Glimmer Train Stories, Issue 032 - Fall 1999

FALL 1999

Issue32

Stories by Laura Oliver, Peter Lefcourt,Janet Belding,Jana Martin' Lee Martin, Nancy Reisman,Victoria Lancelotta' Interviews with writers Russell Banks and Lynn Sharon Schwartz'

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Russell Banks Interuiewby Rob Tiucks An awful lot of the overt aspectsof any work of art are telling. They tell us what the artist is insecure about, in a way.'Whatyou push in the reader'sface is very often what you're leastsecureabout And as you grow more secureabout it, you think about it less and you have lessnecessifyto assertit.

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Jana Martin Hooe This suitcasewai pale blue satin inside, a little m^oldy,a Iittle crushed. But it still gave off a scent,like lavender and boiled potatoes.Like Irish sisters,never married The name on the tag was written in a parlor hand:O'Toole

Oa;, The PowerBreakfast "l was askedto leave Hollywood." Jesus,you could have knocked me over with a taco.You really had^to be pretry far gone to get run out of thac town.

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Lee Martin \ Insect Life Beffy Hopp was an elementaryeducation major who liked to pep up her conversation with phrasesfrom Dr. Seussbooks. "Het fighting a rweetle-beetle batde," she had said, and Miss Caseyhad noted, with a touch of envy.how the young, even when their loved ones were fighting a war, never really believed in loss.

.z*-fu*Laura Oliver Ant Farm Somerimes,I think, it is as ifadolescence is a carnival ride Adam wants to get off but cant, and I watJh his angry, desperateface fly past me again and again, belted in for the duration.

Victoria Lancelotta Soice The thing thaf my morher was afraid to hear was not that I had slept with him. but rhat I had left him, becausefor me to leave him so easily,so quickly, wirhout thoughr or fear as I had done, meant thit I would leave all of them eventually in just the same way. |L/

6//,2r4t /:d..---^ ie-4*/ Lvnne)naron Schwartz

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Interuiewby Nancy Middleton I think that reading so early perhapschanneled me into seeingeverything verbally.Ifl had had a Gw more years of looking at the world without reading,I might have become a different Derson.

"In tutostraightknestheybroketheirbread andbrushed theirtzethandwentto bed" Madeline by Ludwig

Bemelmans,

1939

C'iH',R"

EDITORS Susan Burmeister-Brown Linda BurmeisterDauies

CONSULTING EDITORS AllysonBourke BrittneyCorriga n-McElroy Reynolds Jennfet Jackson Roz Wais COPY EDITOR ScottAllie

PROOFREADER Rachel Penn

TYPESETTING & LAYOUT PaulMorris COVER ARTIST JaneZwinger STORY ILLUSTRATOR Jon Leon PUBLISHED QUARTERLY

in spring,summer,fall, and winter by Glirnmer Train Press, Inc. 710 SW Madison Street,Suite 504, Portland,Oregon 97205-2900 Telephone: 503/ 221- 0836 Facsimile:503/ 221 -0837 www. glitntnertrain, com PRINTED IN U.S.A. Indexed in TheAmericanHumanitiesInilex. O1999 by Glimmer Train Press,Inc. All rights reserued,No part ofthis periodical may be reproduced without the consent of Glimmer Train Press,Inc. The magazine'sname and logo and the various titles and headings herein are trademarks of Climmer Train Press,Inc. The short stories in rhis publication arc works offiction. Names, characten, places,and incidents are either the products of the authors'imagrnations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblanceto actual events,-locales,or pcnons, livingor dead,is entirely coincidental. The views expressedin the nonfiction witing herein are solely those ofthe authon. ClimmerTrain 0SSN #1055-7520),regsteredin U.S. Patentand TrademarkOffice, is published quarterly,$32 per year in the U.S., by Glirnmer Train Press,Inc., Surte 50,1,710 SWMrd:son, Portland, OR 97205. Periodicals postage paid at Podand, OR, and additional mailing otlices. POSTMASTER: Sendaddress changesto Glimmer Train Press,Inc., Suite504, 710 SW Madison, Portland.OR 97205.

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'edication What you hold in your hands is the 32nd issueof Climmer Train Stories,which brings our eighth year of publication to a close. What a wonder it is that such beautiful work is written, whan an honest-to-God privilege it is to bring it to light, and what a pleasure it is to do this work as sistersside by side. When you open this dedication page in the issue that will mark our 50th year of publication (let's see, that would be lssue 200, out in Fall 2A41), that will be our last. By that tirne we'll be 83 and 89 years old, and by then-30,000 manuscripts a year times 42 rnore years-our eyes will surely have given out. Two lives full of people's stories are rrlvo very blessedlives indeed. Thank you to our readers, to our writers, and to the angels on our masthead.

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"In two straightlinesthey broketheirbread and brushed theirteethandwentto bed." Madelineby Ludwig Bemelmans,1939

'€"*rENrs

Laura Oliver Ant Farm

RussellBanks Interuiewby Rob Trucks 18

7

Peter Lefcourt The PowerBreakfast 41,

JanetBelding In My OtherLfe 49

Short-StoryAward for New Writers 7st-,2nd-, and 3rd-PlaceWinners 5l

Jana Martin

Lynn Sharon Schwartz Interuiew by Nancy Middleton

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SiobhanDowd WriterMemoialized:SlaukoCuruuija 108

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Nancy Reisman Sharks 113

Victoria Lancelotta Spice 137

The Last Pages

PastAuthors and Artists 159

Coming Soon 160

Laara Oliver Thkenaroundtheageof threein our;frontyarda beautifwl but isolated parcelof woodsand pastureland on theMagothyRiuer.Theffirt to be good(notice thearms)tooka lot of concentration.

Laura Oliver began writing seriously with the birth of her third child, and continues to do so from her home in Annapolis, Maryland. She has a BA in English from Washington College and an MFA in Creative'Writing and Literature from Bennington College. She has taught creative writing4 in rhe Fine Arts Department of St. John\ College in Annapolis for several years, and has published a variety of essaysin regional and national publications such as Country Living Magazine. "Ant Farm" is her first published piece of fiction.

