I find history fascinating. It is one of the reasons I, a Southern California native, love living where I do in Hagerstown, Md., surrounded by such historic landmarks as Gettysburg about an hour's drive one way and Antietam Battlefield a 45 minute drive another way. This also means getting to know Civil War re-eneactors, who I find fascinating and wrote nearly 100 articles about for the Hagerstown newspaper.
Also within an hour's drive is Harper's Ferry, W. Va, a famous national park for several reasons but for me it's best known as the place where John Brown made his last stand.
John Brown is, to me, one of the most fascinating men in American history. Was he a hero despite being guilty of cold blooded murder? Was he a psycho who just happened to be fighting for the right cause, namely freeing the slaves? When he was hanged at Harpers Ferry did they realize they would make him into a martyr, someone whom would be discussed centuries later?
Well, he is. Enter John Michael Cummings, who grew up in Harpers Ferry across the street from the John Brown Wax Museum. John wrote this fictional book which is partly about John Brown.
I was reading Bookpage at my library about a month ago and noticed they alluded to a new book aimed at young adults on the topic of John Brown. I did what I normally do these days when I see a book that interests me, namely i fired off an email begging for an interview with the author.
I have been to Harper's Ferry several times both to write news stores and to show it to friends and family. I have frazzled tour guides with my questions about John Brown, particularly asking if they had read Cloudsplitter, a brilliant book about Brown by Russell Banks, written from the perspective of one of John Brown's sons puzzling over the usual questions: Was his dad a religious zealot who went too far? Was he in the right ethically even when in the wrong legally? You know, good light reading.I was told in no uncertain terms that the park had no position on that book which I found odd. I do suggest checking that book out but only after, of course, first reading the one we are talking about today.
John Michael Cummings did something great - not only did he write this fantastic book and agree eagerly to this two-part interview - but he joined Newsvine. I think he is the first author I have interviewed who joined the community prior to the interview's publication. John has posted a few comments in this article where I solicited from the community (in an attempt to make this more of a community interview) suggested questions for this interview. John and I also exchanged opinions about writing and editing in my memoir piece about teaching.
Now, without further ado, here is the first part of our interview. The second part will focus more on the book itself. His is one of about 12 books I've packed to read during my week off Newsvine as I travel to Jamaica for work.
Scott: Why did you decide to write a book - your first novel - about John Brown?
It is not really about John Brown. My novel is about how John Brown's legacy influences a boy's need for a father figure and ultimately inflates in him a sense of hero worship of, debatably, a saint or madman.
If I could not write this story, then I did not know my own life. This happened to me, at one stage of my life, growing up in a little house across from the John Brown Wax Museum, in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, the site of Brown's raid and capture.
I should add that if I could not find enough grist for a novel out of a childhood in Harpers Ferry, then I had better see a career counselor!
What kind of research did you do? What was the most surprising thing you found?
Research was fairly minimal, in that this novel, in large part, is about a boy's idolization of Brown, so the basic facts were enough. There are fictional embellishments that are in keeping with the young hero's sense of imagination and exaggeration, but the essence of Brown is accurate.
Keep in mind it's a native's view of a town that raises John Brown up in historical accuracy, letting the world weigh in on the moral controversy on their own time. It is also a town that won't admit he's a historical figure as a commercial icon.
Some research was done on John Brown's trial. What I did in my novel is a fictional treatment of this trial, enhancing the essence of John Brown's words for the sake of my young hero.
What are you working on next?
My brothers and I had the misfortune of a harsh father, and in many ways, our problems in life have been much worse than his ever were. There is a cruel irony to how abuse reverberates. I don't really care to go beyond that at this point, other than to say that this is a powerful adult novel that must be written second.
Was the plan always for this to be a young adult novel?
No, not at all. In fact I was barely familiar with the genre before it was suggested to me. My original plan, with a previous version, was to make it a memoir. Revisions led to the idea to make into a To Kill A Mockingbird-like coming-of-age novel. But this met with the rigid reality that the book market has long been pushing these types of dark-bordered novels far across the aisle into YA, where they must be "child safe" for schools and libraries. I soon accepted that if I wanted to get published, I had to adopt this story to the YA genre, losing some of its harsher elements.
Still, I am glad I did. YA writers know how to punch their stories forward. They don't laze around in literary abstractions - they go for the sizzling concrete. My editor constantly showed me how to "tighten for power" - I could have used her help on my adult short stories!
