Speaker 1 00:01:21 You are listening to right on radio on cafe in 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Josh Weber tonight on radar radio, Dave FEDEC, we'll be talking with Kathleen West. The author of, are we there yet? Her second novel. She's a veteran teacher with a degree in English, from McAllister college and a master's in literacy education from the university of Minnesota. She lives in Minneapolis with her A-plus family, her wonderful golden doodle, but her B minus dogs. And I'm Annie
Speaker 2 00:01:53 Harvey. Uh, also on tonight's show, Liz old's talks with John Brandon, the author of ivory, Scholz, rich and dead pan humor, as well as visceral details that aluminate a diverse cast of characters, ivory, shawls, uncovers, deep truths about family and self-determination as the reader tracks, Gussie's dangerous Odyssey out of childhood. Brandon teaches at Hamlin university here in Minnesota, all this and more. So stay tuned to write on radio.
Speaker 3 00:02:36 Thank you. And I'm Dave and I'm here with Kathleen West. Welcome. Kathleen. Does the studios
Speaker 4 00:02:40 Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be talking into a real radio microphone and we're delighted
Speaker 3 00:02:45 To have you it's. It's great. So let's start Kathleen, by having you set up the novel, give us an overview of what it's about and we are talking about, are we there yet? And then a set up your reading for us please? Sure.
Speaker 4 00:02:56 Um, are we there yet is about Alice Sullivan, who a late thirties mom, who feels like she's finally getting her life back because her youngest child is in the second grade. So she's feeling pretty great about herself. Um, until one morning she goes to her second graders, parent teacher conference, and learns that she's about eight levels behind in reading. Um, and then from there is some injury to the middle school to hear about her son Teddy's disturbing bullying type behaviors. And this has these new like problems, especially her son create ripple effects in her friend group and in the community, her reputation, et cetera.
Speaker 3 00:03:32 And we'll talk more about that. Yeah. So what's our reading. Oh, our
Speaker 4 00:03:35 Reading is right when she gets to that assistant principal's office to talk about her son's bad behavior. And I'll just give a little hint of how clueless she is, um, about it. And I might interrupt myself if I, if there's something confusing, Mrs. Sullivan, he wrinkled his nose. Why don't you and I talk first, Alice tugged at the end of her scarf and wished again, that Patrick could be here. She glanced back at Teddy wary. As she followed the administrator into his brightly lit office. The placard on his desk read Jason Whittaker before she was ready. Her left arm only halfway out of her jacket. He launched in, as you may know, Mrs. Sullivan, it's been a difficult start to seventh grade for Teddy difficult start. Alice pulled her arms free and shoved the downfield jacket behind her. She blinked at the smaller letters engraved on the nameplate assistant principal is this about the midterm comment from the band teacher.
Speaker 4 00:04:27 Jason clicked his mouse and read off his monitor. This is actually my third interaction with your son. His third disciplinary infraction. He clarified in the last four weeks. The note Alice had written herself at Adrian's conference just 15 minutes before a flash into her consciousness level. IE she'd scrawled fear and embarrassment seizing her. And now there were three disciplinary infractions at middle-school and there'd been that aggressive text to Alice Springs, blinked rapidly and hot tears. Welled. Mr. Whitaker pushed a box of Kleenex toward her without making eye contact. I had no idea. She said her voice breathy don't you check the portal portal. Alice felt like a malfunctioning robot. All she could do was a namely repeat his words. Meredith had mentioned the portal, but Alice had talked her friends vigilance up to overprotectiveness after all Meredith had cut CD's grapes in half until she was in second grade.
Speaker 4 00:05:19 She religiously read teacher's Friday newsletters, top to bottom, Alison Nadia lightly mocked. These behaviors skimming those weekly newsletters after all had always served. Alice just fine. Teddy has always been a great student, always A's and B's she said now I haven't really had to track his homework. Jason rubbed his chin. Well, he said sometimes things look smooth on the outside, but there's a lot happening under the surface. That might be true for other kids. Alice thought, but not for Teddy. He'd always been completely transparent. Geillis her mother had said more than once as Alice's his mom had a PhD in child psychology, Alice trusted her implicitly. He's never had any behavioral problems before Alice insisted
Speaker 3 00:06:00 Foreshadowing. Uh, so thank you for that. That was Kathleen West reading from, are we there yet? Her latest novel. So Kathleen people talk about ripped from the headlines stories. This for me, felt like a rip from the, uh, neighborhood story or a soccer field story. If you will, it's really comes from the gut and in a contemporary American family life, uh, where did these storylines and these characters come from?
Speaker 4 00:06:23 Well, I have to say that I've been a teacher for 20 years. So a lot of my stories, um, kind of spring from life in the classroom, or just the privilege of knowing multiple families and thinking about all of the challenges that they faced and that I've helped them walk through over the years and this particular story isn't based on any one kid or family, but, um, I imagine a lot of problems for other people and I myself am the mom of two teenagers. So I kind of think of the worst case scenario that could happen in my house and then give it a, what if yeah,
Speaker 3 00:06:56 And you, and you paint a very realistic worst case scenario. Uh, and I'm so glad that my kids grew up a little bit too late for the phones. Le let's talk about what drives the narrative here. Well, where the problems come from for these kids and their parents.