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Launa OrrvER

Ant Farm

fter Brian moved out I bought our daughter Erica an ant farm. I thought it would distract her. A flat plastic skyline sat on a slice of sand wedged between two clear plastic panes to form an underground window.Toys R Us couldn't stock live insects,however, so after buying the kit we sent the enclosed coupon to lJncle Willy's Ants and waited for our tenants to arrive in the mail. We were not to be alarmed if they arrived "sleepy," the literature stated,which meant barely thawed. -We set up the display in preparation of their arrival and read the instructions."Ants dont like landslides!" That meant don't shake the farm."Ants don't like leftovers!"A piece offruit the size of an asterisk can feed a whole colonv for a week, we discovered. I think of that now as ants scurry in erratic patterns to nowhere across the family-room floor, but these are gardenvariety ants that have somehow found a way into the house. (Jncle Willy's ants must have been derailed somewhere, because it has been three weeks and they have not arrived. "Don't step on them, Mom," Etica says."-W'ecan put them in the farm." I am not actually stepping on them. I have bought a few ant traps and am encouraging one to venture Climmer Train Stoies, lssue32, Fall 1999 @1999LauraOliuer

Laun a Ortvrr< inside with the toe of my shoe. He veers offagain and again. Finally I pick him up and drop him on it. He scrambles away. Things have been like this since Brian left. The house painter I hired turned out to be a preacher. My son, Adam' a freshman at St. Luke's, has announced to Sister Francescathat he's a practicing Hindu, pierced his ear, and gotten a tattoo. "At least itt not a skull and crossbones,"my son says."At least it doesn't spell anything." "It could have said,'Mom,"' I say. I meet Brian for lunch and he asks me how the kids are holding up. He is living on my parents'boat down at the marina, for now. "Okay," I say."They're so self-involved that they don't seem to pay much attention to anything except their allowances and what's for dinner." He smiles and I hope what I've said is true. "How about Adam?" he says."He giving you any trouble?" "He drove the car around the yard one night while I was at class,"I say."Erica told me, so I had to restrict him." "He's fourteen." Brian savs."He doesn't even know how to drive!" I look at him."Het having sex with his girlfriend, too," I say. "Some things are just easy to figure out." I wonder if I am somehow to blame for all this. I was the one who was unhappy, and, in a way, I am the one being punished now. I get books from the library on raisingteenagers. then try not to quote them. But words are all I have. "He offered to transplant the lilac at the end of the driveway,'I say. "He ofered?"Brian asks. "And ten minutes later he wanted to know who the jerkoffwas who had left the goddamn shovel behind the goddamn bikes so he couldn't find it." Brian signals the waiter for the check. He looks grim'

GlimmerTrain Stories

Ant Farm Sometimes. I think. it is as if adolescence is a carnival ride Adam wants to get offbut can't, and I watch his angry, desperate face fly past me again and again, belted in for the duration. "Get out of herel"Adam yelled when I confronted him in his room about stealing the car and havrng sex."You make me sick! Look at you!You're a freak, a lucking freak! I didn't do anything! Look at your face! Oh my God,you make me want to throw up!" He threw several notebooks from his desk to the floor, careful not to hit me, then yanked his guitar off his bed, flipped on the speakers,and began strumming furiously. Sometimes, when being a parent is really bad, itt as if I detach and float above the scene,watching it all from a numb and objective vantage point near the ceiling. "Sorry, Adam," I said. "You're restricted to the house for two weeks. No dates, no phone. You have got to be held accountable, and I guess I'm the only one to do it." I turned and walked out of his room as he yelled, "'What about you, Mom? Who holds you accoantable?" I had a lover and Adam knows it.What he doesn't know is why I had this relationship, and telling him would mean trying to explain things about my marriage that even I don't understand. If I explain just in terms of myself, it all sounds flimsy, self-indulgent. It's over now but we are still dealing with the aftershocks.I think of Erica's ant farm.They need a stable environment.They can live with so little sustenance. The morning after my lunch with Brian, I pull the mail from the brass box by the front door and a brown mailing bag falls out. I glance at the return address:UncleWilly'sAnts. Our guests have arrived. I think about not telling Erica and just chucking the thing, but can't quite bring myself to do it. She is ecstatic. 'Willyt The package contains the Uncle fact book, instructions, and a test tube full of ants. I pull out the cork without

Fall 1999

Launa OrtvER reading the directions and try to tap them into the narrow opening at the top of the farm.They reactasif they arebeing tappedinto fire, racing up the test tube, down the outside o1 the plastic framing-one drops on the floor where Erica squealsand a couple make a run up my hand.Wejam the top on the farm and scoopup the runaways,then lift the lid again, poking the straysin quickly. IJpstairs,Adam is playing his guitar with the amplifier turned up full blast.He haswritten a new song. It is about a prisoner on death row, unjustly convicted. 'While Erica watchesthe antsexploring their new environread little-known ant factsfrom the booklet that came ment, I with the farm. Fact:Every worker hasa full-time job to help everyoneelse the colony. Fact: All the workers are female. Fact: A new colony begins with the marriage flight. Females and nralesmate in the air and then land.Afterward, the female scrapesoffher wings and enters the nest forever. Adam has stopped flailing on his guitar and comes downstairs."FIey, Mom, what's up?" he asks,as if we haven't seen each other in a while. He rummages through the kitchen cabinets, his T:-shirt hanging out of his pants, sporting a gold hoop the size of my wedding band in his pierced ear. He obviously feels better, and offers me some chips from the bag he is carrying to the sofa with a companionable smile, but I know the calm will not last. He is like a colt circling the paddock, looking for a loose railing, an unlatched gate, deciding where to make the next bolt for freedom. My lover was the admissions director at St. Luke's. Gerald was going through a divorce, and had custody of his three kids. I liked that about him even without knowing the circumstances.The school was crowded with parish children and, as a non-Catholic applicant,Adam was wait-listed' I met

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Climmer Train Stoies

Ant Farm

with Gerald to see if I could persuade St. Luke's to admit one more. Gerald had been aJesuit priest and his office still contained artifacts from that previous life. A wood cross on the wall, a few photographs of Gerald with other clergy. He left the priesthood when he met his wife, a young social worker with problems of her own. I was intrigued by the thought of undeniable passion and wondered about a woman who could turn a man from God. I looked around in case he still had a picture of her, left inadvertently perhaps, in a group photo of the children. The office Gerald was using was lined with books and had the musry smell of a sanctuary. His jacket hung on a worn coatrack near the window, and steam rose from a cup of coffee on his desk. I sat in a leather chair as soft as raw silk and watched dust float like unspoken thoughts in the sunlight as we talked beyond noon and into his next appointment. Brian and I had known each other all our lives. Neither of us had ever been crazy in love. After I 1eft,I couldn't srop thinking about the priest turned man. I could smell the faint scent of him on my palm from where we shook hands,and I imagined him nearby as I walked to my car, made dinner that evening, and, later, turned down the sheetsfor bed. Brian found out. I was too happy, too talkative. Devastated that I had caused someone else so much pain, I told Gerald I couldn't see him anymore, but felt sadder than if I had ended my marriage.Thatt why Brian moved to the marina. So we could figure out what made us the saddest.So far, it seemed that what might have been between us was a greater loss than what had been, and the best thinq between us was the children. Brian stops by to see the children after work, and before is in the door Erica is dragging him offto see the ants. She