In order to provide the necessary context for a story like this, how do you explain such an abhorrent concept as slavery to today's North American kids, to whom such a thing is so foreign?
Since my novel is more about Brown's legacy in the modern-day town in which he was captured, the word slavery doesn't arise other than to briefly define who John Brown was. To the townsfolk, he's the Jay Leno guest of history stars. To the young hero of my novel, he's a man who did something with his anger, rather than just wallow in it.
Still, had slavery itself been looked at more closely in my novel, I'' not so sure it would be foreign to young readers. Kids today relish in make-believe acts of cruelty - all stripes of video games, to say nothing of whatever a computer can hook up to. They know all about the Iraq War of course. Black men in old-time chains could be tame stuff in their minds compared to what a snazzy assault rifle can do to the living.
I think I know what might be more foreign to kids today than slavery. Given the frivolous entertainment value of our presidential election - square in the face of American citizens who sit still and take this mockery of our most fundamental and crucial right -what might be foreign to kids today is how a past nation could have had the fire and guts to become so divided as to fold up into war, when we as a nation today seemed more interested, say, in whether Palin is spunkier and cuter than Obama is young and handsome.
You've written many short stories, right? So what did you like better - writing short stories or a novel?
Short stories have always been easier for me, as they probably should be, but succeeding at a novel has been a tremendous triumph. There is no denying the bliss of spreading a fabric of writing across two or three hundred pages. It is the difference between a journey and an outing. Naturally, it's umpteen times harder, too. More than that, there's an irreplaceable feeling of playing in the big leagues now. It will be hard for me to return to the short story form
Did you read Russell Bank's Cloudsplitter?
I started some time back, but regrettably became sidetracked. I've heard nothing but good things about it.
If you could talk to John Brown and ask him three questions, what would those questions be?
This is a wonderful question! I'll take the liberty of making him a reincarnated John Brown.
What were you thinking that fateful day - letting the eastbound B&O train go freely out of Harpers Ferry and on to Washington to spread a warning call of your attack?
Are you surprised it took a hundred years (a whole century!) after your death and a four-year Civil War for our nation to enact the Civil Rights Act?
Clearly you have no compunctions about letting a nation purge its sins by its own blood, as you foretold. As you look at the changes in our society today - equality of sexes, multilingual communities, a black presidential candidate - you have to admit surprise. You undoubtedly also know we have recently been attacked by those who hold themselves out as righteous martyrs. Given your role in history, how do you see 9/11?
Do you consider Brown a cold-blooded killer for his actions in Kansas and/or W. Va or was it somehow justified?
Certainly not a "cold-blooded" killer - Brown was nothing but hot blood - but a killer, yes. He was also a hero against a barbaric wrong.
I did a thorough introduction of John Cummings in part one of this two-part interview
Put simply he grow up literally across the street from the John Brown wax museum in Harpers Ferry, W. Va. so when he wrote his first novel it was only natural that it would be, at least peripherally, about John Brown, a man who I consider one of the most fascinating charismatic figures in United States history. I say "peripherally" because the book is mainly about a teenager growing up in Harpers Ferry, W. Va. and dealing with his family which contains more skeletons in the closet than most Halloween stories. That, for the record, was a metaphor - there were no actual skeletons in the story.
But this novel did not start as a novel nor was it always intended for young adult readers. So let us resume the interview there:
Scott>How did this book come about? It was at one point a novella, right? How did it come to be a young adult novel?
John: By the tumble of destiny.
Close to eight years ago, if you can believe it, it actually began as a kind of memoir. But it was never engaging or complete enough as such. The more rewrites and revisions, the more a youthful voice emerged, until the novel's direction into young adult seemed certain, even inevitable. (I say "inevitable" with a touch of pride and honor because the voice of a good novel should be unavoidable.)
The novella form was a turning point in this story's many carnations. As an adult novella, it was brisk, yet challenging in its language and free with its abstractions. The move to a YA novel actually lengthened it, from 40,000 words to 60,000 words. At the same time, language became simpler and more concrete. The new emerging voice relied on boyish honesty, dejection, and exclamations—the fullest range of innocence emotions I could recollect, imagine, or otherwise re-experience. Groundwork on the minor characters deepened, and developments were cleverly set up. In short, a true novel was born.
It was a very curious, humbling, and priceless experience--the straightforward tongue of a 13-year-old proving to tell a more profound and powerful story than what his older-sounding counterpart in the novella could.
Scott: Is it frustrating that a novel like yours has to compete against the highly competitive, celebrity-driven book market?
