Tiki Man: Interview with an Author

 

When I read (which is constantly), I wear two hats, that of reader and that of writer. As the former, I want to be immersed in the story. As the latter, I’m interested in how other writers work their craftsmanship. Recently, I read a novel that impressed me as much for the way the plot was presented as it did for the character development. Both were stellar. I loved the writing so much, in fact, that I reached out to the author, Thomas M. Atkinson, on Twitter and—what do you know?—he was gracious enough to respond and even more gracious to agree to an interview. Below are my questions and his answers regarding how he constructed Tiki Man, his second novel.

Why did you make the decision to offer very little exposition at the front of the novel, parsing it out in small pieces as the story unfolds?

Well, as with the narrative voice, and the tense, I am trying (I think successfully since it hasn’t been an issue), to craft a more honest story, right? Because while Tiki Man is a story, it is actually Pere telling the reader a story, which is a huge distinction. The opening chapter is, without giving too much away, Pere telling the reader how he dealt with a problem that came up, and how he came to be taking care of Tammy. Now the reader’s takeaway is probably much different than Pere’s takeaway, but even Pere recognizes that how he handled it wasn’t the best way. But what Pere knows, that the reader has to suss out, is how much of his response was self-serving, that while he might have been perfectly justified in his response, that response was also an excuse for getting back to a very dark place, (but a very dark place where he was at home). In other news, I think that makes it both a more interesting read and a harder sell (because it isn’t what agents and editors are used to seeing).

Is Pere’s character based on someone you know?

He’s a composite of a lot of guys I’ve known (with a generous helping of Me). A lot of people have a hard enough time just getting themselves through life, and while they might be totally at sea when put in charge of a small person, it’s not for lack of trying.

Tell us about your process. Do you write every day?  How is your first draft composed? Longhand? Computer? Typewriter? Do you have a daily word count or a specific time frame?

First of all, no one should take anything I say about process as a recommendation or endorsement of my process. I don’t write every day, because I would write a lot of crap and then I'd get used to writing crap and then…. I write on the computer even though I suck at the actual typing part of it (I took “Touch Typing” in night school my senior year of undergrad. I took it pass/fail and only had to type 24 words a minute to get a D. The best I ever did was 23, but since the teacher was worried she might have to see me again, she passed me.) I don’t do drafts. As a matter of fact, my process might best be described as semi-benign mental illness. I think about what I want to write about. I obsess about it. I dream about it. And just when it is starting to become dangerous, I try to get it all down on paper. And what I get down is pretty much fully formed and while it needs some corrections, of course, it doesn’t need revision.

Who or what are you reading most often, and why?

News and nonfiction. Every couple of years I will go back and read all 20 books of the Master & Commander series by Patrick O’Brian. And I like to revisit William Gibson (Count Zero has one of the best opening pages ever) and Samuel Delaney (Nova). I try to avoid literary fiction because I’ve spent a long damn time honing my voice and I am primitively superstitious of any bleed-through from another author.

For Tiki Man, did you have an agent? Or did you work directly with your publisher? And how did you happen to choose Regal House? (I know I’m turning that trope around; we’re led to believe that authors, like ladies at the dance, must wait to be chosen.)

An agent?!? You’re funny. An agent once told me that publishers and readers aren’t interested in poor people with problems, so I threw my hands up, “Counts me out!” Regal House is one of the few publishers that doesn’t require an agent. They read the first 20 pages, asked for the entire manuscript and things happened very quickly after that. As I’d long suspected, what it actually took was for someone to read it. 

How important are reviews on Amazon and Goodreads? Do they matter at all?

I think they are very important. It’s hard to say if they affect sales, but I think they are enormously helpful in terms of what your readers are taking away from your book (and if it’s what you intended), which I think writers should care about.

How available are you for speaking engagements, talks at libraries, and the like?