Fall 1999

LnuRa OrtvpR wearing on everyone'spatience. "Dad! You won't believe what they've done!" she claims. Brian appearsinterestedbut I doubt that he is listening.It is as his eyesnever leavingher face. if he'sabsorbingher essence, "Hey! How're you doing?" he asksAdam, who has just slumpedinto the kitchen. "Ask Mom," he says."I'mgrounded.Forever.For nothing." They walk out onto the porch together.Adam is nearly as tall as Brian and has his lean frame and slender wrists and hands.They both bear the look of philosopherpoets,not athletes,but, unlike Brian, Adam is so fair it is as if he casts light. Erica stalksthem out the door, carrying the ant farm in two carefulhands. I open a bottle of merlot and decide to make a plate of cheeseand crackersto go with it.'While I push asidehalfempfy cereal boxes in searchof unopened crackers,Adam comesburstingback in through the french doors."You always saywhat shesays!"he callsback to his father.He glaresat me briefly ashe stompsthrough the kitchen with Erica right on his heels,still carrying the ants. "Keep that little freak away fiom me," he orders over his shoulder,headingtowardsthe stairs,Erica trailing.He whirls, bending down to yell in her face,"Shut up about the stupid ants!1 don'tcare!" I finish wiping off the counters asBrian comesback into the kitchen. He looks good. "You must be getting some sun down on the boat," I say. As I hand him a wineglassthere is a shout from upstairsand a door slams,hard.The dull reverberationcomesright through the kitchen ceiling. 'Jesus Christ!" Brian says,flinching. It is something Gerald never say. would 'Just wait. In two secondsyou'Il hear someone'shead hitting wallboard,"I predict.

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Glimmet Train Stoies

Ant Farm Insteadthere is an eerie silenceand then a slow and accelerating,high-pitchedkeening,which within secondsbecomes a pulsing screamthat is neither male nor female.Welook at each other, momentarily frozen, trying to interpret the strangeness of the sound."Nobodyt arguing,"I sayslowly,asif this contradictssome rule of physics.Wemove for the stairs simultaneously.

3.1ip"*?ta* Fall 1999

1,3

LRuna OUvER I get to the landing first and look up. Adam is standing above me, his eyeshuge and empty. He is the source of the a tvvopulsatingscream,yet his face is oddly expressionless, dimensional portrait framed by his hands,which are clasped over his ears.It is as if he is shielding himself from his own sound. I grab him, but he ducks and fends me off with his elbows,fighting to keep his earscovered. "Adam!What happened?" Rocking slightly, he lifts his eyesto my face but does not focus,as if he is blind. I considerslappinghim to break the spell ashe continuesto scream. Erica is nowhere to be seen.I start down the hallway,Brian behind me, and suddenly the door to Adam's room creaks open.Erica stumblesout, her face contorted without sound. It is asif the screamthat begins in her is given voice byAdam' She is holding one hand cradledin the other.Blood dropsto the white carpet like spent azaleapetals. "My God, look at the door," Brian sayssoftly. Again, I feel myselfdetachfrom the sceneeven asit comes into focus.Erica running upstairsafterAdam. Adam throwing himself on his bed.Erica slippingher hand berweenthe door hingesjust ashe kicks it shut in frustration.The door frame is smudgedwith blood. One of her fingers is all but severedFrom the knuckle to tip it is split-the tip,like a grape somesteppedon. one carelessly "lJse this," Brian saysand shovesa washclothat me. Erica hasfinally found her voice and her piercing screamhurts my earsthis close.I wrap her hand in the cloth and Brian scooPs her up in his arms. I know we have to get to the hospital. Brain carries her to the car and I drive. "Run it!" he saysaswe come to the first red light' "I can't!Are you sure?"I say. " Run thedamnlight!" he saysagain,and then,"Look out!" as I hesitatetoo long and pull in front of another car.

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Climmer Train Stoies

Ant Farm I stopin front of the emergency-roomentrance,leavingthe car at the samehaphazard angleBrian left it the night Erica was born. We rush in chrough che glassdoors and a nurse approachesErica and begins to unwrap the washcloth."No, no, no," Erica screams,desperatelytrying to keep her finger wrapped tight. She searchesthe facesaround her, scanning wildly until her eyesmeet mine."It will fall of!" shepleads. "'Wow,"saysthe nurse,finally getting a peek under the cloth. "I'm not touching this.Get Stevensdown here,"shecallsout. Erica is put on a stretcher as if she is a small gift in an oversizedbox. "Calm down, hond' the nurse saysthrough the screaming.It appearsshe is just mouthing the words.An elevatordoor opensand Dr. Stevensappears. He is the surgeon on call tonight and has been at the symphony. Beneath his white coat he is wearing a tuxedo. With Erica flat on her back, he extends her hand onto a small, sterile work table and examines her injury out of her line of sight.I watch him preparea largeneedleto anesthetize the wound. unfortunately Erica seesthe syringe as well, so Brian blows up a surgicalglovelike a balloon,grabsa pen,and draws a face on it. "Look, Erica," he says,desperateto distract her. "Whot this?"We all turn to see that the face he has drawn looks remarkably like Dr. Stevens,the inflated fingers like hair standingon end,giving him a look of perpetualsurprise.The resemblanceis uncanny,and for a moment I am uncomfortable, but the doctor uses the distracrion to inject the lidocaine, and after an initial shriek she is quiet. Now,in the suddenabsenceofpain andterror,Ericabecomes giddy with affecrion.She chatsnon-stop asthe tediousstitches are placed in her hand. Eventually she is wheeled away to X-ray on a gurney to seeif any bones were broken. "I have an ant farml'I hear her tell the attendant as they disappeardown the hall. "My brother plays the guitar and he