John: Thank god I'm moving beyond frustration and learning to play the market's game on its terms, mostly by making myself highly competitive and something of a name. I'm probably not yet on the big radar, but I am persistently sending out my strongest signal.
The Night I Freed John Brown has been well reviewed by The Boston Globe, Kirkus Reviews, BookPage, The Orange County Register, and The Tennessean, along with five award-winning literary journals: Mid-American Review, Black Warrior Review, NEBO, Gulf Stream Magazine, and The Texas Review. Its diverse appeal is echoed by those who blurbed it: Newbery Honor recipient Ruth White, Pushcart Prize winner R.T. Smith, and Poet Laureate Fred Chappell.
I do not know of many "YA novels" to receive this kind of wide-ranging send-off.
Of course shelf space in major bookstores is merciless and shameless for the consumer's dollar. (If Chelsea Clinton writes a chick lit comedy romance, look out!) More often, my novel has to compete with over-the-top, kid-centric YA books, in which a less than realistic young hero saves the world, at the very least. That's not at all what I've written.
Honestly, sometimes I'm not sure what I have written—a novel that adults like because it speaks to them with a richly sensitive and sentimental voice of their bygone youth, or a lyrical YA novel that challenges young readers to grow up in their reading.
In any event, I am proud of the bouquet of thought in my novel, because it means I did not alienate the brighter readers or write down to the rest. I went into this project determined to write a true coming-of-age novel that held onto both good language and a hardscrabble reality. I did not publish 75 short stories over the last 15 years to make my first novel crap. I hope enough young readers will appreciate the introspective, sensitive voice of the hero and even clue in to the novel's second sight of adulthood.
But to directly answer your question, my best offense against a fickle, who's who book market is my own good name, not goofy celebrity gimmicks, which I could do none of anyway, but truly good writing hopefully recognized through awards. Everybody likes an award winner, and every bookstore makes room for it. That is what I am capable of, not pop idol prose.
Let's not forget, too, that competition is often a good thing. This novel, for example, has forced me out of my secluded life and into public readings. That in and of itself is a social triumph for me.
Scott: Your novel and many of your short stories are written in first-person. Why is this a comfortable point of view for you? What are the difficulties?
John: First person has always been my first choice, despite the risks and limitations. It is beautifully confessional and honest, as long as controlled and respected. "I loved her, and I lost her. Now I miss her." From the first word on, it is powerfully intimate and engaging.
Of course the danger is putting readers off through negative indulgence, or breaking a cardinal rule and being disingenuous. To say nothing of the problem of perspective: how do you see inside another's mind to write about it?
I have actually pondered my fondness for first person, even worried that it may be narcissism. So much so, I have tried to dispose of it.
There are, after all, plenty of choices. Third-Person limited remains a future possibility. Third-person objective, though, I got my fill of as a reporter. Talk about having your arms and legs tied while trying to type an insightful story completely dependent on picked brains of your sources. I'm not sure if I could ever have the patience, discipline, trust, or methodology for that approach, to say nothing of the desire. Nor can I ever imagine being so-called omniscient, except maybe on my deathbed. How can a writer be omniscient when he writes to find out what he does not know but thinks he does?
To my credit, I have written a few successful short stories in third person limited. But more often than not, I cannot reduce the distance I feel between me the writer and "he" or "she" the character. In fact I feel trapped at a distance. As a result, I often end up seeing into no one's mind very well.
Why is it so important, even critical, to me that storyteller and main character be one in the same? Why do I merge the two, putting myself in the center of action and thought? Perhaps it is just my predilection when it comes to the autobiographical novel.
Perhaps more. I have been complimented on what has been called an innate trust of my own voice. Compliments are nice, but I feel there's a good reasoning behind my choice of a point of view that experts call risky and limited.
None of us get in this life any more than first person. We know ourselves best and have to rely on clues from others to know them: facial expressions, body language, dips and rises in voice. And yet the world turns well on just these clues. Humankind is pretty close to ESP, just by being observant and sensitive to others. I cannot think of a more reliable point of view in feeling out a character's deepest motivations.
But if you use "I" in your writing, you better be writing with the heartfelt honesty of a letter to mom, knowing that dad, or step-dad, as well as all the neighbors, could be reading over her shoulder.
Scott: Several reviews of your book said it reminded them a bit of "Breaking Away." What do you think of the comparison?