Speaker 4 00:07:10 Well, social media plays a huge role in the problems that the kids get into in this story. Um, but it's not just like a social media is terrible story because that's not actually what I believe about social media. And even if I did, I'm not sure how realistic it is to be raising a kid right now. And I expect that they not have a phone. Right. So, um, so I think the problem is when you're, you're using your phone and you have access to instant communication and all kinds of apps, et cetera, is that, um, when you're angry or sad or frustrated, um, it's easy to act impulsively and not think through the potential consequences of your behavior. And I think that's what's going on here. And actually I wanted to play with the idea that a lot of the problems, um, especially for Sadie, she's another of the middle school characters.
Speaker 4 00:08:01 Um, her biggest trouble that she gets into kind of happens because her mom has a very strict rule about a phone cutoff time. Her mom turns off her apps at 9:00 PM. Like there's an as a parent, you can have an app that lets you control your kids access to certain things in her. Mom's shuts her phone off at 9:00 PM. And a kid asks her for a photo at like 8 57. And so she doesn't have a long time to think about whether or not she wants to do that before that cutoff. So I really liked the idea of playing with this idea of, um, the mom's trying to keep her safe in that that policy that's designed to keep her safe actually is what gets her in trouble. They're
Speaker 3 00:08:37 Very complex characters. There are moments when, as a reader we feel like, okay, we're supposed to not like this kid, or we're supposed to love this kid. And then a chapter or two later, the whole thing's flipped on us. Uh, and it's, it's a page Turner. I was, I want to mention that right now, it's, it's an American domestic sort of novel and it's a page Turner. You just want to know what happens next to these kids. And I want to talk about how you set that up, but before we do, you mentioned Alice and we had that reading, uh, this is in large part of book about what is family for me too. I mean, she has a very complex family. Um, we want to describe that for our listeners
Speaker 4 00:09:13 Please. Sure. Um, as an added complexity for Alice, um, she finds out a big family secret, right at the beginning of the book when her kids are having such a hard time and that's that her mom had had a baby when she was 19 that she placed for adoption. And now has reunited with that, that woman who she really, um, desperately wants to integrate into their family. So Alice has to kind of think about her role as being a daughter, um, and the ways that she's relied on her mom throughout her life and, and what they might owe each other at this point in her life. And of course the new daughter, Adrienne, who comes into their, um, family is, uh, perfect in every way. Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. So, and she's like a child psychologist herself and the mom is a child psychologist. So, uh, Alice feels really on the outside
Speaker 3 00:10:03 And Alice is an interior designer and I loved the metaphor. Um, certainly intentional of how perfect she could make interiors, other people's interiors in her own interior home while she was an absolute wreck inside herself. It's a beautiful metaphor.
Speaker 4 00:10:20 Thank you for noticing that. Um, I had a really fun, I had a really fun time playing with that and I also had a fun time playing with the idea that her mom who was more of like an earth mother, um, hippie kind of person, uh, she kind of judges Alice's profession and feels that it might be shallow for her to try to make everything look perfect and that judgment Alice can feel it. And that's part of their dynamic as well.
Speaker 3 00:10:47 Yeah. Um, they love each other, uh, and they challenge each other. Um, and I thought that the mother, Evelyn, I have the names, right? Yeah. Um, she, she starts really getting tough on Alice. And I said, so do you, by the way, I
Speaker 4 00:11:04 <inaudible> husband read the book and he's like, oh, bad things just keep happening to her. And she keeps making the wrong choices. And I was like, well, Dan, like, can you please name a story or a television show that you've enjoyed where it's just a happy day for all of the characters involved. This is how a story has to go. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:11:26 Poor Ellis. If you write a followup, I want Alice in that story for sure. So Teddy is a nice, complicated young boy and you really write him beautifully as a former young boy myself, a long time ago. How did you do that? I mean, you write about boys and men. It's not always easy.
Speaker 4 00:11:43 No. Um, I think one thing that my teaching career has done for me is, is kind of have a, like a view into the teenage head, you know, like I've been able to, to write kids, I think. Um, and I, I love reading kids, but you can always tell when they're a little bit off. Um, but I've spent so much time with them. I started teaching in 1999 and I've taught lots and lots of grade levels. Um, so getting inside the middle school brain, isn't too hard for me. What was really hard about Teddy was in the first few chap times, I tried to write him the chapters that I shared with my writer's group. They were like, I don't get it as this kid is sociopath. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. He's just a normal kid. Um, so I had to kind of figure out how to show his, his softer side or his, um, the full range of his emotions and reactions to things. And that took a long time to get him.
Speaker 3 00:12:36 Yeah. So let's talk more about Teddy. We, we, we have to talk about Teddy Lionel Shriver.