Fall 1999

15

Laun a Ortvnx almost cut my finger off" she sayscheerfirlly.Twenfy minutes later sheis rolled out,looking much like a small,bright package that has been labeled and shrink-wrapped,coming off the assemblyline. She is still talking, her blood-smearedTshirt coveredwith colorful stickersthat say,"Ihad an X-ray!" There is a phone on the wall and I turn to callAdam.Brian is with Erica.I call Gerald instead.I haven'ttalked to him in weeks,but havent lost the instinct to tell him when something important has happenedto me. "I'm at the hospital,"I saywhen he finally answers. "My God, what happened?"he asks. "I got hurt," I say,and then stop and closemy eyes."No,not me-Erica. Erica hasbeen hurt." I open my eyes."She'll be okay.I have to go." "Is Brian there?"he asks. "Yes."Yes,of courseBrian is here.He is a wonderful father. "I'll talk to you later,sweetheart,"he says.Theconnection and intimacy are immediate.Then I hear a woman'svoice. "Gerald?"she sayssoftly."Is that for me?" I hang up and dial again. This time Adam answers."It's Mommy," I sayasif he is younger than he is."She'sfine.They think it will be fine." There is no sound from the other end. "'W'e'll be home in half an hour," I say. When we get back to the houseBrian takesErica up to her room to help her get ready for bed. He addsan extra pillow for her to resther hand on, the bandagesmaking it look iike a smallwhite paw.Adamis nowhere to be seen,so I go up to his room and tap on the door. He has tried to clean up the blood on the floor, but the rug will haveto be thrown out. "Adam?" I sayinto the gloom. He is lying in bed, his back to me. Hidden under the peaks and valleysof the rumpled covers,the glint of his blond hair is the only clue that an outlaw hidesin thesehills.I sit down on the edge of the bed, my weight causing him to roll

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Glimmer Train Stories

Ant Farm slightly, involuntarily, toward me. I am in shock at what he has almost cost his sistertonight, but I know he didn't mean to hurt her.Looking ar him,I think the truth is that we never set out to hurt each other. I can hear Erica reliving her experiencesto Brian in the adjacentroom, needing to examine it all, to learn her own imrnediate history now that she is safe."'What did you think when you saw my blood?" she asks."How much did the hospitalcost?" I don't know what to say or do. I put a hand on Adam's shoulderbut he doesn'tturn.'Wesit in silence,the earlyspring moon rising like a life in irs ascendancy, just outside his window. Usually I make speechesabout responsibiliry and consequence. But I haveno words tonight. All I haveeverhad were good intentions. I lean down then, and awkwardly scoop the upper half of my son'sbody into my arms.He is dense-far heavier,I think, than a girl of similar age.He does not resist,but remains motionless, as if to say,"This is my mother. I tolerate these displaysof affection,but I do not participatein them." I begin to rock him in the half-light as I did in his infancy, and we both watch the moon, which appearedso near,rising higher through the trees.It becomessmaller,brighter, more intense asit gainsdistance. Suddenly he sags,asif whatever was holding him rogerher, and us apart, has given way. He is now even heavier in my arms, and I imagine carrying him through blizzardsor war zones.I pull him closerand do not speak.n& I

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/h-

urL*(-

Russur BaNrs Writer

Since 1975, Russell Banks has publisheil thirteen works of fution including Trailerpark, Drift, Continental The Sweet Affliction, Hereafter, anil krle of the Bone. His most recent novel, Cloudsplitter, is also his most ambitious.Sevenyearsin the making and weighing in at 758 pages,Cloudspttter is thestory of the abolitionistJohn Brown, as narrated by his son RussellBanks Owenffty yearsafter the raid on Harper'sFerry.ThatBanks wouldcommitso muchtime and energytoJohn Brown's tale is not at all surprising,Much of the author'sfution is centereilon the relationshipbetweenblacks and whites in America and the legendaryabolitionist is buried lessthan ten milesJrom Banles'shomein upstateNewYork. The book'spublicationffiakesilemandson the writer's schedule.At the time oJ this interview,Banks had slept one night at

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Climmer Train Stoies, Issue32, Fall 1999 @ 1999 Rob Trucks

Writer homein the last threeweeksanil would leaueagain in lessthan forty-eight hours to begina seriesof reailingsin Canada.In the past week,alonehe hail celebrated hisfifty-eighth birthday,given five readings,and attended the Academy Awards. Yes,Banks's work. has also recently drawn the attention oJ Hollywood, a deuelopment that has not only inrreasedthe demandson his time but his uisibilityas well.An adaptationof the 7991 nouel,The Sweet Hereafter, earneddirectorAtomEgoyantwo Oscarnominations, and Banks and Egoyan will soon begin work on an original collaboration.The releaseoJ Paul Schradu'sailaptation o/ Affliction (starring Nick N olte,J ames C oburn,and Will em Dofor) is imminent,andfilmingwill soonbeginon Continental Drift, for which Banks seruedas bothsueenwriterandproilucer I spoke with Russell Banks at his home in Princeton, New Jersey. I guesswith the recentpublicationof Cloudsplitter, the most obuious questionto startwith is,WhyJohn Brown? Well, I think that'sa question you can askabout any novel in a way.'Why a school-bus accident?Why a fourteen-year-old mdl rat? Or,'Why a white whale, Mr. Melville? And you're going to get a similar answer from most writers, because there'sabraid of reasons.There's rarely,if ever,justone reason, if you look at it honestly and try ro understandit, or try to speakabout it honestly. I can saythat, on a personallevel-this is one strand in the braid-Brown was in my life in a vivid way when I was in my twenties in college in Chapel Hill in the middle sixties, becausehe was sort of an emblematic figure like Che Guevara.Very much like Che Guevara.He was a man of action whose idealsone could identi$r with.And his picture would be up on the wall of the SDS office or the SCLC office, and he crossedthose racial lines that a lot of us white kids were trying to crossduring that period, trying to do it in

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Inrerview:RussErr BaNrs a thoughtful and respectful and committed political way.He was also,at the sametime, uniquely connected to the literary figures that meant a great deal to me then, and still do.'\X/hich is to say the mid-nineteenth-century New England writers-theTranscendentalists,Thoreau and Emersonand so on. I loved Melville's poem about him, and evenlesserpoetslike John Greenleaf Whittier wrote about him. So he was a figure who was a part of my literary constellation,too. In addition to being a part ofmy political and socialconstellation,he was part of my literary constellation.And unique in that regard. So Brown was there at the beginning, but I was a kid and I couldn't have imagined writing about him-although at the time I couldn't have imagined but did wite about Simon Bolivar and other historicalfigureswithout much hesitation. But somehow I couldn't imagine him. I couldn't get to him. And then he kind of fadedfrom my consciousmind.But in 1987 Chase and I bought a house thar was going to be a summer house, and itt turned out to be our year-round housenow. It's up in the Adirondacksin the northeastcorner ofNewYork State,justsouth of Canadaa little ways,sourh of Quebec,and it turned out he wasburied up there.Not only was he buried there, but so were eleven others who were killed at F{arper'sFerry, or executed afterwards.He had lived there longer than he had lived anywhere else,and had run an undergroundrailroadstop there.And there had been a settlement of black families, of freed slavesand escapedslaves, living on land grants that they d been given by a wealthy NewYork abolitionist. in this ghostlyway all of a sudden-I mean, So his presence, really,it was almost like his ghost was in the woods, and also him physically.Thatarea,sincemost of it is stateforest,is not that different from the way it was in the 1840s and'50s visually,and I could walk through the woods and over those hills and even alongsidemany of those old roads,and know I