John: That's fine. It's a great movie, though those boys are much older and their circumstances different: college town divide between locals and privileged kids. I've also heard it said that my novel is evocative of "Stand By Me," which is closer in age group and has several memorable railroad track scenes too.
But compared to either movie, I wince just a little. I've not really seen my hero's voice narrated in a movie, nor his life depicted in one.
Josh makes no apologies for his weaknesses. He's not a cinematically cute kid with a few stylishly sympathetic problems. He's bare-bones fragile, full of tears, trapped in a backward house, and often nothing but a 100 pounds of neediness. At the same time, he has an old sensitive soul; you can't help but know that he will be a wise grandfather some day. And in the end, he's tougher than you expect.
The truth is, nothing I've seen on TV comes close to how I remember my childhood or how I feel I have written this novel. But comparisons are needed, to be expected, and, in this case, flattering.
But while on the subject, personally, in "Breaking Away," I liked Dave Stoller (Dennis Christopher) and completely related to his escapism into Italian and cycling. But Josh is actually more like Moocher (Jackie Earle Haley), a ratty-haired shrimp whose alter ego is the inexhaustibly zippy point guard Steve Nash.
That's an insider's take on it.
Scott: Are they going to stock your book at Harpers Ferry Park? I gave them a hard time for not stocking Cloudsplitter, but I guess they can use the same excuse - namely it's fiction - for both.
John: I'm trying hard to get it stocked there. I really am. Letters, updates, recommendations—I'm pressing the communication. It would be a great outlet for me. As a local author, hopefully I would give them something in return, too. But I've heard no answer from them one way or the other. So we'll see.
It would also be a personal thrill and honor, considering that my school bus stop from the first grade on was just across the street from the park bookshop. On many a morning, I stared at its front doors, waiting for my bus to lumber into town. After school, I ventured into the bookshop, always amazed by all the glossy-covered books about the town, everything from the history of water-powered industries to the evolution of the Hall's rifle. Not to mention beaucoup books on Brown.
Professionally speaking, I should add that the bookshop has a stellar reputation for quality.
Was the plan all along to make parallels between the main character's family and John Brown's? Or am I giving anything away by saying that?
No to both questions. The similarity proved to be a convenient, appropriate, and, once again, inevitable fit. I cannot overstate the importance of inevitability. I wrote earlier that by "the tumble of destiny" this novel developed--and that is exactly how it happened!
My editor honed in on John Brown both as a complement and clash to Josh's father. I took her lead. The resulting parallel between the two families of sons was pure serendipity.
It's no secret that fierce fathers conquer their sons, out of an insatiable need to be the alpha male. John Brown's sons were forged into replicas of their father, however discontented or warped they may have become as a result. In my novel, Josh and his brothers are dominated by their father, too. Josh, however, rebels. But, ironically, he rebels by seeing the good in John Brown.
Josh is the X factor in the classic family, the boy who is hauled over the coals by his stern father for being too sensitive, then teased by his brothers, only to be all the more mollycoddled by his mother. I imagine if John Brown were to get his hands on my main character, he'd slap the starry eyes off his face, yank the drawing pencil out of his hand, and shove a stolen rifle in its place.
But in my novel, as Brown comes to life in our hero's heart, thank god Josh is wise enough to stop history from repeating itself on him. In the end, Josh will not become another of Brown's sons forever called to violence against those who stand in his way. Instead, Josh goes slumming into history, only to come home to the present, to his real family, wiser.
What character were you most like as a child and what character are you most like now? Please elaborate.
Great question! As a boy: Josh, no question. Insecure, overly sensitive, constantly criticized by his father, Josh is my self-portrait—but as seen through the YA filter. That is, edited of all the unspeakable utterances of a damaged child.
Narrating his voice into the mainstream has been a tricky negotiation of the P's and Q's in the YA genre. I am mostly satisfied with the result. Josh gets his--and my--point across. My inner child and I have our day on stage—and in John Brown's court! You can't ask for any more than that from personal writing.
As an adult, unfortunately, I am like no one in my novel. Not yet anyway. I would love to be like Mr. Richmond—full of life, kindness, generosity. His type makes the world a better place. But he is perhaps more an ideal to behold than a man to imitate.
One footnote: The real Mr. Richmond (which of course is not his actual name) has passed from this world. He was a wonderfully flamboyant man who made all of Harpers Ferry stare, blink, and smile. I often thought the electricity of history ran through him.
The Ricky Hardaways of the West Virginia panhandle, those basically good-hearted longhair doofs, are all but extinct from the area. Like the buffalo, they are all pinned back in the woodsy depths of the state, if they exist anymore at all.
