Over the course of a couple of days (21-23 Sept. 2012), I had a delightful email exchange with the Irish noir novelist Ken Bruen about his work, his craft, and the ways that place moves on his page. Some really cool moments here, for anyone interested in either side of the page, the writer's perspective and the reader's perspective, the place of crime literature in the world of Literature, love of cities, love of bookstores.
Ken Bruen is a prolific novelist of crime and noir fiction, with nearly three dozen novels to his name. I first became interested in his work not just because he was writing Irish thrillers, which was electrifying to myself as a reader and myself as a teacher, but also because his Jack Taylor novels are set in Galway. I started researching Irish noir (I really hate the term "Emerald Noir"), got deep into some cool scholarship, and then the expected happened: I pulled out a blank syllabus on my computer, started putting a class together. Then a Call for Papers from Eire-Ireland on Irish crime comes across my inbox. A paper on Irish crime lit? Yes, please. So the next logical thing to do was strike up a conversation with this writer that is occupying so much of my thoughts and bookshelf. In some places I changed punctuation to clarify, but in other places, I left his words as he wrote them, because the voice evoked is just awesome.
Lots to talk about here--enjoy!
***
What is your
process like as a writer? Do you write everyday? What is your
drafting process like? Do you write longhand, with a computer, a
combination of both?
I write everyday, same time and so it's
built in like ritual.
For certain projects, I write longhand to really get
the feel, the frisson, the direct flow.
The laptop for speed and ease.
What is your
revising process like?
I read in to a recorder every night and if
the music isn’t there, the beat to count cadence, I bin it.
I'd like to follow
up on you reading your work aloud. It's something that I do as a
writer--nothing gets sent out without me having read it aloud--and it's
something that I recommend to my students, no matter if they're first-year
composition students or creative writing students. Reading it into a
recorder, however, is a step I've never taken myself. So, for practical
purposes, the work takes on a doubling: you're not only hearing the work
as you physically speak it aloud, but you're also listening to it when you play
it back? How did you develop that strategy?
It's the failed actor in me and also, I
used it a lot in my days as a teacher. It really helps develop how to write in
different accents and tones. Walter Mosley does it also.
Are you
conscious of how you structure these novels? I've noticed a trend for your Taylor books to end at a place that the reader wishes for another hundred pages--yet it
ends right in the middle of the action, a very important action. What are
your thoughts on your narrative structure?
There is a point in my read, like a piece
of Irish traditional music when the next move is a vacuum so you are
done, it can be jarring but if you read the narrative again, like real life,
this is where it cuts off, rather, get's cut off.
What you said
about ending a narrative at what might seem like a jarring point--but it's like
real life, where it gets cut off. Do you consider this a function of the
genre in which you've chosen to write, this emphasis towards realism that noir
prides itself on? What do you consider the functional craft-of-fiction
difference between realism and what is realistic?
If this doesn't sound too lame, the
characters dictate the timing, as in, say a Jack Taylor, he literally won't
talk to me any more, he's told me and that's it, no frills. In my life, realism
is confined to the books I read, realistic is what confronts me every day I
venture out and let the world have a shot.
Declan Kiberd
famously wondered where the literature of the Celtic Tiger was, something that
Andrew Kincaid in his essay "Down These Mean Streets: The City and
Critique in Contemporary Irish Noir" argues that was being written, but
not in the capital-L Literature that Kiberd seemed to be looking for. The
literature filling that need was appearing in this particular sub genre.
What are your thoughts about how stories always seem to fill the void and
the need of society? Just in terms of the crime-literature world, from
Poe to Conan Doyle to Christie to Chandler to du Maurier to Mosley to Lehane to
Paretsky and on and on (I realize my list is very Brit-American-centric), each
of those new modes of telling the crime tale was in response to a very specific
societal fear--and the storytelling easily adapted itself to it. How do
you see your work fitting into this societal fear and need?