Speaker 4 00:12:44 I cut off my, uh, reading at the beginning because I didn't want to go on too long, but in that same conversation, his mom finds out the real reason that she's at the principal's office is that he has pants to kid onstage at school, in front of the 500 person, seventh grade class and full pants, full pants. And he says it was an accident. And I think he actually believes that it was an accident. Yeah. I don't think he meant it. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I think Teddy would appreciate that too. Um, but anyway, there's big consequences for that. And it's so public and every parent in the whole seventh grade at school hears about it because it's such a big, um, event. So he had that going on and, and he just feels desperately misunderstood. And, and then he gets betrayed by his friends too, and kind of in the aftermath, he loses his phone for a while and a lot of stuff goes down at school after this event, um, people taking sides, et cetera,
Speaker 3 00:13:40 He's absolutely devastated by a friend
Speaker 4 00:13:45 Terrible. And that's one thing this book is about to he's devastated by CD. Um, the other girl that I mentioned, and I kind of wanted to explore this idea about friendships changing over time on both the adult level and the kid level. And I think sometimes people don't know what to do with friendships that dissolve. Um, but I think it's okay to be friends for a while and then to grow apart and, and to leave that with okay feelings. And that happens to some adults in this book. Um, but I think it's also happening to Teddy and Sadie. And in their case, it becomes very painful. But in middle school, that's a very normal occurrence that all of a sudden the kids you've played with in elementary school were going in different directions. We don't have to dislike each other, but how do you, how do you navigate that change from being like everyday best friends to just kind of people who know each other, it can be really hard
Speaker 3 00:14:34 And similarly hard for adults. Again, another nice thing here, we have this thing going on with the kids, and then we have this single nine with adults and mostly the women, the mothers, um, who come and go in terms of their, their relationships, um, intentional parallels there, it just sort of happens
Speaker 4 00:14:51 Intentional parallels. And I mean, this happens so often I feel like I don't want to jinx myself or say the wrong thing by saying, I'm on the tail end of parenting. I've got a 17 year old, so he's going to be on his way to college next year. And I know I'm not done I'm out of this particular phase. And what I've noticed is you do kind of get thrown together with people, like, depending on who who's on your kid's soccer team or, or who are the other hockey parents, and those people become people that you see all the time. And, and do you actually have anything in common and the three women in this story, um, meet each other at kindergarten Roundup, and then they're just friends kind of by default. Um, and then during the course of this story, this school year, that seventh grade year, um, they, I think at least two of them realized, like we don't actually have that much in common and it would be okay for us to go our separate ways. Well,
Speaker 3 00:15:45 In my household, uh, middle school should be abandoned completely. Right. Well, I usually just go to a K through eight school. Yeah. I could have done that. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Instead of complaining, that's what I like to do. Uh, so, um, uh, th the way you wrote the novel, uh, you chose to change point of view every chapter, uh, for me, that's not easy to do, do you even think about doing, if I were trying to write something like that, but it can, it can be challenging for a reader and I want to just full stop that everyone knows listening. It works. Um, but I wasn't sure it would for me, because I'm often challenged by that. So, uh, you pulled it off and, uh, I think I know how you did it, but, uh, why'd you go this route,
Speaker 4 00:16:30 You want to know how you think I did it so that maybe I could do it again someday, but I'll tell you my inspiration. Um, my, I am a huge fan of Liane Moriarty, most famous from big little lies, but, um, and I thought about writing a novel for such a long time. Um, and then finally, when I was 36 parallel with Alice, like my youngest son was in first grade, I felt like I was getting my life back a little bit. And I was like, well, if I want to write a novel, I better just try to write a novel. And right around that time, I started reading Liane Moriarty, and I was like, oh my gosh, I love these books. They're so readable. You can read them on the beach or on the airplane, but they work on the sentence level and people would love to discuss them. So she was a real model for me. And she moves point of views and points of view, um, in a, in a similar way sometimes. So, um, that was kind of where I got the idea. I wrote my first book in the same style, and then it really worked for me. And I like it. I like it because you can really get into the heads of each character and,
Speaker 3 00:17:31 And, and that's not, well, it's challenged for you, but yeah. Okay. So why I think it works is you keep this thing moving. Uh, the chapters are brief, uh, and, uh, it's really focused on the next action and, uh, there's no scene that's wasted here. Uh, and, and yet a lot of great writing. And if people listened closely while you were reading, um, contemporary America is in this novel thick, uh, references to, you know, everything on the kitchen shelves to Harry Potter. And everything's that I don't know about, uh, anymore, because the kids are doing them.
Speaker 4 00:18:07 So what really works. Thank you. I, I should, I wish I could just tell you that it worked for the very first time and it just flew off the pen just like that, but that's not true. Not true. No, it takes me a long time to even understand like what the order of the events should be and who, who gets, which chapter and, and arc for each of the point of view characters. And, um, I don't know, I'm not, I don't know if there's such a thing as efficiency in writing, but if there is, I'm not the model of it.
Speaker 3 00:18:38 We are talking to Kathleen West author of the novel. Are we there yet? She is our very own Minneapolis writer. Yay. Uh, and we've mentioned, you've mentioned your first novel a couple of times, so we're going re read it on air. We're gonna mention the title, minor dramas and other catastrophes. It's on my list.