The character Jerry, who was modeled after my oldest brother, fell off this mortal coil years ago, in his twenties, and lay injured before the mobs of indifference. His mental illness was nothing that the state, or my family, could ever deal with. He died in his heart, which no amount medication could ever make him stop feeling.
I was struck by how much of the book was about the father-son relationship. I was recently talking about this topic with author Brad Meltzer, who has father-son plots in his last two books at the same time that, not coincidentally, his dad's been on his mind. In a recent interview he said if he looks at a book he can tell what's on
the writers mind. Do you agree with that? Would we be right to assume your own family was much on your mind as you wrote this?
For me, the answer is a no-brainer. A resounding yes! I'll confess right here: As I touched on in an earlier answer, I could scarcely write fiction if it weren't largely autobiographical. (How's that for a contradiction!)
Here's more. Over the last fifteen years, in publishing seventy-five short stories, I have as much pretended to make up stories as I have disguised the past reality inherent in them.
This is largely a feat of inventing deceptions to the living record--a fiction masquerade. Details like names, physical descriptions, professions, and locations are all easy to invent, like playing dress-up in the attic. But the hearts of my characters, I've had no choice but to take from people I have known and have never forgotten for a second. Otherwise, what do I know to write? Who am I to ask for the reader's attention, if I can't share the remarkable so-called ordinary people I have encountered?
On that note, I have never really understood the word "fiction." To me, in the most practical sense, it means you cover your tracks in laying bare someone living or dead, so as to prevent him or his family from suing you for defamation of character! I am sure that when my family read the disclaimer in my novel—"…any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental…"—they rolled their eyes and said, "Yeah, right."
If imagination is such a wonderful place, then why is fact stranger than fiction, as the world has come to realize? Fiction, it's true, grants complete authorial authority, in plotting, characters, conflict, setting, style, and on and on. This, I think, is partly the problem. Complete freedom has led to a gross, conceited misuse of this authorial authority—a lack of restraint and respect for the narrative. So much so, preposterously unrealistic stories, those over-the-top stories, have become the norm. Lost is all positive restraint. The quiet, honest story gets called too quiet.
Some writers just make me think of aggressive apes banging on typewriters.
What reaction has the book received from the Harpers Ferry community?
Mostly good, from what I hear. It's an original and, I think, rare point of view of Harpers Ferry. So, in that respect, what's not to like? By that I mean, my hometown crowd should be my easiest crowd.
But I've not promoted my novel in West Virginia in person just yet. Harpers Ferry may have been an elixir in my writing, but it is a toxin in my life. I did not do well there as a boy, despite all the outward appearances of being satisfactory in school. Today, whenever I return to the town—or so has been the case the last few times I have gone home—bad memories climb all over me like rats in a well, until, in no time, I am at my worst once again.
I am not puzzled by this. As a boy, I was keenly aware of class divisions there, and as far as my family, my novel tells the rest. There is, I fear, no going home again.
But I will forever love the town for its imagery and for my memories of escaping to the riverbanks with my brothers and the family of brothers I modeled the fictional Richmonds' after in my novel. Like the supernatural aerial imagery in "The Crow," every night in my mind I pilot a glider down the dark Atlantic seaboard and fly low into the mountains around Harpers Ferry, swooping down on the town, cutting through the still nighttime air to visit all the old haunts. I am alone, strange, but happy.
What's next on your plate?
I'm keeping tightlipped about this—but let me say I've enjoyed answering your questions, and I thank you for this wonderful opportunity to share my novel with the Newsvine community!
Put simply he grow up literally across the street from the John Brown wax museum in Harpers Ferry, W. Va. so when he wrote his first novel it was only natural that it would be, at least peripherally, about John Brown, a man who I consider one of the most fascinating charismatic figures in United States history. I say "peripherally" because the book is mainly about a teenager growing up in Harpers Ferry, W. Va. and dealing with his family which contains more skeletons in the closet than most Halloween stories. That, for the record, was a metaphor - there were no actual skeletons in the story.
But this novel did not start as a novel nor was it always intended for young adult readers. So let us resume the interview there:
Scott>How did this book come about? It was at one point a novella, right? How did it come to be a young adult novel?
John: By the tumble of destiny.
Close to eight years ago, if you can believe it, it actually began as a kind of memoir. But it was never engaging or complete enough as such. The more rewrites and revisions, the more a youthful voice emerged, until the novel's direction into young adult seemed certain, even inevitable. (I say "inevitable" with a touch of pride and honor because the voice of a good novel should be unavoidable.)
