T. C. Boyle is the author of the novels Water Music, Budding
Prospects, World’s End, East Is East, The Road to
Wellville, The Tortilla Curtain, and Riven
Rock. All of his short fiction was anthologized in T.C. Boyle Stories.
Boyle was the recipient of the 1999 PEN/Malamud
Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. World’s
End was the winner of a PEN/Faulkner Award. A former rock and roll
musician, T.C. now lives in Santa Barbara, where he teaches fiction writing at
UCLA. Patty Lamberti interviewed T.C. Boyle by telephone as he prepared dinner.
O.V. In what ways does writing terrify you?
TCB: The only way that it would terrify anybody who writes
is if the writing stops.
O.V. What’s behind your impulse to write?
TCB: It’s my greatest joy. It’s my way of filtering the
world and figuring out what it’s really about.
O.V. You seem to write
fiction that is both comic and non-comic. Do you prefer one over the other?
TCB: Every piece of fiction I have written is absolutely serious,
even a story as light as “The Champ.” My comic stories contain very serious
messages about our society. What I like best of all, like in my new novel,
Friend of the Earth, is to combine the
two to make a tragic, yet wild, off-the-wall tale. That way the story catches
you by surprise. This can be much more potent than a more conventional story
told in realistic terms. The Tortilla
Curtain, for instance, catches you off guard. It’s funny and satiric and
then it suddenly turns very grim on you. I learned this from Flannery O’Connor.
In Shakespeare’s comedies, nothing bad will happen. But in my comedies, when
something really desperate happens, it sobers the reader and makes an even
greater impact. Like many writers, I work instinctively. I have a vision and
pursue it. I don’t know where it will lead me. The wonderful thing about
interviews is that I can justify it all. But in fact I’m making everything up
as we talk.
O.V. I never would have
guessed. What other sorts of things did Flannery O’Connor help you notice in
the world?
TCB: She was very satiric and kept a jaundiced eye on her
society. She taught me about taking a microscopic lens and turning it on
society. She wrote about a more local and regional society than what I inhabit.
Although I was able to write a lot about New York, where I grew up. Now I
suppose I’m a California novelist. In some ways I am hankering after becoming a
regional writer like her.
O.V. Which of your
novels or stories are you closest to?
TCB: The one I’m working on right now. Of the novels
published, Water Music because it’s
the first and I didn’t know if I could write a novel. Of the stories, the ones
that are most popular, such as “Carnal Knowledge” and “Greasy Lake.” But the
ones I like the best are the ones no one else could write. Critics always like
my conventional stories and I’m happy for that. But I like the very wild stuff
like “Ike and Nina,” “The Devil and Irv Cherniske,” “Miracle at Ballinspittle,”
“The Overcoat II,” or “Me Cago en la Leche (Robert Jordan in Nicaragua).” I
don’t think anyone else is crazy enough to write like that. If I’m making a
contribution to letters, I want to contribute what no one else can do. Of
course, the great thing about writing a story is that you are the only person,
out of six billion people, who can write that story, because it comes from your
own experiences.
O.V. Your details set
you apart from every other writer. For instance in the “Ape Lady in Retirement”
you wrote, “He spent the early morning half heartedly tearing up the carpet in
the guest room, then brooded over his nuts and bananas, all the while pinning
Beatrice with an accusatory look, a look that had nacho chips and Fruit
Roll-Ups written all over it.” Details like nacho chips and Fruit Roll-Ups are
so bizarre, so poignant, and so funny. Other writers would have ended the
sentence at an accusatory look. Do details like these just come to you in a
flash or are they a labor of love?
TCB: I love that you’re quoting that sentence. I’m very
happy I wrote that sentence. Details like that just come naturally to me. I
just get into the zone, as all writers do. I have a lot of fun with the
language. Language is the key to stories that are purely comic. They are
serious because they have the underpinnings of extraordinary language. “The Ape
Lady in Retirement” is another story that’s close to me because I don’t think
anyone else could have written it.