I don't. I rarely fit the requirements of
the analysts and thank fook for that. Crime fiction is pouring out of Ireland
now, be it literature or not, who cares, I think for young writers, crime
fiction is like the Punk movement, a chance to say screw you to the Custodians
of The precious Irish Lit heritage and the rarefied few who wish to
keep the jackals, and guttersnipes ( as I've been called) from
their ownership of Joyce et al. I read religiously (pun intended) and
almost fervently the lit posturings and lit mags and want to shout, 'for fooksake,
who cares, the barbarians are indeed at he gates and don't give a toss about
your supercilious posturing.'
What have you
read lately that’s set your world on fire? One thing I’ve read about you
is that you and Jack Taylor share your love of books—what are you reading right
now?
A slew of biographies, the dark ones,
what made they so dark and how did that fire their art , followed by the Anne Sexton's poems then
a motley crew of philosophers, throw in some Crews, Tom Waits and my
head is ready to jolt.
On a similar
note, I’ve read interviews where you’ve mentioned you share your love of books
with Jack (which is, for me as a reader, one of the only things that redeems
that character and keeps me reading until the next book--well done)—but I’m
curious about where and how your experiences of the city match or do not match
Jack’s.
Jack spends much of his energy on the past,
me, not so much. Jack doesn't do
progress, me I try, a bit.
Interesting
what you said about "Jack doesn't do progress"--considering the
movement of progress (and the movement backward, as well) and
"obliterating" the cultural tropes that seem to still linger. I
read quite a bit of memoir as I worked on my comprehensive exams for my program
and I started to wonder if the Miserable Irish Childhood Memoir is the literary
antidote to that romanticism (something noir also offers) because it offers the
consequences to the romantic tropes: if the romantic view of Ireland is
one of drinking and dancing and singing and such, these miserable Irish
childhood works show that drink costs money and how rampant the poverty was,
that sexy accents do not make for a good marriage and bad matches (and the
gender roles and expectations enforced by society and the Catholic Church)
cannot be reversed. (As an essayist, I have issues with the memoir genre,
but that's a different conversation--I much prefer Tim Robinson and Chris
Arthur…) Thoughts?
The Misery memoir industry continues to thrive here and I'm
constantly being attacked due to my belief in Nature over nurture. I know close
wonderful people who've had the most horrendous childhoods and are the best in
the world and others who ‘Had it all’; and are the scum of the earth.
True evil which is my main preoccupation is in my opinion something
that begins at birth and peaks. I correspond a
lot with Andrew Vachss and it's worth your time to google him.
Are you aware
or conscious of Galway as being as much of a character as Jack Taylor?
How do you, as a writer, construct the city to be more than setting?
The city is the fourth main character, shapes, coddles, beguiles
and seduces and to do this, it has to be ever present, like a banshee,
just slightly in the mist, keening.
How do you notice
that Galway has changed over your lifetime? Physical changes to the city
and the landscape, mental/emotional changes? What have you noticed that
is the most dramatic or the most interesting? What specific changes do
you think are the most visible tracks of the Celtic Tiger, both for good and
ill?
Prosperity brought drugs, greed, obesity and the developers brought
ugliness, luxury apartment buildings on site of lovely old homes. The very air
is now one of....... money............ the stench of it, once it were the aroma
of home stew and hope. Now, we're like a dead end suburb of bum fuck nowhere in Des Moines.
How much of
Galway is your own inherent knowledge of the place and how much is research
specific to the book? I mean, when you put Jack on a specific street at a
specific time of day, do you walk it yourself?
I walk it every day, feed the swans, let my dog run in the Claddagh,
light a candle in the churchs that don't have electronic one's, so I can use a
taper and match and not electronic like a celestial vegas. I get me books in Charlie Byrnes, have
a pint in Garavans, and side skip the road kill of the literary
bullshite they pedal.
I'd like to hear about your affection for Charlie Byrne's, as a
place. How did you first come to it? Why do you return? I
always feel like the best bookstores--and I prefer used bookstores to ones that
sell new ones--always seem to give you the book you never knew you couldn't
live without. My sister once sent me a postcard from San Francisco that
closed with the line "I'd like to travel by bookstore." It was
at Charlie Byrne's that I first found Synge's The Aran Islands, back
when I was in college, and reading that book out there still remains one of the
incredible moments of my reading life, that chemistry of reading a book in its
setting. Do you have other bookstores that hold a similar place in your
imagination?
