right now (at the end of June), teaching (I think). What are you teaching and what can you share with us about the experience?

KB: I taught three classes for the Iowa Summer Writing Festival: a weekend class on a-realism or anti-realism or whatever you want to call that which isn't strictly governed by reality; then two weeklong sessions, one on first chapters and one on scene-building. The whole thing was impressive as hell. I always had this fanciful notion of Iowa City as a competitive warzone of some sort, with aspiring short story writers offing one another in back alleyways. And maybe it's a different place during the school year, but my experience was just peaceful and inspirational and nothing but great. I met outrageously interesting people. The other faculty especially because they'd all found a way to make writing into a sustainable practice and career, each unique in their task, and it's rad when people reach a point where competition is moot, everyone is doing their own thing and curious, even respectful of everyone else. And whiskey in that town flows as if downhill.

MG: I'm so jealous! I wish I could have been there. Did you meet any awesome (famous) people?

KB: I kept trying to get Nick Dybeck into a my dad's smarter than your dad argument, but he wouldn't bite. Man, I don't know, a lot of really damn talented people. It's just a hub of terribly interesting people who value stories and wordplay and imagery and technique, and moving among these people, socializing with them and sharing ideas, is a hell of a thing.

MG: How did your anti-realism class go over? What were your students like?

KB: Enthusiastic, varied, curious. I was pleased as hell with the class. Ghosts and talking frogs and mysterious doors in bedroom floors.

MG: And on the subject of Iowa, what are your thoughts on the whole MFA debate? You have one from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, right? Why did you choose that program? Why not shoot for a fully funded program?

KB: The debate, as I understand it, seems to miss the real point of an MFA, which is basically a gift, to yourself, of two years dedicated to writing. Certainly I have opinions about the benefit of the workshop method and the risks of homogeneity, but I really think people will get out of an MFA program exactly what they put into it. It is not a magic gateway to publishing. Nor is it a complete waste of money. SAIC is non-traditional in that they don't divvy up their poets into this corner, prose writers over here. There you're first and foremost an artist, and a writer next. That's it. You're a writer—write whatever the hell you please. At SAIC I was boring whereas at other programs I would have been the weirdo.

6. Travel and Vacations

MG: Soon you're off to Denmark. Why Denmark? What will you do there?

KB: It's a month-long residency at Hald Hovedgaard, where I'll be one of four international authors who will work and live at this 18th century villa on a lake in the countryside, not far from the town of Viborg. There are four of us and I think eight or so Danish writers, and the point is to mingle and inspire while also staying out of one another's way, since we're all going to be solitary and productive and probably batshit crazy by the end of week one.

MG: Do you have any favorite vacation destinations? A favorite vacation memory?

KB: My mother's side is all English, from the Bristol and Bath areas. I try to make it there whenever I can. Last time I drove up through the Lake District and into Scotland, over to the Isle of Skye, the single most beautiful location I've seen. Plus the Talisker Distillery is there. I was also lucky enough to travel with my father when I was a kid, he'd drag me along to his lectures and meetings in China or Europe and elsewhere. We got conned once outside of The Vatican, just an old-fashioned gaffling, and the mutual embarrassment we felt afterward was and is a key reason we're so close.

MG: Everything you just wrote there is amazing. I was going to make a Lady of Bath joke, but then I realized what an asshole thing that would be. In any case, it all sounds so wonderful.

KB: You were going to make a Chaucer joke? Shit, man. We had two rules going into this, and one was no Chaucer jokes.

MG: Okay, a picture then, which has nothing to do with anything.

7. Interviews and Run-Ins with Famous Authors

MG: What question have you always wanted to answer but never been asked in an interview? And the answer?

KB: I keep waiting for someone to ask about run-ins with famous authors. Like: Kyle, what famous author might have death-stared you in a particular Vermont barn because you might have been dancing with someone he wanted to get his lecherous fingers around? And I'll say I have no idea what you're talking about. Hey lemme ask you this...do you ever write with a partner? I'm thinking of writing something with a friend and I always like to survey people before I do anything at all.

MG: I have and do. I have a thing about weeping and growing in decomP, which Blythe Winslow and I co-wrote. At the end of our session, she gave it to me, washed her hands of it. Thanks, Blythe! And for some time now, Donora Hillard and I have been exchanging couplets, working our way toward a longer poem. And a friend of mine here in Philadelphia sent me the first paragraph of a romance novel that I'm to add to one of these days; our aim is to make some money, get famous under a terrible pseudonym. Wish us luck. Anyway, what are you thinking of, specifically? Sounds intriguing, definitely.

KB: I have these friends who are stupidly talented. But I've always clutched onto a hallowed notion of solitude for writing, and part of me fears losing control of where a thing goes. But certain projects would almost seem to demand teamwork, like comedy. I suppose the big fear is schizophrenia or some lack of cohesion. What about arguments? I'm a stubborn person sometimes. Will we stop loving each other? Will our friendship fall to pieces?