O.V. One recurring
theme in your fiction is that we are a doomed species. Is there really no hope
for us?
TCB: Oh boy, wait until you read Friend of The Earth.
There is no hope for us whatsoever. We are
going to be exterminated imminently because of global warming, environmental
destruction, and the dislocation of people that this will cause. Some remnant
bands of headhunters may still exist in California, but they’re the only people
who will be left. This will happen very soon. I’ve been totally depressed for
two years just doing the research for this novel. I’ve read most of the
literature by environmental writers and there’s not a breath of hope in any of
it. Pretty soon there will be a day when we go to the local food store and a
sign is taped to the door that says No
More Food. And the next day, all deer will be exterminated. The day after
that, all dogs will be exterminated. Nope, there’s no good news in that
quarter. Well, the only good news is that I’ve made a comedy out of it.
O.V. The genius of The
Tortilla Curtain is that at so many
points the reader identifies with Delaney and what he thinks about immigration.
He thinks the things we don’t want to say aloud. You said that when writing the
novel you were trying to work out your own feelings about immigration. What was
the ultimate verdict?
TCB: I take a Darwinian view on immigration. You cannot
expect an animal species, our species, to understand the concept of national
borders. Humans move where the resources are. National borders mean absolutely
nothing in that respect. As far as the nationalistic aspect of what Delaney
says, much of it is true. I also don’t think there will be nations in the
future as much as conglomerates. That’s good. Perhaps this will help some of
the less developed nations improve their standards of living. There are six
billion people and there is not enough room for them. One third of the world is
farming. One third is getting by. Then there’s the other third, us, eating
lobster tails every night. Of course lobsters will be extinct in ten years.
It’s sad. In this country we can absorb immigrants and have absorbed them. The
book was huge in Europe as well because every industrialized nation is facing
the same crisis. So it’s a provocative book and it’s meant to be provocative.
People always say it’s a political book but I don’t think of it exactly like
that. That implies I wanted people to join my party, that I wanted to extort
people to my position. But I don’t want to extort people. I don’t have a
perspective when I begin a book. I’m just trying to provoke the reader’s
thoughts.
O.V. Did the criticism
of the book hurt you in any way?
TCB: I expected the book to be attacked when it came out. I
was pushing some buttons. About half of the critics treated me as if I was
Hitler’s son or as if I’d just burned a baby. But what really matters is that
the book has such a huge readership. That makes me feel wonderful. The best
critics are of course the ones that are capable as writers themselves and have
read all of your work. When critics read all of your work and make connections,
that’s great. But most critics only read one of your books and sometimes their comments
are just completely off the wall. They have their own axes to grind.
O.V. Did you find it
more difficult than usual to write in the point of view of Mexicans who don’t
speak or think in English?
TCB: That was part of the challenge. I wanted to try something
new. I don’t want to be the kind of writer who repeats himself over and over
again with the same story. I wanted to see if I could learn something. Once you
become absorbed in the character, whether that character is a three-year-old
child, a twenty-eight-year-old elephant, or a woman from Mexico who doesn’t
speak English, the writing comes naturally.
O.V. I know you think
our species is going downhill. What do you think about contemporary short
fiction?
TCB: We’re having a real renaissance because of writing
programs. People are starting their apprenticeships as writers of short
stories. In the 80’s we were wrapped up in the minimalist realist thing. And
some great stuff came out of that movement, like Ray Carver’s stories. But I’m
glad we’re over that. I think now there’s more room for the sort of short
stories I do. I think I’ve influenced a lot of people in their writing. I hope
they’re getting published. Stories don’t just have to be about upper middle
class people anymore. Those were stories where nothing actually happened. There
couldn’t be any violence. For me stories are an exercise of the imagination.
They should grab you by the nose. And they should be a joy to read.
