Interview excerpt from "His Own Private Idaho" in Rain Taxi Review of Books. You can purchase it for $5.00 from the link below.
The author of the short story collection Horse All Over Hell (Wipf and Stock, 2019) and the novel Down in the River (Wipf and Stock, 2019) talks about his work, inspirations, and characters.
Interview
ASO’K: I’d like to ask about Horses All Over Hell, your short story collection released by Wipf and Stock in 2019.
RB: A child inhabits a compelling psychological world. To a kid, a dog might have the power to read minds. A horse on the side of the road might cast a judgmental glance. Cory’s young enough to live in that magic, but old enough to grasp the troubles of his family. He’s an ideal observer.
ASO’K: The setting of Horses is rural Idaho in the early 1990s. Please forgive the cliché question, but may I ask how much of the setting and characters reflect your real-life experiences?
RB: The town of Laroy is, more or less, Lewiston, Idaho. My family lived there in the 70s and 80s. My dad was an alcoholic, but not the wild drunk that Marty is, and my mom was a very traditional, heterosexual Catholic woman who sat with the dying. My dad was an anxiety-ridden parole officer who didn’t talk much except to yell, though he was good-hearted. I was a sports kid and wore my team uniforms at home, watching TV always. My family was hyper-normal, patriotic and God-fearing without question. Once, I tried on my mom’s bra as a joke, and my older brother screamed in fear and tackled me. My mom shouted, “Ryan, this is a Christian household!” My dad was at work. Naturally, I wouldn’t have tried that stunt if he'd been at home.
ASO’K: Cory’s father, Marty, arrives drunk (or at least uselessly hung over) on the morning when he’s supposed to be coaching Cory’s baseball team practice, then again when he’s supposed to be coaching them for a game. Cory’s mother Joanna has quit drinking and found religion, but sees imposing her religious views on her family as a solution to their problems, and is sycophantically desperate for the approval of the more affluent and socially prestigious members of her church group. What’s the biggest thing preventing Marty and Joanna from fixing what’s wrong with their lives? If they appeared to you and asked for advice, what would you tell them?
RB: I understand your temptation to wonder about this. But I say literature isn’t about solving problems. It’s about presenting problems. After all, we follow character trajectories that make sense, based on psychological realities. I’d feel content leading a character to prison if I understood he had to go there because of the story’s urgencies. I’d feel sad but I wouldn’t try to fix his life or anything like that.
Regarding Joanna, I feel sympathetic toward her. She is troubled by anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts. She has quit drinking and needs help. Since she’s speaking from pain and not judgement, I don’t get irritated by her reading the Bible to her kids, the way I might in a more self-righteous context. She’s deeply unhappy in Laroy, but church is the only game in town. She seeks to act like the other mothers because she has suffered a loss of confidence during her depression. She’s my favorite kind of Christian—deeply flawed, on the edge, trying to stay alive. The woman she meets, Lucy, the Native-American, is a similar kind of woman, though farther down the road in her sobriety. Later in the book, Joanna locates strength and toughness, partly due to Lucy’s influence. Where Joanna ends up is far more important than where she is at the start.
ASO’K: Birds seem to be a major motif in Horses All Over Hell. Marty, the father, expresses his dislike of large gatherings of birds. What do the birds represent? Other motifs, it seems to me, are the river and the horses of the title.
RB: My favorite metaphor is one that feels meaningful and right but is somewhat out of grasp. The birds resist explanation because characters speak of them differently. The metaphor changes depending on who’s exerting psychological pressure on it. Therefore, it wouldn’t do to nail it down too much. But I will say that I love the mystery of the image and I think it’s right on the money.
Regarding the horses, I suppose they represent disaster and chaos in the book. Of course, there’s got to be a dash of Revelation in the title too, but I wouldn’t make too much of it.
ASO’K: I’d also like to ask about Down in the River, your novel published by Wipf and Stock in 2014. The protagonist, teenager Lyle Rettew, commits an incredibly drastic act in attempting to come to terms with the recent suicide of his twin sister. If you would consider mentioning it to be a spoiler, we can keep mum about it, or mention it openly if you prefer. Anyway, it’s rather macabre, and truly unconventional. Can you describe how this idea came to you?
RB: When Lyle robs a mausoleum, he is flying on his mania, and therefore believes he’s doing something good. Of course, it is terrible and macabre. Lyle’s action is mitigated, though, when the reader understands he’s acting out of love for his sister, in his own cracked manner. Though his sister’s remains are in Idaho, and he’s in Eugene, Oregon, he associates this body he steals with his lost best friend and twin, Lila.
He meets Rosa, a Latina who says about him, “Oh, you’re not quite right,” but knows he’s a good person at the same time. They happen into some speed. She becomes disturbed when she discovers what he’s carrying around in his backpack, but he explains it again and again—when she’s alternately high and tired—and she stays with him.
Although there’s not much sympathy for bi-polar people in the world right now, especially ones who rob mausoleums, I felt very tender about Lyle. Once, Lyle stands up for a goose who hits the top of a bridge while flying. It sits on the pedestrian walkways below, very dazed. Lyle guards the bridge and forces two kids to turn around, so they won’t frighten the goose.
Rosa says to him, “You’re like some kind of protector.”
But some readers won’t tolerate a sympathetic story about a grave robber. That’s okay. I wasn’t trying to please everyone.
ASO’K: You spent some time as a mentor for PEN America’s prison writing program. What was your impression of that experience? Did it provide any insight for your depiction of Lyle Rettew’s brief incarceration in a juvenile correction facility in Down in the River?
I mentored for PEN’s Prison Writing and Justice Program for five years, until 2020. I learned so much and had so much exposure to interesting people. One man was in prison for life for accidentally overdosing his best friend.
I also taught a week-long fiction workshop at North Idaho Correctional, in 2006. My dad had worked there and I knew my protagonist, Lyle, would spend some time there. I got a grant at the Humanities Council, and approached the school with a plan to teach a class. The warden and administrators were suspicious of my master’s degrees. The warden actually told me he didn’t think much of “your too much damn college.” The man who ran the school entered my final class to tell my students that this class wouldn’t appear on their transcripts “in case you don’t want to look like fairies.” But the inmates were great. Many were in a mood to be honest about themselves and produced terrific writing exercises and stories. It was a blast working with them.
ASO’K: Do you have any current or upcoming writing projects?
RB: I’m writing a memoir about having a hacker for eight years. I also recently finished a novel called "Karmina." I’ve sent it to a couple of places so far, but I’ve got to get my planes ready for a carpet bombing soon.
ASO’K: What advice would you offer someone who wants to write fiction?
RB: Write every day, and don’t worry if it’s any good. And don’t wait for the perfect circumstance. Even if your only place to write is at McDonald’s, do it there. Composing your eternal prose at Mickey D’s is far better than waiting to go to Rome next year.
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