Speaker 4 00:18:54 Okay. Okay. Good. That one I is based on my time teaching at EDA and high school. Oh, actually, so it's not much more of a school novel. Um, and there's a English teacher, main character who resembles me quite, quite well. And, um, then a helicopter theater mom freaks out about the school's cast list. Oh yeah. Write that down. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:19:18 You mentioned Sadie. Um, I was struck by her. She seemed really strong. I expected her to just collapse at some point it become a mess and she doesn't, she's really got a backbone. Uh,
Speaker 4 00:19:30 Am I reading her right? Yeah, I think so. CD's mom is the one who cut her grapes until she was in second grade. Her mom, you know, Alice has never heard of the portal and Meredith her mom texts it three times a day, once in the morning, once to see how homework load is going to be. And then once, you know, like, so, um, they're kind of opposite in their approaches. And CD is all the time trying to figure out like how to get what she wants in that hyper controlled environment, but it's not like she hates her mom or dad. She doesn't, it's more like she's just trying to live her life around, around the structures that they have set up. And she makes some really major missteps that make her mom rethink the way that she's been doing things. Um, but then there's a scene at the end that what, maybe I shouldn't say too many spoilers, but this isn't really a spoiler. She has this great scene with her grandmother that I really enjoyed writing where she talks about. She doesn't feel like with her parents, that she can talk through her mistakes. She feels like mistakes are meant to be explained away or avoided completely or, um, hidden and never spoken about. Um, and with her grandmother, she confesses everything and kind of sees that she's can still be loved in spite of it. And that's, I think what changes her relationship with her mom,
Speaker 3 00:20:45 And that was a beautiful scene. And if I remember correctly, uh, uh, surprising touch was the grandma really doesn't say anything if at all, she's just there and present. And, um, I thought that was a powerful choice on your part. Was that obvious to you?
Speaker 4 00:20:59 You know, that was when I love it when this happens and it happens so rarely where I, I just have an inkling of where I should put the characters. Um, like in that case, they're washing dishes after Thanksgiving and CD's helping her grandmother with the dishes. And then I don't really know what they're going to say. And then it happens. And I would say that's like one scene out of 40 that I write that that happens like that, but that was one of them. Um, and then I just have the grandmother kind of make eye contact with the mom, who'd come into the room and, and, and they both get to hear it together. Um, so I didn't know that was going to be that way before I started writing it.
Speaker 3 00:21:35 We've mentioned a number of characters. I wonder if it would be helpful to sort of explain this web and how they sort
Speaker 4 00:21:41 Of sure. Play off each other and come together. Yeah. You know, this book, it's really hard to give it like a one line description, which is probably a marketing problem. It's not a reading problem. Um, there's Alison her family. So Alice is married to Patrick. Patrick is an attorney and travels a lot for business and he's out of town, um, doing a, like a class action lawsuit. And so he's been, he's traveling during the week and home on the weekends. And of course, all of this hits the fan when he's doing his traveling. And, um, and then Alice, his mom is kind of part of that cluster of characters. And then I mentioned, the mom has a secret daughter, so that's like Alice's family. And then there's, Alice's friends that are the other group of characters, um, including Sadie and her mom. And then there's a kid Donovan. We don't, he's not a point of view character, but, um, his mom is Nadia and Donovan is like the, the bad kid. Like he's been bad quote unquote bad since third grade and, and serious behavior problems he's been in therapy. And the other two moms always think like, well, Donovan's like that, or Nadia is that kind of mom. And then they, their own kids get in trouble. And so, and so that kind of shakes that up. Yeah. We,
Speaker 3 00:23:00 We often talk about, I like to ask authors about craft and how they write work when they work. That kind of thing. We chatted a little bit about this before the show, but, uh, so you are a mom and a teacher and you're busy. And when do you work?
Speaker 4 00:23:12 Well, my first novel, I wrote from 4 45 to 6:15 AM. I know. Um, and I am an early to bed person, but I'm also an eight hours of sleep per night person. So I couldn't really get the eight hours of sleep. And I was doing the 4 45 to six 15, but that was the only time. So, and I really wanted to give it a try. So I did it then. And then after my first book sold, um, my publisher bought a second book as well. This book, so minor dramas sold and they bought, are we there yet before I had written it <inaudible> plotting in the students and I only had it to write it. So I didn't think I could continue doing my teaching job at the level that I expect of myself. So I resigned my position at the end of the 20 18, 19 school year.
Speaker 4 00:23:59 And I didn't teach at all in 20, 19 20 20. And that's when I really wrote this book. Um, but during that year I found that I really missed teaching. In fact, um, I think especially during the pandemic, because I realized that teaching is my coping mechanism. Like if you have to be the put together adult in the room, then you have to deal with the world. Like you can't stay in bed. Like you have to get out of bed and tell the kids everything's going to be okay. So, and that helps me. So I went back to work last fall, um, just for the fall semester and now I'm teaching part-time. So I'm able to fit my writing in during the Workday, although I still am an early, but more like five 30 instead of four. That's more reasonable, more reasonable. Uh,
Speaker 3 00:24:45 Any of your former students read your
Speaker 4 00:24:47 Yes. You know, that's so fun. I'm so old now that yeah, my students are in their mid thirties. Okay. So when I first started teaching them, they were in middle school and, and many of them have reached out on social media or send me an email. And that means so much to me that they would take the time to read the books and reach out. And it's really fun to be a practicing writer and a teacher at the same time, because the lessons that I teach about writing just have a deeper layer of authenticity. So you teach writing, you teach literature. Yeah. This year, I'm teaching 11th graders. And then I taught third grade most recently. Um, so yes, I teach writing there and then I taught middle school. I've taught a lot of different grade levels. So, but always, um, if I'm in secondary, I'm an English and social studies. Third grade, obviously all this stuff, Jackson.