The novella form was a turning point in this story's many carnations. As an adult novella, it was brisk, yet challenging in its language and free with its abstractions. The move to a YA novel actually lengthened it, from 40,000 words to 60,000 words. At the same time, language became simpler and more concrete. The new emerging voice relied on boyish honesty, dejection, and exclamations—the fullest range of innocence emotions I could recollect, imagine, or otherwise re-experience. Groundwork on the minor characters deepened, and developments were cleverly set up. In short, a true novel was born.
It was a very curious, humbling, and priceless experience--the straightforward tongue of a 13-year-old proving to tell a more profound and powerful story than what his older-sounding counterpart in the novella could.
Scott: Is it frustrating that a novel like yours has to compete against the highly competitive, celebrity-driven book market?
John: Thank god I'm moving beyond frustration and learning to play the market's game on its terms, mostly by making myself highly competitive and something of a name. I'm probably not yet on the big radar, but I am persistently sending out my strongest signal.
The Night I Freed John Brown has been well reviewed by The Boston Globe, Kirkus Reviews, BookPage, The Orange County Register, and The Tennessean, along with five award-winning literary journals: Mid-American Review, Black Warrior Review, NEBO, Gulf Stream Magazine, and The Texas Review. Its diverse appeal is echoed by those who blurbed it: Newbery Honor recipient Ruth White, Pushcart Prize winner R.T. Smith, and Poet Laureate Fred Chappell.
I do not know of many "YA novels" to receive this kind of wide-ranging send-off.
Of course shelf space in major bookstores is merciless and shameless for the consumer's dollar. (If Chelsea Clinton writes a chick lit comedy romance, look out!) More often, my novel has to compete with over-the-top, kid-centric YA books, in which a less than realistic young hero saves the world, at the very least. That's not at all what I've written.
Honestly, sometimes I'm not sure what I have written—a novel that adults like because it speaks to them with a richly sensitive and sentimental voice of their bygone youth, or a lyrical YA novel that challenges young readers to grow up in their reading.
In any event, I am proud of the bouquet of thought in my novel, because it means I did not alienate the brighter readers or write down to the rest. I went into this project determined to write a true coming-of-age novel that held onto both good language and a hardscrabble reality. I did not publish 75 short stories over the last 15 years to make my first novel crap. I hope enough young readers will appreciate the introspective, sensitive voice of the hero and even clue in to the novel's second sight of adulthood.
But to directly answer your question, my best offense against a fickle, who's who book market is my own good name, not goofy celebrity gimmicks, which I could do none of anyway, but truly good writing hopefully recognized through awards. Everybody likes an award winner, and every bookstore makes room for it. That is what I am capable of, not pop idol prose.
Let's not forget, too, that competition is often a good thing. This novel, for example, has forced me out of my secluded life and into public readings. That in and of itself is a social triumph for me.
Scott: Your novel and many of your short stories are written in first-person. Why is this a comfortable point of view for you? What are the difficulties?
John: First person has always been my first choice, despite the risks and limitations. It is beautifully confessional and honest, as long as controlled and respected. "I loved her, and I lost her. Now I miss her." From the first word on, it is powerfully intimate and engaging.
Of course the danger is putting readers off through negative indulgence, or breaking a cardinal rule and being disingenuous. To say nothing of the problem of perspective: how do you see inside another's mind to write about it?
I have actually pondered my fondness for first person, even worried that it may be narcissism. So much so, I have tried to dispose of it.
There are, after all, plenty of choices. Third-Person limited remains a future possibility. Third-person objective, though, I got my fill of as a reporter. Talk about having your arms and legs tied while trying to type an insightful story completely dependent on picked brains of your sources. I'm not sure if I could ever have the patience, discipline, trust, or methodology for that approach, to say nothing of the desire. Nor can I ever imagine being so-called omniscient, except maybe on my deathbed. How can a writer be omniscient when he writes to find out what he does not know but thinks he does?
To my credit, I have written a few successful short stories in third person limited. But more often than not, I cannot reduce the distance I feel between me the writer and "he" or "she" the character. In fact I feel trapped at a distance. As a result, I often end up seeing into no one's mind very well.
Why is it so important, even critical, to me that storyteller and main character be one in the same? Why do I merge the two, putting myself in the center of action and thought? Perhaps it is just my predilection when it comes to the autobiographical novel.