I will pester anyone at anytime. I’ve done a number of book clubs, both in-person and remote, for Tiki Man and they’ve been fun for everyone. At the first one, somebody brought candy cigarettes so everyone in the club could play “Bitches,” a game the neighbor girls play in Chapter 1. It was awesome. Next week I’m doing a presentation on “Dancing Turtle,” my short story and its journey from prize-winning story to prize-winning play (I’m also a playwright.) This might sound dumb, but I am really excited about it because after I read the story, the intern company of Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati is going to do a staged reading of the play, so the audience can see the changes, the problems, the solutions – it’s something I’d like to see!

Books in 2021

 

Some years ago, I began the habit of stacking up books in my to-read pile as autumn approaches. I hate the short days, when I can’t be outside as much, but if I have a book to look forward to reading, the long evening hours are well spent.

Here are a handful of books I’ve read in recent months that I absolutely loved.

Beautiful Ruins, Jess Walter

In a casual conversation, a somewhat happy-go-lucky friend mentioned that he had just finished reading a book that made him cry.

“What the heck? Really?” I queried. “What book was that?”

“Beautiful Ruins,” he responded. “Have you read it?”

“No,” I replied, “but I’m about to.” I downloaded it to my Kindle and started reading it that night. Why did I love it? For the characters. All of them, and there are many, therefore multiple points of view, but that is never off-putting to me. I want to hear everyone’s side of the story.

The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles

This novel was also recommended by a friend who loves books and knows me well. It is similar to Beautiful Ruins in that there are multiple points of view, and most of the characters are easy to love, easy to sympathize with. The setting of this novel could have taken place in current times, but I’m so glad Amor Towles chose to set it in the 1950’s, the decade of my childhood. The writing is lovely, the characters so memorable and the book so long, a reader will genuinely miss them for days after finishing the book. I still do….

Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir

This novel is science fiction. But keep in mind, there is classic sci-fi, and then there are books like A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Project Hail Mary isn’t quite Hitchhiker’s Guide, but it’s also definitely not Dune or The Martian Chronicles. Andy Weir, by the way, is the guy who wrote the novel The Martian, upon which the movie starring Matt Damon was based. I didn’t read that one. I only read Project Hail Mary because a friend sent it to me with a note saying “Trust me. Just start reading.” So I did, standing over my kitchen table, the cat still playing with the shipping debris. I read the first 20 pages that way, then made some lunch and sat down and read another 30, then realized the entire day was whiling away as I read this quirky, funny, harrowing, charming novel. I finished it in a matter of days (despite its length at 496 pages), then wrapped it up and sent it to a friend with a note that said, “Trust me. Just start reading….” He loved it so much he called me from Texas when he’d finished it. Our two-person book club spent an hour and a half talking about it. (Just to mention here: I rarely read sci-fi anymore, but I re-read Dune in the summer of 2021 because the absolutely fabulous film was set to air months later. Loved Dune even more the second time ‘round.)

A Valley of Light and Shadow: Las Vegas Writers on Good and Evil

In between novels, I read through the essays and memoir pieces in this anthology. The book is published in collaboration with the Las Vegas Book Festival, and it highlights the writing of authors who live or have lived in Sin City. In a conversation with my friend, the multi-talented Tim Chizmar, he mentioned he’d written an essay for the current volume. Since the proceeds of the book support writers, I bought a copy on Amazon, expecting to read a few essays about how, ‘Yeah, it’s hot here and there aren’t a lot of jobs besides working in the casinos.’ This book is definitely not that, and Tim’s essay was so compelling—about the profound life changes he went through over the course of a five-year period, how he hit rock bottom—then discovered he was headed for whatever was below rock bottom—then somehow survived, learned, grew, flourished and became successful all over again—well, it made me cry and applaud in equal measure. I highly recommend this book for lovers of human interest stories and also for my fellow writers; there are fine examples of the personal essay and memoir writing here, and money spent on the book will help support their craft.

The Sweetness of Water, Nathan Harris

Where do I begin? The sweetness of his words, the sweetness of his characters, the agony and sweetness of a time in our history…a time that somehow seems to keep repeating itself. This book is lovely in a thousand ways. I understand why Oprah snagged it for her book club, why Barack Obama said it was one of his favorite books of 2021. I’m right there with ya, Mr. President. If you love writers who can magically craft a sentence that stops you in your tracks for the sheer beauty of it—like a gorgeous sunset or the unexpected sighting of a wild animal—read this book. Then come weep with me.