Speaker 3 00:25:35 Yeah. I, I fear we're running close here and I'm going to get a notice of quick, but no, there's a two minute warning. We have that in radio. Isn't that exciting? I love it. So I want to talk about a next project before we use that time. So what are you
Speaker 4 00:25:50 Doing? Okay. I'm really pumped about, I was telling you before we started on air that I think my first book is great. I'm proud of it. My second book is better. Right. I grew as a writer and my third book is written also. And I think I grew again. So I'm very excited about that. Um, and that one is easier to describe an align, which is, there are two women that both were contenders to make the 2002 Olympic hockey team. Wow. One makes it and one does not. And it's kind of about the aftermath of that. In 20 years later, when the one who didn't make it comes back to Minnesota with her hockey playing son and has to kind of walk back into the world that she abandoned,
Speaker 3 00:26:30 Whoa, whoa. And this is already
Speaker 4 00:26:33 Written. It's written, it'll be out in March of 2022. They should
Speaker 3 00:26:37 Back that up about a month because winter Olympics,
Speaker 4 00:26:39 You should call my editor and tell her that I will, okay, give me the, her handles her handle. Is that right? Or you come back and visit us, then love it. This has been so fun. And I didn't know that much about cafe. I have learned all about it. And I've had such a great time here. So
Speaker 3 00:26:59 Community supported radio, right guys, yet everyone on this on-air and on the soundboard is a volunteer. We've been speaking with Kathleen West about her new novel. Are we there yet? Give it a read guys and also the author of minor dramas and other catastrophes, and we'll have her back next spring. Thank you, Kathleen.
Speaker 4 00:27:15 Thank you so much for having me. This is great. Great. And now this
Speaker 2 00:27:57 Hi, this is Liz. And tonight we are interviewing John Brandon author of ivory coast. Welcome to right on radio. And, uh, why don't we start with a little, little discussion or a little, uh, piece of what the book is about and then move right into your reading.
Speaker 5 00:28:18 Um, okay. So yeah, the main character is a, uh, 11 year old boy Gussie. And, um, at the end of the civil war, his mother passes away and he goes on a journey to try to find his father just before she passes. She reveals to him who his father is. He never knew that before. And the father has no idea that he exists. So, um, that, that kicks it off and he's got to make it across the state of Florida, um, from roughly Jacksonville to roughly Tampa, uh, on foot in this kind of post civil war, you know, landscape. Uh, so yeah, and then many bad guys, um, come around and give them some trouble, uh, as, as they will. Um, so yeah, I have a, um, I was trying to think what to read three to five minutes is, is short. Um, and I, my, I fell on this little passage, um, that is when one of the villains there, there are several, uh, meets his end and I thought, well, you shouldn't read that cause that's, that's one of the villains dying.
Speaker 5 00:29:30 And then I thought, you know what, I'm just going to read it. And I'm just going to call it a mini spoiler because there are other villains, worst villains, but, um, you know, I'm a rebellious rule-breaker, as you can tell. So this is on, maybe this is radio history. This is big, big spoiler here. Um, so yeah. Should I just go ahead and, okay, so what's going on here is the bounty hunter who's been tracking Gussie. Uh, they they're, they're coming up out of the swamps and he's, he's closing in his name's August. He's closing in on gussy. And, um, they, it seems that they're getting kind of close to a town, a settlement. It seems like there's a farm nearby. And, um, August is trying to get to gussy and get him, uh, under control to take him back to Palomino where they started before he can sort of get into the town.
Speaker 5 00:30:26 Um, so yeah, I think that's all you need to know the boy grunted and wriggled, but August had him. He said there wasn't nothing for it now, but to simmer down and after a minute, Gus, he seemed ready to accept this. As fact, both of them still breathed heavy August talked and spat over his shoulder. The boy went completely slack for a flicker of a second, but that was only in preparation to throw his head forward and sink his teeth into August. Forearm. The elder combatant ripped away from his detainee managing to keep him imprisoned. With his other hand, the bite had barely broken skin, but August had had enough of the boys' stupid rebellion. He reached back and got hold of his pistol by the muzzle yank to gussy over face down and took a short swing, the Onyx gun, but resounding with a sick tunc against the little skull, the boy loosed a sharp cry that seemed to escape him before he could stop it.
Speaker 5 00:31:25 August wouldn't have minded one bit had the blow knocked gussy out cold, but this did not happen. The boys squirmed all the more desperately sobbing now, August was down in arm, hoisting the gun up in a way. So the boy didn't somehow get a hand on it. And Gussie managed to slip sideways and free and elbow and swipe it at August. The whole length of an arm, followed landing, a hooking blow to August shoulder that felt no more to the big man than a Hardy greeting. Tell you what August said. I'll just keep hitting you in the noggin before long, your, your brain will start working or it'll give out once. And for all, he took another quick stroke whipping the crown of Gussie's head. And again, the boy admitted a cry like a stomped rodent. And again, he did not stop floundering or tossing as tiny fists.