Perhaps more. I have been complimented on what has been called an innate trust of my own voice. Compliments are nice, but I feel there's a good reasoning behind my choice of a point of view that experts call risky and limited.
None of us get in this life any more than first person. We know ourselves best and have to rely on clues from others to know them: facial expressions, body language, dips and rises in voice. And yet the world turns well on just these clues. Humankind is pretty close to ESP, just by being observant and sensitive to others. I cannot think of a more reliable point of view in feeling out a character's deepest motivations.
But if you use "I" in your writing, you better be writing with the heartfelt honesty of a letter to mom, knowing that dad, or step-dad, as well as all the neighbors, could be reading over her shoulder.
Scott: Several reviews of your book said it reminded them a bit of "Breaking Away." What do you think of the comparison?
John: That's fine. It's a great movie, though those boys are much older and their circumstances different: college town divide between locals and privileged kids. I've also heard it said that my novel is evocative of "Stand By Me," which is closer in age group and has several memorable railroad track scenes too.
But compared to either movie, I wince just a little. I've not really seen my hero's voice narrated in a movie, nor his life depicted in one.
Josh makes no apologies for his weaknesses. He's not a cinematically cute kid with a few stylishly sympathetic problems. He's bare-bones fragile, full of tears, trapped in a backward house, and often nothing but a 100 pounds of neediness. At the same time, he has an old sensitive soul; you can't help but know that he will be a wise grandfather some day. And in the end, he's tougher than you expect.
The truth is, nothing I've seen on TV comes close to how I remember my childhood or how I feel I have written this novel. But comparisons are needed, to be expected, and, in this case, flattering.
But while on the subject, personally, in "Breaking Away," I liked Dave Stoller (Dennis Christopher) and completely related to his escapism into Italian and cycling. But Josh is actually more like Moocher (Jackie Earle Haley), a ratty-haired shrimp whose alter ego is the inexhaustibly zippy point guard Steve Nash.
That's an insider's take on it.
Scott: Are they going to stock your book at Harpers Ferry Park? I gave them a hard time for not stocking Cloudsplitter, but I guess they can use the same excuse - namely it's fiction - for both.
John: I'm trying hard to get it stocked there. I really am. Letters, updates, recommendations—I'm pressing the communication. It would be a great outlet for me. As a local author, hopefully I would give them something in return, too. But I've heard no answer from them one way or the other. So we'll see.
It would also be a personal thrill and honor, considering that my school bus stop from the first grade on was just across the street from the park bookshop. On many a morning, I stared at its front doors, waiting for my bus to lumber into town. After school, I ventured into the bookshop, always amazed by all the glossy-covered books about the town, everything from the history of water-powered industries to the evolution of the Hall's rifle. Not to mention beaucoup books on Brown.
Professionally speaking, I should add that the bookshop has a stellar reputation for quality.
Was the plan all along to make parallels between the main character's family and John Brown's? Or am I giving anything away by saying that?
No to both questions. The similarity proved to be a convenient, appropriate, and, once again, inevitable fit. I cannot overstate the importance of inevitability. I wrote earlier that by "the tumble of destiny" this novel developed--and that is exactly how it happened!
My editor honed in on John Brown both as a complement and clash to Josh's father. I took her lead. The resulting parallel between the two families of sons was pure serendipity.
It's no secret that fierce fathers conquer their sons, out of an insatiable need to be the alpha male. John Brown's sons were forged into replicas of their father, however discontented or warped they may have become as a result. In my novel, Josh and his brothers are dominated by their father, too. Josh, however, rebels. But, ironically, he rebels by seeing the good in John Brown.
Josh is the X factor in the classic family, the boy who is hauled over the coals by his stern father for being too sensitive, then teased by his brothers, only to be all the more mollycoddled by his mother. I imagine if John Brown were to get his hands on my main character, he'd slap the starry eyes off his face, yank the drawing pencil out of his hand, and shove a stolen rifle in its place.
But in my novel, as Brown comes to life in our hero's heart, thank god Josh is wise enough to stop history from repeating itself on him. In the end, Josh will not become another of Brown's sons forever called to violence against those who stand in his way. Instead, Josh goes slumming into history, only to come home to the present, to his real family, wiser.
What character were you most like as a child and what character are you most like now? Please elaborate.
Great question! As a boy: Josh, no question. Insecure, overly sensitive, constantly criticized by his father, Josh is my self-portrait—but as seen through the YA filter. That is, edited of all the unspeakable utterances of a damaged child.