Daughter of the Morning Star, Craig Johnson

Speaking of beautiful craftsmanship in writing, please never pigeon-hole Craig Johnson as simply a “mystery” writer or a writer of “Western” novels. The Longmire series definitely has a contemporary Western flavor, and each book has a stand-alone, mostly who-done-it mystery to be solved. But this series isn’t just beef & barbecue. It is rich in many sophisticated flavors as well. I began reading the Longmire series some years ago, based on the recommendation of a friend whom I trust—otherwise, I probably would have passed, assuming that the novels were gratuitous-violence-heavy and formulaic. No, in fact, they are not, and this was a delightful discovery. In fact, from the first pages of the first book, I was surprised and delighted by the extent of Craig Johnson’s expansive lexicon, his sensitive treatment of all things Native, and his extraordinary ability to weave a compelling story. I’ve read all the books up to this most recent one, but Daughter of the Morning Star is absolutely my favorite. Here’s why: In it, Johnson deals with a harrowing and heartbreaking truth, one that is astounding in its scope but shameful in its lack of coverage by the popular press. It is this: The suicide rate for Native teenagers is two and a half times greater than the national average, and the murder rate for Native women is ten times the national average. Every year, Native women go missing at a horrifying rate, but these cases rarely make the news. In Daughter of the Morning Star, Johnson dishes out these statistics unapologetically as he draws us into the life of Jaya One Moon, a rising high school basketball star. Native culture and beliefs are woven in with sensitivity (not appropriated), and we see in Jaya a woman whose great strength is no match for the dark forces that threaten her. Still, she perseveres. Another reader characterized this novel as haunting. It is exactly that. Hauntingly beautiful in its realism.

 

In Memoriam: Harper Lee

In 1966, desperate to find a book to read, I snuck into my brother’s room when no one was home and browsed through the books in his closet. I don’t know what made me choose To Kill a Mockingbird, but I do remember that once I began, I couldn’t put it down. I was twelve years old.

Two years later, the movie starring Gregory Peck (and the inimitable Robert Duvall as Boo Radley) aired on television, and all the characters I had fallen in love with came to life in black and white. That same year, men who had become my heroes in the Civil Rights Movement mostly because of my reading of the novel—Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.—lost their lives to the socio-political war that was devastating the country at that time.

To say this novel shaped my life is an understatement. I lost my father at a young age and was raised by a non-nurturing mother. Like so many others who’ve read this book, I both envied and longed for the type of strong, loving relationship Scout shares with Atticus. And I yearned for the wisdom of Atticus in my life.

When Atticus looked down at me I saw the expression on his face that always made me expect something. “Do you know what a compromise is?” he asked.

And I learned volumes about parenting from his example:

I had spent most of the day climbing up and down, running errands for [Jem], providing him with literature, nourishment and water, and was carrying him blankets for the night when Atticus said if I paid no attention to him, Jem would come down. Atticus was right.

This was such an important book in my life that when my own daughter turned twelve, I bought her a copy—and I ended up re-reading the novel from start to finish, falling in love with Atticus even more, now that I was a parent myself.

By the time my daughter was a teenager, I had become a teacher. In my second year of teaching high school, I was assigned freshman English. That year we read To Kill a Mockingbird together, and for twenty-five out of the twenty-seven years of my teaching career, I have read it again—mostly aloud, affecting a Southern accent, and always, always fighting back tears in certain sections:

“Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passin’.”

“Hey, Boo.”

“Mr. Tate was right.”

Atticus disengaged himself and looked at me. “What do you mean?”

“Well, it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?”

Before he went inside the house, [Atticus] stopped in front of Boo Radley. “Thank you for my children, Arthur,” he said.

(Gregory Peck’s line in the screenplay version is, “Thank you, Arthur. Thank you for my children,” as he extends his hand to shake Boo’s. To my mind, it is one of the simplest yet most beautifully moving scenes in the film.)

He turned out the light and went into Jem’s room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.