Speaker 5 00:32:13 Snot was draining pale from his nose now, and his eyes were closed tight, oily remnants of the sardines shining on his lips. August felt an unexpected fatigue wash over him. He raised the pistol again, annoyed at being forced to do so. He gauged this blow, wanting to strike Gussie's head at the base, just above the neck. A spot he'd had luck with over the years when aiming to turn an ordinary, an ordinary body into slack payload, he meant to deliver the boy alive, a disgrace to his professional PA prowess, to be sure having to kill a 90 pound Desperado in training in order to bring him in August, pressed his knee across the backs of the boys' legs and pin Gussie face down again, pistol overhead. He held his breath the way a sharpshooter might and convened his concentration to a single point, set his jaw and exhale through his nose and drew upon a great share of his strength.
Speaker 5 00:33:13 And then strangely, he did not see his arm fall before him, as it should have the weight of the weapon failed to flash downward and find its mark. His arm was still held high. For some reason, the guns stuck up there like a weathercock something had gone awry with time itself, the minutes and seconds nodded in their own ropes time that made all deaths due and overdue time that brought the dark forms of strange ships to the horizon. August was mindful all around him of an upgrading clamor, a racket to fill all the wild pastures he'd ever crossed the voice of his Lord. If ever he'd had one, he was lying a top Gussie. Now the boys struggling underneath him, August felt he was being drowned in a foot of water, held under in a warm shallow Cove fingers clawed at his hand, bending his thumb back small and hard, like a raccoons pause and Aug relinquished his grip and let the weapon be separated from him knowing well, what it meant to allow this Gussie was beneath him still.
Speaker 5 00:34:22 It wasn't the boy who'd taken the gun August could feel his hands, but not the arms that led to them could feel his heavy booted feet down there, somewhere disconnected. Okay. The fingers that had claimed the gun tugged at his clothes, dragging at the meat of his shoulder, trying to roll him off the slithering boy, August could tell these little hands would not be able to move him. So he lurched his weight with a groan and the next moment felt gussy slip away. The great hunter was on his back. Now fierce, mid day. Sunshine made it difficult to see the tree limbs, not a rod above Gunsmoke hung on the air is natural. The smell is the wild flowers. August felt the need of a whole breath. His front was soaked and hot and his head chilled. He looked aside and saw gussy there. His shirt painted in August blood and standing next to the boy.
Speaker 5 00:35:18 He saw an old woman in a collar dress and plain black shoes. He saw the long blue barrel of an old woman of the old woman. Shotgun saw her hands. The raccoon fingers that had clawed at him. The weapon was over her shoulder and August pistol was in a big pocket on the front of her, the weight of the piece, drawing her garment forward on her shoulders and exposing the tired wrinkled flesh below her collarbones. August heard her tell the boy to sit down, but Gussie ignored. The order August could not stop looking at the woman hair Ash blonde, the skin of her cheeks, as delicate as onion peels. He felt a need to touch her face. We sister into the south had been compromised. She said, but there's still doings. We won't stand for yes. Ma'am. August said he could see the woman in every detail.
Speaker 5 00:36:15 She wore dangling around her neck on a short silver chain, a tr a dried spider set in a Walnut shell. The pearly buttons of her dress glinted like cocaine was in the surf and now came the breeze. First of the day. Riffling her weightless hair starting to wonder I'd ever get arrest. August said, think of something pleasing. The old woman told him August saw himself as just another of the fallen logs. The weeds would grow up around him and swallow him to nothing with a kind of merciless love. He heard bird Twitter in the air around him and the old woman's fingers tapping on her. Gunstock the world was Deming, a colorless peace descending. His thoughts were of his mayor, dozens of miles back the way he'd come in the care of the kindly old man and his young woman, the oats and the fruit and the hour walks he'd promise the animal, removing his hat and budding her affectionately with his forehead that he'd returned inside a week. A promise that would be broken. He saw his longtime companion waiting, waiting day after day. This only friend, this only one who'd ever put herself in peril to aid him growing fat, but discovering betrayal a thing as yet, unknown to her August should have given instruction for if he didn't turn back up. But he had always turned back up and he knew not anyhow, what instruction he would've given.
Speaker 2 00:37:52 That's John Brandon doing a reading from his book, ivory Shoals, a very interesting book about the post civil war period and people heroes and villains of the post civil war period. What inspired you to, um, write about that period? And then how did you move forward with that?
Speaker 5 00:38:14 Um, I should be able to answer that question probably better than I can. Um, I'm always looking for a new landscape, a new set of details. Um, new things for people to talk about detail and dialogue are kind of the things that I enjoy, um, in fiction writing the most. Um, so, you know, I had, I had done Arkansas and New Mexico, you know, when, when I went to those places, I just thought, okay, this'll be a setting at some point and used all those up. Um, and I remember somewhere around the time, you know, you're casting about for what what's going to be the next next sort of place to submerge yourself. And, and I was casting about, and there was this, this book, uh, by Padgett Powell. That's the whole thing is questions. It just 200 pages of questions kind of to the reader.