MG: Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. I just had a creative G-chat exchange with a Philly / soon-to-be NY writer in which we didn't chat but collaborated on a sort of poem-type thing. He can do whatever he wants with it, and I'm going to take select lines and fashion some sort of
story, perhaps. Maybe when it comes to collaboration the best thing is to remember it's a collaboration, with no pressure on the final product? I don't know.

KB: This guy is a genius, who I'm going to work with. So mainly I'm just excited to see what comes of it.

MG: Oh yeah, hey, why aren't you allowed to answer questions on Franzen?

KB: I appreciate what you're doing here. I really do.

8. Second Book Struggles and Online v. Print

MG: You and I are sort of in the same boat right now: we both have first books available for purchase. The differences, though, are huge. First, you got a five-figure advance for yours; and second, you have an agent who sold yours to Dial Press, an imprint of Random House. The question is why? Why the big house and not a small press?

KB: While I was writing the goal was to get my book into the hands of readers. And like any hungry young person, I wanted to be paid for my work. My plan was to exhaust all the chances for big houses and when that didn't pan out, work my way through the independents. So it wasn't
an issue of choice as much as opportunity, for me. And Dial is wonderful because it's a small, dedicated imprint beneath the great sprawling Random House umbrella. And I'm honored to be associated with the other Dial authors. Nor is this any kind of knock on the indie presses, which I support fully and am grateful to for all the authors I get to read who don't, for whatever reason, fit into the plans of the big houses. Brian Evenson and Amelia Gray...but I didn't write the same sort of book they wrote.

MG: That's a good point: that yours isn't like theirs. I think that says it all. So how about this: is there a second book in the works? If so, how's it coming?

KB: It's coming slowly, but yes. I painted myself into a lot of corners with this first one, and I worked a lot to undo things I'd worked a lot to do in the first place. So I'm planning more now, drawing graphs and charts. It's about fun, the new book. And bones. And safety.

MG: Since The Slide came out, you've been publishing short pieces in some of the online journals. Hobart and decomP, to name two. What other journals do you like and what are your thoughts on online journals versus print journals?

KB: When a thing appears online it is there, for better or for worse, for all to see, always. Barring some meltdown, you'll always have that address to refer readers to. Print journals appear in relatively small numbers in a relative few stores and are consumed by a small group of very avid readers. I want my work to be available—that's sort of the bottom line.

9. The Million Dollar Questions

MG: Do you ever think "Fuck it all" and wonder why you're not doing something else with your life? If you weren't a writer, what would you be?

KB: I don't really think writing precludes being other things. I teach college students, currently. Maybe someday I'll learn to fix a muffler. I'd like to be more of a gypsy.

MG: Someday I'd like to learn to change my oil. $40 seems like a lot; the bastards. Okay, so what's your biggest pet-peeve?

KB: Assholery by default. A close second is assholery by entitlement.

MG: Hardback or paperback?

KB: Paper, rolled into back pocket, underlined and marked to hell and back.

MG: I like books so old you can't dog-ear them because the corner breaks off. Blondes or brunettes?

KB: Brunettes. With brown eyes.

MG: Coffee or tea?

KB: Coffee all day long.

MG: Backpack or fanny pack?

KB:
Really backing my friend Dave's purse, which he swears is a camera bag converted into what he calls a "smoking carrier." For his tobacco tin and things. But it's so totally a purse.

MG: Ha! Cats or dogs?

KB: Dogs, especially mine, the most beautiful dog alive, Lolita the mutt.

MG: Why Lolita?

KB: You'd have to meet her.

MG: East coast or west coast?

KB: Mid. West. Holler.

MG: Cupcakes or muffins?

KB: I swear I still don't fully know the difference. It's like the difference between seeds and nuts.

MG: Hmmm, let's try again. Cupcakes or muffins?

KB: So what if I put icing onto a muffin? What's the score then?

MG: I'm not sure icing on a muffin would work. They're totally different things! Getting tired of these yet?

KB: I love these.

MG: Okay, your turn.

KB: Brooklyn or Brooklyn?

MG: Um, I don't know. Brooklyn, maybe.

KB: Alright. Chicago or Philly?

MG: Philly's not so bad, but find me a job and somewhere to live in Chicago and I'm there. (Do it fast: I'm about to sign a year lease and submit syllabi to my dept. head for approval.) Chicago's lit scene, whew. Just thinking about it . . .

KB: Chicago is full of unused condos—they saturated the market during the bubble. You could squat! Shane Jones or Blake Butler? You must pick one.

MG: I'm not much of a squatter. And Shane. Such a nice boy.

KB: Single or married?

MG: Shane? He's getting married this summer.

KB: Harry Nilsson or Jim Croce? There is no wrong answer.

MG: This one was tough. I had to sleep on it, but in the end: Nilsson.

KB: Kindle or pee in your eye?

MG: Kyle Beachy, folks. For more, visit him here.