Glimmer Train Stoies

Writer wasinJohn Brown territory. So he wasphysicallypresent,and it didnt take me very long to begin to imagine his life there in that period.And I had been doing somelocal-historyresearch anyhow.I was kind of getting the background, really,of what turned out to be Brownt life. So it wasn'ta very complicated move for me.That'sthe personallinkup. Then, asI got (sort of superficially and tentatively) into the material of his life and the era and the whole abolitionist movement, pretty soon I began to seethat het a really mythical figure,and his story is a majorAmerican myrh, a historical myth.I really wanted to undersrandthat and seeit freshly.I mean, this is why so many poets and novelistsand dramatists and even movie makers have gone back to that story. It isn,t becauseof the personaliryof the man.It's really the arc of his life, and the end ofit, and the obsessive qualiry of it, and the fix that his life hason race,that drives people back to it again and again.Aslong asrace is a centralpart of our historical narratrve-and it is and will continue to be for a long, long timethen you go back to Brown and you try to reconnectwith him and re-understandthat. So there was that, which is a kind of a literary and maybe evensocialor historicalconnectionto Brown.Then I realized that for nearly r\,ventyyearsin one way or the other, certainly in at leastfour books, I had been writing about the African diasporafrom the white point of view. Thati another great and continuously retold story, but itt been told almost exclusivelyfrom the African-American perspective.yetitt a big white story roo. It's a big part of white history on this continent, in this hemisphere,the African diaspora,because we white folks obviously participated in it, and to the greatest degreecausedit, benefited from it, and havesufferedfrom it as well. I realizedthat I've had this sort of obsessionwith it over the years.I've come back to that story havebeen fascinatedby that story.Youknow, the Caribbean in TheBookof Jamaica,and, Fall 1999

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the Haitian exrension ofit in ContinentalDrft,andcerrainly a big chunk of Ruleof theBonedeal with ir from another angle. Brown is central ro thar srory becausehis story dealswith the mosr dramatic episodein it, in a way,outside of the actaalfact of slavery itse[ the commencement of slaveryitse]f So for literary reasons,I suppose,looking at the body of my own work, I thought this was a necessarything for me to do. There'sbeena recenttrend towardsthe rarge,hktorical work. ThomasPynchon,Don DeLillo, and yourse$ three white male Northeastern writersin theirfifties,haueaupublishedlarge,historical nouelsin thepast coupleof years.Cloudsplitter ls twiceas long as any of yourpreviousworks,and it tookyou at leasttwiceas long to write it. was theresomethingin your mind whereyou needeiror wantedto wrlte the Big Book.andJohnBrown wastheproytertopic, or did Browncome a sizableffirt? frst and necessitate I think rhe la*er. I Glt the desirero write this particular book about John Brown, or a novel based on the life of Brown, more accurately,and, of necessiryit would be a long, densebook.The histori cal narrative-for me anyhow,at least to do it in a realistic way-requircd a greatdeal of space,and I didnt want to just focuson one episodeor aspectof Brownt life. I felt that I needed ro cover quite a bit of time, at least twenty years,and that required me to fill out a lot of space. Also just the densiry of detail and background and material which would not be familiar ro mosr readers,and it being a historical fiction displacedby a hundred and fifty yearsfrom the time of its composition required me to explain a lot. I neededa lot of space,so I think thosewere all factors. Actually you've put your finger on an interestingphenom_ enon, really.A number of novelistsin their fifties are writing ambitious,historicalnovels,and that'sof someinterestto me. and I think that it probablyhasto do with a couple of factors. Somethingthat'strue, certainly,for the three you named,and you could add another half-dozen. Charles Johnson.Jane

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Writer Smiley's got a novel coming out right now that,s about the Kansaswars.John'Wideman had a historical novel a year or rwo ago set in Philadelphia,in the antebellumera.you could come up with a number of writers in my generation who are writing historical fiction, and I have a Geling this is in response to a culture-wide mindset-or a culture-wide confusion might be a better way to say it-a culture-wide confusion about what it means to be American. And for a novelist,that questionwill sendyou back in time. In the late fwentieth century we are extremely consciousof ourselves,as a people, of being hyphenated.'We'reAsianAmericans,African-Americans, Euro-Americans, Native Americans.Wete hyphenated.Tothe left of the hyphen we know what we are-Euro,Afro,Asian, or whatever.What we don't know is what really is embodied ro rhe right of the hyphen.'What does rhar mean?'V/hat do we share?'Why bother to call ourselvessomething-American, anyhow? It! historically true, at leastfor Americans,that when people are unsure about what it is to be themselves,their novelistsstart writing historicalfiction.In the 1830sand ,40sit wasnot that clear what it meant to be American. Fifry years after the revolution you could ask,Why arent we British?Well,politically we're not, but really,'Why arent we Bricish? And so Hawthorne writes The ScailetLetter andyou have Cooper and you have Irving and the major novelists, both South and North, of that era, wriring historical ficrion. And I think there'ssomething like that going on now. There's a certain kind of confusionand lack of confidencein what it meansto be American, and novelists are essentially,at bottom, mythmakers-mythmakers with regard to social identiry the tribe's identity. I mean a storyteller, basically,is creating, al_ ways,a myth about what it is to be whoever you are in this tribe.Why arewe in this tribe and living in this corner of the planet insteadof some other?

Fall 1999

lnterview:RussErr BRNrs Yourfiction oJthepast seuenor eightyearshas beentold with a moreconventional narratiue thanyourearlierwork..I'm thinkingin termsofform and structure.Hamilton Stark,for example,had a uniqueform, a uniquestructure. Doesthehistoricalfution, asaform, dictatein any way thestructureof the novelthat you haveto write? We11,Clowdsplitter is basicallyan epistolary novel.That's the form, and the structure of it is the arc of the iife of John Brown. See,I think of form and structure as two different things,almost as if one is exterior-form-and one is inte_ rior--structure-which grows out of the material that you're writing, the necessary pressures that the materialputs on the narrative structure, the narrative itself. The novel is in some waysa sum or a record of the tensionbetweenthe interior_ structure-and the exterior-form-and the limits of both. And I had the structure of it, becauseI had the material of Brown's life in hand. I could haveput a different form on it. It could've been a bildungsroman told by Owen Brown about growing up, in episodic ways. I could have used the same form basically that I used with Rule of the Bone,or I could have done it with four different narrarivesas I did with rhe SweetHereafter,that form, that choral form. But it seemedto me that a more intimate-and yet formalized in terms of rhetoric-mode for telling the story was rhe epistolaryso I elected to use that. I made that choice for lots of different reasons, but in somesenseit just kind of happened.It just was there and seemedto feel good and feel right and so I usedit. It wasn'tall that consciousa process. But to go back to the early part of the question,it is true that one readsmy earlier work with greaterawarenessof the artifices of fiction. They're worn almost on their sleeves. You're very aware of it.But I don't think that I've had any particular\ dramatic shift in my writing liG over the years from that early work, whether it's Hamilton Starkor Relation of My Imprisonment,particularly. It's just that I think I've be_