Speaker 5 00:39:10 And one of them was something like, um, does your alleged interest in the civil war far outstrip your knowledge of it? And I thought to myself, I think he's talking about me. I feel like I'm interested in this, but I don't know anything about it. So, you know, I started doing, doing research, which I'd never done. I'd never, I'd never written historical fiction. I'd never done research outside of, you know, Googling something, you know, 30, 30 seconds here and there to, to make sure if something, um, and so, you know, as you, you know, cause you're a history buff just to say, I'm going to research the civil war yeah. Is
Speaker 6 00:39:48 Way, way, way too vast. Um,
Speaker 5 00:39:52 So I started about it and instantly knew I needed ways to, to narrow my field and, you know, Florida is where I'm from. I I'm, I'm comfortable with it, but I'd never, you know, I'd never done historical and it's a, it's an interesting place now, you know, for better, for worse, but it's got a fascinating history as well. Um, so, you know, I've found that if I, if I narrowed it from civil war to civil war, Florida, and then to kind of the end of the civil war, that the search became manageable. Um, and I had a couple of really good librarians, you know, help help me in that, in that task as well. And you know, I wasn't really, I wasn't looking like, like a real history of Buffalo would I wasn't looking to know where, where did each battle take place and how many on each side where we're lost, um, what are the important dates and to know the ins and outs of every general.
Speaker 5 00:40:53 It wasn't like that. I was, I was trying to get a feel for, you know, what, what it would have been like for these people just after this thing ended. Um, and Florida was a great place where, cause it's kind of off to the side of it, you know, it's not right, right in the kind of glamour spot of Virginia or something, you know, it's, it's down there and it's just like, okay, what's going to happen now. You know? And, and like Florida today, you know, it's, it's opportunists show up and people thinking this'll be a great place and you know, it's not as great as they think. Um, so yeah, I mean, I, I, when, when I started started researching, it was just pulling out details that I thought, well, I could use that. And it was also just trying to get to a point where I kind of, I kind of felt comfortable with, well, how did they cook?
Speaker 5 00:41:48 You know, how did, how did, what do they wear? Because, you know, until I can see the scene, it's just really hard to weight into it. You know, you just feel unsteady, you know, until you feel like, okay, I can see this. Um, so yeah, I mean my, my books, the upshot of doing all that research, which I did for about a year, um, at one point my wife was getting, you know, suspicious of how long I was carrying this out. Just like, you know, I started the character, smokes a pipe. So I started, started smoking a pipe and she, you know, she was like, you just want to read about the civil war and smoke a pipe. You're going to do that forever. You're not going to write the book. Um, so, uh, what happened though is, uh, as opposed to my, normally when I write, I don't know everything that's going to happen, I just sorta have some problems.
Speaker 5 00:42:44 I present some problems to the characters and then kind of see what happens to them because of that. Um, but in, but there was no way for me to do all this research and, and pick out, okay, this is something I could use. This is something I use without asking myself, well, like what for, what would you use that for? So I would start attaching different details and different, um, little anecdotes that you come across to different characters and they kind of came alive and then I could put them, put them in different positions and in a plot, you know, just sort of started happening. Um, and then I found that, you know, I sort sorta had had the blueprint for it. And then it was a matter of, of kind of event management and like villain management. I had
Speaker 6 00:43:34 Had too many bad guys,
Speaker 5 00:43:36 Bad guys to go around. So how do I make all these bad guys fit in here? Um, and yeah, I mean, it just, it, it started that way. And, and normally I think the thing that I kind of lost from that was when I would sit down to write, there wasn't as much discovery and that, so it was a little less exciting that way. Um, but at the same time I had I'd bitten off so much else with this. I was doing a whole different voice than I've ever done this kind of little bit more formal, um, old fashioned sort of voice. And then all, you know, just being in a different time and place I had, you know, I guess enough to worry about without wondering where the thing was going.
Speaker 2 00:44:23 I was going to ask you about voice. I found, uh, I'm from the south and I found the voice quite accurate and compelling. And what was my S uh, was he, didn't very much try to, uh, create the voice with writing out the accents of the people you created the voice more with a description and with, well, actually using words in your, in your, uh, script or your thing that, that, uh, would be used rather than people. It was all in the, in the, uh, dynamic part of the book. Am I I'm wondering how you discovered that voice? Did you already have it, or is it something you found in the middle of writing it or
Speaker 5 00:45:07 No, I mean, I think that was the most time consuming part of it in the beginning. Um, I had a lot of false starts with the voice. Um, you know, I kinda knew the characters and, and knew what they were about, kinda knew what was gonna happen. But yeah, I mean, my, the voice that I've used, um, up until now that I sort of, you know, I figured out and in my younger days, and then the first time it sort of, I sort of had, it was my, my first book and then second, same third, always that same voice. I think I was kind of tired of it. That was probably part of the appeal of this. Um, but yeah, I mean this, the first say 50 pages or so, I mean, I don't know if it was 50, but I wrote over and over just getting the voice because I didn't, I still can't even say exactly what it is, but I wanted it to be more formal, so, okay.