In my early years of teaching, I was sometimes criticized for readingewwww aloud to my students. (‘They’re in high school now. They need to learn to read and comprehend on their own.’) To my way of thinking, these folks had it all wrong. What better way to learn to comprehend the dynamics of literature than to hear the words come alive? Hearing someone who is familiar with the text stream through the long sections of dialogue in the courtroom scene has to be better than trying to parse through Tom Robinson’s style of speech (“No suh, I’s scared I’d be in court….”) while keeping track of who was speaking and what significance there was in the sometimes calm, sometimes accusatory exchange of questions and answers.

Because I read the novel along with my students, I’ve read it in excess of a hundred times. Each spring I read it with a new batch of kids, and each time I learn something new. It took me years to figure out why Harper Lee included the chapter on Mrs. Dubose—because as a writer, I know that every chapter has a purpose, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how Mrs. Dubose supported the theme of the novel. Until I realized what she stood for. And then the epiphany came like a bolt of lightning.

“You know, she was a great lady.”

Yes, Atticus, just as the pre-Civil War South was, and it, too, suffered from a disease that ravaged it.

Over the years, as I’ve taught Mockingbird, I’ve thought fondly of Harper Lee. She would have been in her sixties when I first began teaching the novel. After I’d been teaching it for several years, I wrote her a long letter, never expecting any response, just wanting her to know how meaningful the book had been to me as a child and as an adult. She never answered, but this was her way, and everyone knew it. As the years went by, I would occasionally seek out her name on the internet to see how she was faring. Every year I’ve been able to tell my students as we finish the novel, “So Harper Lee is still alive…” (because 1960, the year the book came out, seems like hundreds of years ago to them). As it turns out, we are currently reading the book in my class. Tomorrow in each class period, I will tell them that Harper Lee has died, and we will talk about the legacy she has left behind.

Lee’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel helped solidify the Civil Rights Movement in America. Since its publication, it has never been out of print. Countless generations of readers, old and young, have found friends and role models in Jem, Scout, Dill, Atticus, Calpurnia, Miss Maudie, Tom Robinson and the rest of the characters. The novel will continue to influence readers for generations to come.

Rest in peace, Harper Lee. Thank you for your life, thank you for your work, thank you for your heart. Your words will be with us forever.

One fact, one fiction

For this post, I thought I'd share with you what I've been reading lately... because I want these great books to be discovered and loved by others.  (Clicking on the titles, by the way, will take you to the Amazon page for each book.  And no, I don't receive any compensation for promoting them--just that warm fuzzy feeling.  Wait--maybe that has to do with what I'm drinking....)

First, a novel.  Days of Smoke, by Mark Ozeroff, is fascinating for two reasons: (1) its point of view and (2) the unique voice of the writer.  Here's some of the review I posted on Amazon:

First and foremost, the most compelling reason to read this novel is for the gorgeous prose. Ozeroff knows the English language, and he enlists it lovingly but without being florid or verbose; he simply employs the right word for the right spot, and that includes the tight, effective dialog here.  This novel, set in WWII,  is the story of a German pilot, but it is also the story of a war. Without being didactic, Ozeroff encourages his readers to consider what it may have been like from the other side's point of view. When we love someone, we tend to overlook obstacles to our love, and Days of Smoke offers a glimpse into how this may be true when we love our country as well.

Ozeroff has this style of writing that I can only characterize as "gallant," for lack of a better word.  The main character is heroic in the classic sense, and I found him to be charming and engaging.  If I can be sexist for a moment, Days of Smoke is kind of a guy's book (with all those aerial dog fights and aircraft specifications), but there's romance in it, too (which is of the classic heroic type as well).  It's a great read, so if you're looking for your next novel-fix, here it is.

Next, a memoir.  I just finished reading Jeffrey Koterba's book, Inklings.  Koterba is an editorial cartoonist for the Omaha World-Herald.  He's also a musician and plays frequent gigs in his own swing band.  Oh, and on a side note, he inherited Tourette's Syndrome from his father.