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Glimmer Train Stories

Writer come more skillful at hiding the form and lessinsecureabout it, and so what was an exoderm has in some ways been absorbedinto the text and made invisible,or lessvisible,to a more scrutinizing, analytical eye,maybe. When I was a younger writer I was acting out of some insecuriry and therefore tended to need to prove to myself and my readerthat I understoodthe traditionsand the forms and the formats of fiction, of modernist and post-modernist ficrion, and so I was assertingit more than I feei the need to do now. But in someways,you know, an awful lot of the overt aspectsof any work of art are telling. They tell us what the artist is insecureabout, in a way.What you push in the reader's face is very often what you're least secureabout.And asyou grow more secureabout it you think about it lessand you havelessnecessiryto assertit.Your trust is there and you don't have to worry about that. Do you any insecurity lookingbackon thosebooks? 'Well, feel not particularly.I mean,obviously I would write them differently today, but I think they have their own essential identiry and qualities.They'rejust different qualities than the work I'm writing now. I don't think they're less or more, necessarily.I have a sensethat all my books are failures and that none of them are finished, they'rejust abandoned.Thati a commonplace,almost.Most writers say that, one way or another,and mean it, too. But what that meansis that you can't then put your work in a hierarchy.You can't value one more than the other, becausethey're all failures in that essential sense,and you have to look at them that way and forgive them. So there'sno particularwork.that maintainsa softerspot? Oh yeah,but that'sfor reasonsoutside the text iself. Like. I have a great sentimental affection for The Relation of My Imprisonment,andithasa lot to do with the fact that nobody wanted to publish it. At rhe time I wrote it I waspublishing at

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Houghton Miffiin, and they didn't even want to look at it or think about it, and then later at HarperCollins, after I had published ContinentalDrift, rhey didn't want to deal with it. They said,'W'ell, ifyou want to go aheadand do it with a small press,you can do it.You won't be violating your contract, and so on. Like it was a big favor.Like,You want to go and play around on the side?Go ahead.Andthey condescendedto it, so it was published first, serially, in about six issues of a wonderful,mimeographed,stapled-together, Lower EastSide magazine called UnitedArtists. Bernadette Mayer and Louis Warsh were the editors. And then an editor at a small, wonderful pressin Los Angeles who had followed the serialization picked it up and publishedit in a small,veryhandsome edition. And then it was a different thing. Later, when Ballantinebrought all the paperbacksout in uniform editions, they picked it up, so it cameout asa nice tradepaperback,and now it's in the HarperCollins Perennial Library their trade paperback.So it's had a nice history,you know? It's sort of like the outcastthat managedto come in from the cold, so I have an affection for it for those reasonsif no other. While we'reon thesubjectof The Relation of My Imprisonment, do youfeel anypressure to writecommercially viablefiction? Wouldsomeone at HarperCollinshemorrhage you wrotekeletion, f PartTwo? They'd publish it, but they'd hate the idea, and they wouldn't offer me a big advance,thati for sure.But any pressureI haveto write commercialfiction, or fiction other than that which is driven by a personalobsession, comesfrom me, myself.I put it on myseif, or would have to put it on myself, fiction getspublished.I becausemy own personal-obsession mean,it's a different position for a younger writer who'sjust sort of worried and trying hard to get his or her work in print.They may think,Well, maybe if I just shadeit this way or shadeit that way then I can get it published,but there are

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Climmer Tratn Stories

Writer no assurances that itt going to reach print. I mean, I have at leastthat, assurance that itt going to reachprint. I don't have assuranceitt going to sell,or be popular, ot that critics are going to like it or anything else,but at leastI'm pretry sureI can get over that first hurdle. I can get it into print in any number of ways, and that's been true, you know, for a long time. So that doesn't put pressureon me. After that it becomesa desireto be loved by asmany people aspossible.you never know the degree to which you're immune from that desire.Andyou need an immuniry becauseit's like a sickness, that desire.It's a sneakysicknessand it getssneakierasyou get older and more popular. In a way,it becomesmore insidious. It can really creep in without your being awareof it, because other people,they'restroking you. How conscious areyou of thereaderwhenyou'rewriting?Wereyou moreconscious with this book? I'm not consciousof the readerparticularly.WhenI'm not writing, I'm consciousof the readercertainly,and conscious of my career,aswe call it, but I'm not consciousof the reader when I'm working. I've worked very hard since I was young to separatemy careerfrom my work, becausethe careeris the part that I have no control over, or very, very little control over,and it's got nothing to do with the work. It's like manaLging, you know, a mutual-stock fund or something like that. I don't know enough about it to do it, so I don't. Let somebody elsedo it. But the work I know a lot about.I'm the only one who knows about it. Nobody elseknows about my work but me. Not even my wife knows what I really want to do, or what I really want to say,or what I really feel or intuit. I don't even know what it is half the time until it's there. But that's where I can do something and can control things, and so when I'm there I don't think about audienceat all.When I'm not there,I do think about audience.Sure,I think aboutit. I'm not going to play somekind offaux naive.l think about it and

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Inrerview:RussErr BRNrs I think I've been reasonablycautiousand carefuland knowledgeable in my handling of my career,but I can say with confidencethat I dont think about my readerat all when I'm writing.That would be death to the writing, for me. I write books that have an effecton me. and thatt t}re main reasonwhy I write, for how they will affectme.Not thrill me, although I hope that will happen,nor move me, but $o that it will make me a more intelligent person, and maybe even, if possible,a more decent person.Writing Cloudsplitter, for rnstance,made me more intelligent about a number of things: about race, about relations between fathers and sons,about sex-Owen, after all, has a sexual identity that plays a significant role-about the interweaving between sex and race in America, about American history. It just made me more intelligent about those things,becauseI put myself at open-endedrisk in the writing of the book, and that'swhat the book\ about.That I'm working within the disciplinesof an att meansit may connect with other human beings in a way that resemblesthe way the writing of it connectedto me. But afterthe book is done and out, then you look around.I mean,I can take a look at it.I'm a somewhateducatedreader of this book, and I can look at it somewhatfrom the outside and I can see,Yes, this will appealto certain people. Or not. If you don't alreadyknow something about American history for instance,this book is going to be troublesome.I have a French publisher and an Italian publisher and so on, and they look at this manuscript and they say,Well, I do4't know. Maybe we need a glossary.Wedont know a lot of this stufI, and who a lot of thesepeople are.And that's a way of considering your reader.I think in those terms I do consider my reader,after the fact,in a kind of demographicor sociological way. And I suppose,naturally,I want the book to be popular. I want the book to reach as many readersas possible,for variousreasons, someof them venaland someof them not so.