Speaker 5 00:46:06 I had to go for that, but then I would, I would try it and it would sound, it just sounded like an Englishman. Okay. That's not quite it. And then I would, you know, try to make it Southern in whichever way I could, you know, without making it sort of a parody or going like, okay, this is like, this is Cormac McCarthy, you know, so you, you know, it was like trying to modulate it until I was, it was at least acceptable that I could go forward. You know, it sounded good enough that I could go forward. Uh, but then also, you know, once the book was with McSweeney's, um, my editor, you know, a lot of what we did was that sort of fine tuning on the word level of like, what, what sounds right for this voice that we don't really know what it is, but once you hear it, you, then you can kind of, you know, you know what it's supposed to sound like. Um, so yeah,
Speaker 2 00:47:06 Out wild reading to yourself to try to see if it matched what you wanted it to be.
Speaker 5 00:47:12 Um, you know what I'd like to say that I, I do that because I know it's really good
Speaker 6 00:47:18 And I suggest it to people, but
Speaker 5 00:47:21 I hardly, I hardly ever do that. Um, it was, I mean, it's more just, I, I hear it in my head and I didn't know what I was going for, but when I finally got close enough and it was okay and I was excited to, I was excited to have a new voice, you know, to work in rather than the same old one.
Speaker 2 00:47:43 Well, let's talk a little bit about the two characters, uh, and the, um, and, and of the civil war, uh, gutsy is young, but he has to grow up really fast. And, um, the women in the book, uh, he's often saved from his adventures by women and they have to, um, at post civil war, women had to kind of take over and do the, you know, do the stuff that is traditionally male, because all the men were gone like a 75% of the population that male population of the south just disappeared. They all died in the war. And I'm wondering, you know, how you, you brought that across really well that, uh, young boys had to grow up fast and women had to take over, uh, how did you come upon that? Was it just something that you had in your mind or did it come up when you were doing researcher? How did that come to be?
Speaker 5 00:48:41 Yeah, I think it probably reflects the research. I did just, just in that, you know, you can't, you can't read about that time without, without going, oh, I got these, these guys are gone, you know, these guys are gone. So when, you know, when, oftentimes when Gussie needs some help, that's, who's going to be, there is a woman who else is going to be there. Um, so yeah, you know, I, I kinda, as I sort of had a thing to have fun with and deal with, with the men, which was like, so what, what kind of guys are still here? You know, that didn't, didn't go to the war for whatever reason. And that's a bunch of different types, you know, good, bad and otherwise, but with the women, you know, it was, it was more like, oh, they, they like have to do this. Now they have to, I mean, in a part of the way I was thinking of it is they also probably have to defend themselves in their place from these guys who didn't go to the war a lot of the time. Um, so yeah, just sort of worked and made sense to me that, um, they, they would, they would save Gussie when he needed saving. Well,
Speaker 2 00:49:57 The boys and the women got very tough. I had to take care of themselves, you know? And, and, uh, so yeah, it was very, uh, well, I think the whole book was very accurate in terms of, um, the characters and the voice. Uh, I, you know, I must say on the back of the book, and I'm sure you're not responsible for this plug, but it said that you were like mark Twain and Cormack McCarthy, and that's heady praise. How did you,
Speaker 4 00:50:25 How did you feel about,
Speaker 6 00:50:29 Well, I don't mean to put you on the spot here, but I mean, it's one
Speaker 5 00:50:35 Of those things where you're flattered to hear that you hope there's some truth to it, but also, you know, that's, that's what it says on every back of everybody's book, because the publisher wants to sell the book and the distributor wants to sell the book. So, you know, everybody's compared to some grants. Yes. Everybody's compared
Speaker 2 00:50:56 To somebody that sounds like a title of a song. Yeah. I can
Speaker 5 00:51:00 Say that. I, I, I, couldn't sort of not think about mark Twain writing it just because it's, it's episodic, you know, he's kind of moving across the countryside like that. And it, it was something I thought about because, you know, Twain and lots of writers, they're, they're so good at making, almost making each little it's own story <inaudible> and I was sort of grappling with, you know, not wanting to do that because I wanted it to feel, I guess, more real than that. Um, but also wanting, they're wanting it to feel like, well, we stopped here, so there's gotta be something, you know, for the reader to take from this. Like, why, why, why do we stop here then? Um, so you managed
Speaker 2 00:51:50 To do both, actually, I think you managed to do both, um, believe it or not, we are, we are almost at a time here, so I want to, uh, just ask you what's next. Do you have another project in line and, uh, are you, I know you teach at Hamlin what's happening with that, you know, how's, what's next? Yeah.
Speaker 5 00:52:09 School. Year's about to start. Um, so writing a little bit on the back burner, but, you know, teaching in the foreground and running around, taking kids to do sporting events every day of the week. Um, but yeah, I'm working on, uh, another, um, novel it's it's set in the nineties. Um, it's kind of a little bit more straightforward crime deal. Um, so yeah, I'm in the middle of that and, you know,
Speaker 2 00:52:41 Police or detectives or, uh, uh, it's one
Speaker 5 00:52:45 Of those things where it's a, it's a non detective who's kind of forced to become a detective. Yeah. That kind of thing.
Speaker 2 00:52:53 Well, we've been talking with, uh, John Brandon author of ivory Shoals, and, uh, thank you so much for a wonderful interview. I've had a lot of fun here and, uh, laughed and spoiled and all that stuff. That's right. Who can beat that? Okay. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much for having me. You bet. Have a great evening.