O.V. Do your students
attempt to emulate your style?
TCB: That would be their death. Some of the best writers
make the worst teachers because they can only see one aesthetic—their own. They
close themselves off to the student. I’d like to think I’m different than that.
I’ve been teaching since I was twenty-one and I really enjoy it. I don’t have
to teach if I don’t want to. I could survive by writing alone. Maybe that’s why
I’m a good teacher. I’ve always been amazed by the incredible gifts for writing
that exist in the gene pool out there. I just try to coach my students into
writing their way rather than forcing them into writing a given way. I help
them figure out their own special contribution to literature. We always read
books by contemporary writers to give them perspectives of different styles.
That way they can grab onto one and say, “boy that really wakes me up.” It’s a
shame to teach writing classes without reading literature at the same time. I
began writing because reading books is fun. Every other subject was horrible.
You had to memorize dates and formulas, or cut things open on a table.
O.V. You recently wrote
on your Web site that you rarely ever change the first line of a story or a
novel. Do you have any other rules?
TCB: That’s not an absolute rule. The first line usually
just comes to me. I might tinker around with it. Everything goes from there. I
also work page by page without a clear sense of where the novel or story is
going. The first draft is pretty much exactly how the final draft appears,
certainly structurally and almost every line as well. I think I developed this
way of writing by being the laziest and worst undergraduate in history. Not
only were my papers overdue, they were months overdue. I had to write them all
on the last day. I had to write them directly on the typewriter. I just didn’t
have time to do drafts. People always want to know how I write. They’re curious
as to how you do it. But there’s no blueprint. Everyone has to develop their
own way of working. I’ll tell people to satisfy their curiosity but I don’t
think there’s any rules. Except that you have to write. And read.
O.V. You’ve got the
wildest hairstyle of any writer I can think of. What’s your secret?
TCB: My hair has been the curse of my life. Now there’s a
lot less of it than there used to be. It’s just a kinky mass of hair. When I
was a teenager I went to the black barbershop and had my hair straightened. The
African American brethren would get their hair straightened and then put it up
in rollers, like a James Brown pompadour. Well I loved that look, but I just
came out of there looking like a shaggy dog. Then the hippie times came along
and that was great because you could have any kind of wild, kinky, berserk
hair. Then the punk times came along and I cut it, which kept the kink down a
little bit. Now I’m just hanging out and doing the best I can. But I do like to
have flair, to dress up and get on stage, to perform. I don’t want literature
to be academic and dull. It’s a performance. I strut my stuff.
O.V. Real estate agents
are always such terrible people in your fiction. What’s your beef with them?
TCB: Real estate is a great
metaphor. In Friend of the Earth,
pretty much everything occurs in condos. We live in a capitalist society in
which you have to have products and you have to have consumers. But it’s like a
big ponzi scheme. There isn’t infinite resource and there aren’t infinite
consumers so there can’t be infinite products. Everything has to collapse. I
think real estate is an example of this. Real estate is one of our chief
economic indicators. Eventually everything will be a new house. The whole
godamn world. There will be no animals left, there will be no wilderness left.
We exterminate 40,000 to 100,000 animal and plant species per year because of
habitat loss. Real estate is especially important in a book like The Tortilla Curtain. It’s the ironic
juxtaposition of people who are selling mansions and aren’t even living in
them. And that’s shameful when we have people who are truly and literally
living in the bushes.
By the way, you know the fire that was set by Candido in The
Tortilla Curtain? A couple of months after I wrote the book, a fire just like
that happened in one of the canyons. An immigrant was camping out, he set a
fire, and the fire got out of hand. I predicted that fire in fact. A canyon
hadn’t burned like that until I wrote about it.
O.V. You’re just like
Nostradamus.
TCB: I told my artist friend Pablo that in my next book, I’m
going to write about a painter and a writer who lead very happy lives in which
everything goes well for them. We’ll see if that comes true. But I doubt it.
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