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Glimmer Train Stoies

Writer Do you knowwhichof yourbool<s hassoldthe most? Over the years ContinentalDrift, because it's taught the most, but with the initial publication it didn't sell very much. It'sjust that over the yearsit kind of settledinto a comfortable role within the culture, generally, so that an ar,r,{ullot of people under twenry-five have read it.They read it in school, or their friends told them to read it, or something like that. But the initial publication didn't sell very well. In terms of intial publication,then, I would sayprobablythe most recent, Cloudsplitter,butbefore that it wasRule oJtheBone.Eachbook has sold more on initial publication than the previous, but somehave greaterstayingpower. Some are strongerasbacklist books. I know there'snot a directrelationshipbetweensalesand quality, in thosenumbers in termsof learning butdoyoufind anysignificance why eachbookhasdone aboutyour audience? Do you understand Are you comfortable what it hasin termsoJsales? with Continental Drift beingyourbest-selling work?I wouldimaginethatThe Sweet Hereafter is quicklycatchingup. Well, actually,I was just about to say my agent called me earlier and shehad some salesfigures over the last few months for The SweetHereafter,and it's gone through the roof, but that's obviously becauseof the film tie-in. It happened to be Oscar week, and it got a tremendous amount of publicity for the previous couple of months. Fine Line was advertising the film, but they were advertising it in terms of the book often enough and sometimes playing my name up as big as they were playing up the director's name.What's that got to do with quality?Thatt just the luck of the draw,the accident of a film being made, so I don't think there's any correlation between qualiry and numbers.There may be a correlation between the quality of a book and its stayingpower,its ability to continue to be readfor no reasonother than it continuesto speakto people'slivesin an ongoing way.Peoplecontinue to

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read RuIeoJtheBone.Thatseemsto be largely becauseyounger readerstalk to each other and passit on. It hasa real life with kids now. Bone rsyoungetreaders? Do you think theprimaryaudiencefor I didfnd a copyin the young-aduksectionof the NewYork Public Library. Thatt great.I think the NewYork StateEducation Board hasjust approvedit for being taught in public high schools, which pleasesme immensely. Probably it's natural, and t continuing audiencewould be younger readerswho would connect to Boneand would feel that their lives,in many ways, are validated by the book and affirmed by the book. That would be great. wereyou o/ Huck Finn when you werewriting How conscious Rule of the Bone? Totally. with? Is it an homage? What termwouldyou becomfortable It's an homage and a critique.There's an intertextual dialogue that I was trying to set up and particip atein with Huck Finn.Definitely it was there. I mean,thewotds wasn'taccidental. Well,l knowtheconnection "light out" do appearat theend. Absolutely. It's throughout. I want to not only bow down beforeHuck Finnbut alsoto arguewith it and to point out,by similarities,the differencesbetweenTwain'sworld and Banks's world, the 1870sand 1990s.He's a middle-agedman writing about a teenagedkid, obviously an adolescentversion of himself, and I was doing something very similar these many yearslater.It would be absurdfor me to even begin to write a book about a kid like that without first giving more than a passingnod in the direction of HuckleberryFinn, and then going on-by noting the similarities, by seeding the book with plenry of similarities to note that there'sa big difference in our worlds. I mean,the world haschangedin &amatic and

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Glimmer Train Stoies

Writer frightening ways in rhe intervening years. In what senseareyou arguingwith Huc[eberry Finnl I only mean that figuratively. I think that basically what I mean is, not arguing with it, but adding to it.That's a better way to think about it. That book establishes a tradition in American literature that most writers participate in, consciouslyor not, and I was consciousof participatingin it and wanted to extend the tradition into the late twentieth century, because there's so much in the book that's still valid and applicable. It's a great, classicwork of art. But all the best stories,We Odyssey,The Iliad,haveto constantlybe retold,can be constandy retold. That's what we mean by classics. They can be retold. Not just updated, but retold so we can hear again and recycle,apply again to our lives with fresh eyesand ears,the essentialinsightsand power that that tradition holds. This certainlywasn'tthefirst time that you workedfroma specific literary reference. I'm thinking that Tnllerpark is a response to Winesburg, Ohio, and that the short storyfrom Trailerpark, "Black Man and White Womanin Dark CreenRowboat,,,came from Dreiser3An American tagedy. Naturally those are important points of reGrence for me in the writing of the story and of that book, but there are others aswell. Tiailerparbisin some waysa responseto my reading of The CanterburyThles,too, and Dubliners.There are various levelsof responsein, I think, any work ofliterature.you don't write in a vacuum.You participate.That'sone of the great, satisfyingthings about being a fiction writer or a poet, an artist of any kind. Nobodyt dead.you participare in the tradition.You become one with thesebooks,and thesetexts become part of your immediate daily life, and so you enrer into that conversationand hope you become part of rhe chorus in the courseof writing the book. It's inevitable.Iti inescapablefor me. I've been a compulsive reader since my youth, sinceadolescence, so how could I not end up having a Falt 1999

31,

RussErr BaNrs Interview: conversationof that sort?Having my work be a responseto the works, the books that I've read? Can wego to eithera shortstoryor a noveland talk.aboutthe particularprocess? Actually there's a double source for the short story you mentioned,"Black Man and'White'Woman in Dark Green Rowboat."'Well,not source.It respondsto Dreiser,certainly, in terms of the psychology of the characters,but it reverses and playswith it so that the victim is the man, in a sense.But also itt a responseto a Hemingway story in how it's structured. So the psychology in a way,and the erotic component of it comesout of Dreiser,but certainlythe form of the story and the arrangement-one might even saythe architecture of the story-comes out of "Hills Like'White Elephants."The physicalpositioning of the charactersand the movement of the boat, when they turn and so forth, is very much learned from Hemingway. I mean, I learned how to do that from Hemingway, how to dramatize by moving the characters around physically in relation to each other and in relation to the landscape.Wherethey are in the lake and in the boat is all very carefully orchestrated or choreographed, and I didn't know how to do that until I read Hemingway's stories. youjustfinished Whenyou sitdowninJrontof thekeyboard,have readingtheHemingwaystory,or areyou workingfromsomedistant memory? Usually I'm working from memory and what's retained. I read like a writer and what stayswith me is often what has resonancefor me asa writer. It might be a falsememory,too. It often is.If I go back and rereadit,I say,Well,it wasn'tlike I remembered it at a17. But if it getsyou thestory... Right. It's what I needed from it. So it isn't necessarilya closereadingby any means.It's associationaland semetimes it's intuited, and it's strongenough or raisesquestionsfor what