Vinny and Charly who own the shop began with a market stall over 20
years ago as my first novel had just come out, they thought I was a shady
character, with a pea jacket and always travelling. Each year, I'd have a new
book and they'd move to a premises then a bigger one so we kind of
grew together which is a brilliant opportunity for
a writer to literally grow with bookstore, like Larry Mc Murty in
reverse.
My fav bookstore was The Black Orchid in NY
I did readings there with Ed McBain.
The romance of Sylvia Beach and her Parisian store, and stores like
the famous one in Charing Cross Road make me yearn.
What is it like
to write Galway? Is there a difference between writing a city and writing
about a city? I’ve read interviews where your purpose with
Jack’s character—and, for that matter, Galway’s character—is to obliterate the
tropes and assumptions about Irish men and their mothers, for instance.
The dark rendering of Galway (and Ireland in general) certainly seems to serve
that purpose as well.
I want to obliterate the Ireland of
The Quiet Man and merry priest and
lovable Mum's and all that horseshite we lay under for generations, to have a
cool unique city that young people can feel is theirs and not some relic from
the years of grinding poverty.
As for the
"cool unique city," can you point to any specifics that you see are
leading to this? I laughed a little at your comment about "a dead
end suburb of bumfuck nowhere in des moines," simply because one of my
favorite opening lines of all time belongs to the travel writer Bill Bryson,
who wrote an essay titled "Fat Girls in Des Moines," which begins
with "I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to." Because
I'm interested in place, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that suburbia is
The Great Unplaced, because suburbs are basically indistinguishable from
another. What do you see as the unique aspects that Galway has to offer,
that makes it different from any other place?
Nice serendipity. I was a huge fan of Bryson and John Cheever. I
quite madly think Mad Men owes a lot
to Cheever! My favourite cities
have a vibe, it's in the very air like a charge, a jolt, an electrical
frisson that is almost impossible to articulate and my cities are
Galway
Assisi ( a village in truth)
New York
Sydney
Venice
Madrid
Marrakesh
Hong Kong
Kyoto.............purely because I had my first young brush with fame
there when I walked right into David Bowie who said
Hello
The test of a great city is if you wake in the wee hours and think,
Thank fook I'm in this place. “A
Movable Feast” seems to me to convey that extraodinary sense of place that is
unique to some cities. Too, Galway has a sense of irony and that is rare to
rarest found and even better, the city would deny any such high falutin
claim.
To apply the sublime test, on leaving a city, does it, like a great
love affair, break your heart in smithereens and the dread you will never
return. I'm haunted always by Macavafy's poem on Alexandria and Thompson's
Hound of Heaven, they are part of my constant hand luggage.
I've read a 100 tomes on writing and the best advice to writers for
me was from Paul Theroux who said
'Leave home'
Love that.
We have been reading our way through Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, spending the first part of the week talking about corn and industrial corn production, which has been quite the experience for my students. This is the end of our second week in Writing Project 2, on food systems, and today, the first interview they're doing for this project is due (I haven't seen them yet, but I'm pretty excited). Some of them went to the Farmer's Market down in the Haymarket last week (I hope they go tomorrow as well) and I get paid this weekend, which means the food budget is replenished, which means I can go too without torturing myself. 
We ran out of time to discuss Pollan's section in depth, but we'll get to it next week. At the end of class, one of my students brought up a really good question (about "why does it matter, if the animal is dead?)--which I would like to say is typical of this particular class. This class asks truly excellent, difficult questions. These are questions that seem simplistic or antagonistic or "duh" questions on first glance, but the reality is they are incredibly important questions. Asking "why does it matter?" is a valid question. I have one particular student who is really, really good at forming these kind of under-the-surface-complex questions, something that was often brought up in the Natural Disasters 150 I taught in the spring. If farming was so tough during the Dust Bowl, why did people stay? Why didn't they go somewhere else? That's not a dumb question--that's a truly excellent question. What would have prevented them from going somewhere else, doing something different?