Here's the amazing thing: I knew of Koterba's artistic work before I knew of his book, and I knew he had Tourette's.  I assumed the memoir would be all about growing up with the syndrome, but no.  It's about growing up with a non-nurturing, somewhat harsh father (a big reason why the book resonated with me).  And it's about struggling to achieve his goal of doing the work that he loves (cartooning) as his bread-winning day job (something else I could identify with).  Here's a bit of what I posted on Amazon about his book:

If memoir serves its purpose well, it helps us to see our own lives with a slightly better perspective, having glimpsed another life which is similar to ours but perhaps embraces greater or different challenges. Koterba's book does just that as he throws wide the shutters of his childhood and allows us to stand just outside the window, witnessing in detail the harsh and poignant moments which shaped him as a child and pushed him slowly but determinedly into the two careers he follows today.

In my own career path, I read a lot of memoir and personal narrative. Inklings will stand as one of the most memorable books I read in 2013. Koterba achieves here what few memoirists do, and that is the point at which the writer manages to step outside of his own experience and look back at it objectively, portraying events as authentically as they actually occurred. Perhaps Koterba's skill at cartooning extrapolated into his skill at writing. Whatever the case, this is an honest, forthright, sincere offering that had me staying up late turning pages.

In the winter, because I can't play outside until 7:00 (unless I want to play in the dark), I tend to read more.  I'm already missing reading these two books--but I've just started E.L. Doctorow's new one.  So far, it's brilliant.

Grasshopper

Fifteen years or so ago I taught my first English 1A class at Chaffey Community College. In that class was a young man by the name of Martin Lastrapes. Martin was nearly fresh out of high school, unsure of what he wanted to do in life, a quiet, soft-spoken, dark-eyed young man who said little in class but made up for it in his essays.

My job was to teach them the fundamentals of writing, so that my students would go on to express themselves successfully for the duration of their college years and perhaps beyond. But I also wanted them to become engaged in the writing, to understand it as a vehicle of self-expression at least, an artistic creation at best. So I assigned such topics as “Describe the last time you cried” and “What is the most frightening experience you’ve ever had?”

I had 36 students in that first class. That’s a lot of essays to grade on a Sunday afternoon. And back then, I was a pretty slow grader. It’s a grueling process, working one’s way through a stack of papers that represent, for the most part, a half-hearted effort to complete an assignment which is seen as merely another hoop to jump through in the circus performance of getting a college degree. Marking the myriad of errors was tedious, to say the least.

Early on in the semester I learned to put Martin’s essays on the bottom of the pile—so that I would have something to look forward to as I slogged through the rest of the batch. He wrote with a quirky, personable style that I really enjoyed, part comedic, part earnest sincerity that was simply endearing. And I don’t think he was really trying to accomplish this; it was coming from his own innate artistic expression. To encourage him, I wrote small comments in the margins of his paper: “This made me laugh!” and “Love the way you express this!” and finally “You could be a writer, Martin.” It was the same thing my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Walton, had told me, the one statement that sent me on my way to being the writer I am today.

The semester ended, and quiet Martin went on his way. Five years later I received an email from him. It said, in part:

Kay,

There is an awfully good chance that you won’t remember me… I went into your class without much direction and you encouraged me to be a writer. Believe it or not, your encouragement was extremely influential. Nobody had ever isolated my writing as something worth exploring before you. Since then I graduated from Chaffey and recently got my B.A. in English. I’m going to start my journey toward a master’s in English Composition this Fall…. As far as writing goes, I worked as a fiction editor for the Pacific Review and I was invited to read one of my short stories at the Cal Poly Writers Conference in March of 2003. I write all of the time, and I cannot imagine a life without it.

All of this is preface to the announcement that Martin—my stellar student of fifteen years ago, that kid who sat quietly on one side of the classroom wondering where life would take him—has just published his first novel, Inside the Outside. “Proud of him” isn’t adequate to describe my feelings about this recent accomplishment. Martin has been teaching college for some years, but having read an advance copy of his new book, I can see that his future truly lies in written expression.

And of course, this is yet another reminder to me of what teachers must always remember: Even the most casual comment—whether positive or negative—can have a lasting effect on a student.