Narrating his voice into the mainstream has been a tricky negotiation of the P's and Q's in the YA genre. I am mostly satisfied with the result. Josh gets his--and my--point across. My inner child and I have our day on stage—and in John Brown's court! You can't ask for any more than that from personal writing.
As an adult, unfortunately, I am like no one in my novel. Not yet anyway. I would love to be like Mr. Richmond—full of life, kindness, generosity. His type makes the world a better place. But he is perhaps more an ideal to behold than a man to imitate.
One footnote: The real Mr. Richmond (which of course is not his actual name) has passed from this world. He was a wonderfully flamboyant man who made all of Harpers Ferry stare, blink, and smile. I often thought the electricity of history ran through him.
The Ricky Hardaways of the West Virginia panhandle, those basically good-hearted longhair doofs, are all but extinct from the area. Like the buffalo, they are all pinned back in the woodsy depths of the state, if they exist anymore at all.
The character Jerry, who was modeled after my oldest brother, fell off this mortal coil years ago, in his twenties, and lay injured before the mobs of indifference. His mental illness was nothing that the state, or my family, could ever deal with. He died in his heart, which no amount medication could ever make him stop feeling.
I was struck by how much of the book was about the father-son relationship. I was recently talking about this topic with author Brad Meltzer, who has father-son plots in his last two books at the same time that, not coincidentally, his dad's been on his mind. In a recent interview he said if he looks at a book he can tell what's on
the writers mind. Do you agree with that? Would we be right to assume your own family was much on your mind as you wrote this?
For me, the answer is a no-brainer. A resounding yes! I'll confess right here: As I touched on in an earlier answer, I could scarcely write fiction if it weren't largely autobiographical. (How's that for a contradiction!)
Here's more. Over the last fifteen years, in publishing seventy-five short stories, I have as much pretended to make up stories as I have disguised the past reality inherent in them.
This is largely a feat of inventing deceptions to the living record--a fiction masquerade. Details like names, physical descriptions, professions, and locations are all easy to invent, like playing dress-up in the attic. But the hearts of my characters, I've had no choice but to take from people I have known and have never forgotten for a second. Otherwise, what do I know to write? Who am I to ask for the reader's attention, if I can't share the remarkable so-called ordinary people I have encountered?
On that note, I have never really understood the word "fiction." To me, in the most practical sense, it means you cover your tracks in laying bare someone living or dead, so as to prevent him or his family from suing you for defamation of character! I am sure that when my family read the disclaimer in my novel—"…any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental…"—they rolled their eyes and said, "Yeah, right."
If imagination is such a wonderful place, then why is fact stranger than fiction, as the world has come to realize? Fiction, it's true, grants complete authorial authority, in plotting, characters, conflict, setting, style, and on and on. This, I think, is partly the problem. Complete freedom has led to a gross, conceited misuse of this authorial authority—a lack of restraint and respect for the narrative. So much so, preposterously unrealistic stories, those over-the-top stories, have become the norm. Lost is all positive restraint. The quiet, honest story gets called too quiet.
Some writers just make me think of aggressive apes banging on typewriters.
What reaction has the book received from the Harpers Ferry community?
Mostly good, from what I hear. It's an original and, I think, rare point of view of Harpers Ferry. So, in that respect, what's not to like? By that I mean, my hometown crowd should be my easiest crowd.
But I've not promoted my novel in West Virginia in person just yet. Harpers Ferry may have been an elixir in my writing, but it is a toxin in my life. I did not do well there as a boy, despite all the outward appearances of being satisfactory in school. Today, whenever I return to the town—or so has been the case the last few times I have gone home—bad memories climb all over me like rats in a well, until, in no time, I am at my worst once again.
I am not puzzled by this. As a boy, I was keenly aware of class divisions there, and as far as my family, my novel tells the rest. There is, I fear, no going home again.
But I will forever love the town for its imagery and for my memories of escaping to the riverbanks with my brothers and the family of brothers I modeled the fictional Richmonds' after in my novel. Like the supernatural aerial imagery in "The Crow," every night in my mind I pilot a glider down the dark Atlantic seaboard and fly low into the mountains around Harpers Ferry, swooping down on the town, cutting through the still nighttime air to visit all the old haunts. I am alone, strange, but happy.
What's next on your plate?
I'm keeping tightlipped about this—but let me say I've enjoyed answering your questions, and I thank you for this wonderful opportunity to share my novel with the Newsvine community!
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