Frequently Asked Questions You have been writing for 20 years now. What led you to switch to novels more recently? My nonfiction works were written during a time when I practiced psychotherapy, a time during which I was oriented toward making a difference, conscious living, and reducing the siege mentality of a production and consumer oriented society. I began writing JAMAYAH as I began phasing out of psychotherapy. I wanted to have more fun with writing, with creating character and plot. Fiction is a hoot, daring, ultimately more creative, and most of all - liberating. Who are your literary influences? As an undergraduate I was influenced by John Steinbeck, a rugged individualist who portrayed the working class with depth, warmth, and often a woven theme of the dark side of capitalism. Steinbeck was the first novelist to teach me description. As a Freshman at the University of Oregon, I remember getting back a final essay in a writing class. The professor wanted to know where I had learned to write description. I said something like, “I don’t know, I've read a lot of Steinbeck.” He smiled and nodded approvingly. Other novelists of influence are Carlos Castaneda, Joseph Conrad, Paul Theroux, James Clavell, Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, Dean Koontz, and Stephen King. You mentioned Carlos Castaneda as fiction. Didn’t he market his works as nonfiction? Had Castaneda promoted his works as fiction, I think he would have credited history as one of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century. His first book, The Teachings of Don Juan - A Yaqui Way of Knowledge was his doctoral dissertation for the Department of Anthropology at UCLA. By the time he had written A Separate Reality and Journey to Ixtlan, the anthro department was furious. It was the first time an academic institution rescinded a doctoral degree on the basis of fraud, determining that the work was fiction rather than historical research and fact. The buzz in both academia and on the streets was whether his works actually were fact or fiction. I was teaching with an academic gang at a Midwestern college which found this dialogue amusing. Our thinking was that people are overly invested in historical record, as if it’s the ultimate litmus test for truth. It’s like when people see a movie and afterwards say, “It was a true story!” From a novelist’s point of view, all stories are true. The point of Castaneda’s works was that they portrayed profound possibilities of transcending ordinary consciousness, possibilities of a verifiable separate reality beyond pedestrian awareness. The point was that they could be true! You said you favored novels with colorful characters. Excluding Jamayah, who are some of your favorite characters in literature? My first image is of Lennie Small, the mentally challenged giant-child in Of Mice and Men who has an obsession with rabbits. Another is Stanley Kowalski, the caveman in Williams’ play, A Street Car Named Desire. I enjoyed Santiago, the old Cuban fisherman in Hemmingway’s Old Man and the Sea. Yossarian, the bombardier protagonist in Heller’s Catch-22 was a jewel. And I have become most fond of Odd Thomas in the Koontz series. Thank you Dean. What are you working on now? I just completed a sequel to JAMAYAH that took me places I thought I would never go. Sequels demand an effort to exceed the impact of the original. That was the challenge! I am most pleased with the result and I think readers will be as well. Right now, it is with a new editor who is all happy about it and will help market it to publishers in September. I think we are looking at a publishing date around Spring 2008. Meanwhile, I am starting a third novel which I expect to complete by the same time. Who was your model for JAMAYAH or was he completely imagined? JAMAYAH is a cultural and ideological composite of several gurus with whom I studied and a few chunks of my Simon Cowell style. Stories of my experiences with some of these teachers I outlined in Magicians of the Soul. How similar is Bob Kramer to you? About thirty percent, and most of that in younger years, especially the wanderlust and seeker characteristics. In the story, you cleverly avoided Bob Kramer's real name. Does he have one? An astute observation! Yes, he has a name that will be revealed in the sequel. I would gladly share that information now, but anything can change until print, and the sequel is neither complete nor has it passed the rigors of my word-eating editor. |
|||
|