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Writer I really was respondingto, that I'll go back ro rhe text. I did that with Cloudsplitter. As I was nearing the end of it I was hearing certain tones,you know? I'd orchestratedthesevarious pieces, and I was starting to hear tones that were reminding me of tonesar rhe end of Moby Dick.Andl wanted to get it right and I remembered that rhere's a beautiful diminuendo ending to Moby Dicle.'Ihat was how I remembered it. I didnt remember ir as like the grear, cataclysmic ending.There is a cataclysmand then there is a diminuendo, and I was rememberingthet and that's what I was reaching for. I was starting to hear the necessityfor that. Coming down from Harper's Ferry I thought,There hasto be a diminuendo. It can'tjust sort of be like,That's all, folks.There hasto be a follow-through.I was orchesrratingit almost musically in my mind, so I went back and read the lastforry fifry pa;ges of Moby Dick. to see how he did that. Really, it was pacing I was looking at,and the rhetoric, to seehow the rhetoric kind of cooled down, and how the narrativebecamemore direct at the end,and how the whole voice waslowered.And I studied it consciously,but I was led there by what I deeply remembered,not having readMoby Dickin twenty-five years, so I think it operatesthat way, too. Sometimesyou will go directly back to the text and seehow itk done,but you're led there becauseyou have this memory of it.You're led there becausewhat's unfolding on the page is leadingyou rhere.Ir's in responseto what'sunfolding on the page. Was "The Cuinea-Pig Lady" the first story written for Trailerpark? Yeah.Actually, they were pretty much written in the order they appear.Thatbook is more orchestratedthan it looks.It's more formal than it looks. I remember planning it out very carefully,the order in which the stories would be written. Youknew it wasgoing to bea bookbeforeyou wrotethe stories? Yeah.Thatone I definitely did.I had a castof characters, and

33

Interview:RussErr BaNrs I was trying to structureit, in someways,like an opera.All of the charactersappear in the first story.All of the characters appearin the end story.Also,eachof the charactersassumeda role in my mind as a member of the tribe-the wartrior, the magician,the fool, and so on. The mother, the virgin, the initiate.Merle Ring,the fishermanat the end,isthe magician. And the guinea-pig lady is the fool, and they re both at the extreme outside of the communiry but they have the greatest power over the communiry too. So those piecesand those relationshipswere worked out in my mind. I don't remember, at this point, what the exact detailswere, but I do know that they all had roles and I was trying to write a novel that wasn't a novel, but that was,in an important way to me, a portrait of acommumry. Whichis not all that dissimilarto yourattemptwithThe Sweet Hereafter. Exacdy. I think it's much more successfulin The Sweet Hereafter.I was trying to avoid having a hero. I was really playing with the whole idea of having a hero by avoidance. Can you write a novel without a hero? Can you usethe termprotagonktin thesamesenseashero,or do term? you haueto staywith theclassical I think you can say protagonist. A single, central figure. What James called the emotional center of the narrative.A single person where all values are tested.Any action which occurs is important in so far asit affectsthat character.And so Trailerparkis kind of a crude attempt to do what I think I did much more successfullyinThe SweetHereafter,butin The Sweet HereafterI gaveup the ambition of making each of the separate parts stand alone and satisfythe needs of drama in the short story. Trailerparkis a very schematic book in a v/ay. Sometimesmaybe too schematrc. probabtyputs too muchpressureon memory,but This question soit\ stillfamiliar, whenyoutalkaboutwritingthestorysequentidlly

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Writer there'sa certainamountof time that it takesto write eachchapter. Was therea relationshipin the time it toob to write eachof the chapters? Theret literd time and then there'swriting time,and rhey're di{ferent. They really have different clocks. However long it takesme to write a certain section of a book is no indication of how long that secrion of the book is. It's the samething with ContinentalDrift.AlJ, of those sectionsare approximately the samelength. Some ofthem may have taken me a week to write and others may have taken fwo months, but for me that's the same amount of time. It's the same amount of imaginative time. Youtooka breakwhenyou werewritingCloudsplitter.Is that the That youput something aside? frst timeit's euerhappened? Yeah.I think so.I think I probably have stoppedbefore in the middle of a novel to write a short story now and then. How far wereyou inro Cloudsplitter beforeyou took.q break? I think I was probably rwo-thirds through Cloudsplitter when I pulled away from it and wrote Rule of the Bone.Then I went back to Cloudsplitter,and then the last third I went through pretty fast.I did a lot of revising and changing after that, but just getting it down wenr pretty Ast. I think I got bogged down and scared of Cloudsplitterin some ways, becausethere wasjust so much material to organize and to structure into a coherent and compelling story. 'W'hat to leave out, what to put in, how much to allow myself to digress,controlling the pacing. It was hard work. Harder work than anything I d tried before. It's as good as I can do now. I learneda lot and maybe I can do better next time, but I was certainly working ashard as I could. It wasn'ta choiceto pull awayfromit? It wassomethingthat had to bedone? 'Well, you know, it didn't work quite like that. I didn't want to go away from it, but it wasjust aswell and wise that I did.

Fall 1999

J5

Interview: RussErr BaNrs Sometimesyour sleepingselfis a lot smarterthan your waking self,and I just thought,'Well,I'll stop and write a shogtstory about this kid, becauseI was really getting into thesekids and the kid's voice, and I was getting into that world, being seducedby it. And I said,Well,I d love to tell this funtry story about this kid stealinghis grandmother'scoins and using it for dope, and then he doesn't know it until they're alll gone becausehe stole one or two at a time.The story appealedto me, the setupwith the kid, the kid's voice. I could hdar that, because I really like kidspeak. So I wrote the story what became the first chapter of the book, as a story.And I said, Wait a minute. This is more than that. This is opening up a whole world here.Thisis just a door.This is just a way in.It's not a very good short story but it's really a way in to a larger world that I'm fascinatedby, and a character I really, already, love. ['ve only been with him for ten or fifteen pagbsand I alreadylove him. So that'swhen I decided to go aheadand see how long it would take me. John Brown was goinlg to be around a long, long time anyhow. Therewas net)erany doubt that you wouldgo back/o Cloudsplitter? No. Never.I never thought of abandoningit.I just knew it would be there-I d already done too much work afld I was too committed to it to fear that I wouldn't finish it. $ut then when I got into the other book, I realized,Boy, it'd a good thing I'm doing this, becauseI didnt know what the fuck I was doing for a while there,for the last six months,lon that book. And maybe I'll know when I go back,freshenedby this. And it was true. It was the case.When I got bac!