People at the Core
Bonus Episode! Bonnie Hall and K. Hank Jost Reading
Books by K. Hank Jost
Deselections
MadStone
Follow us on Instagram! People at the Core Podcast
Email us! peopleatthecorepodcast@gmail.com
Books by K. Hank Jost
Deselections
MadStone
Follow us on Instagram! People at the Core Podcast
Email us! peopleatthecorepodcast@gmail.com
From the Greenpoint Palace Bar in Brooklyn, new York, writers and bartenders Rita and Marissa have intimate conversations with an eclectic mix of people from all walks of life about their passions, paranoia and perspectives. Featured guests could be artists or authors, exterminators or private investigators, or the person sitting next to you at the bar. This is People at the Core core.
Speaker 2:Bonnie is a poet and short fiction writer in Brooklyn with their partner Hank. Deeply rooted in the tradition of American South, they are constantly paying homage to the great southern gothics like Flannery O'Connor and Harry Cruise. Bonnie has spent the better part of two decades reading more than they write and listening more than they read. Now, breaking into the indie publishing scene, bonnie is working with Whiskey Tit and a Commonwealth Journal as an in-house debauchery assistant. Please welcome Bonnie.
Speaker 3:Hi, thank you guys again for having us. I'm going to be reading from a short piece of fiction that I wrote in Hank's writing workshop last year that was held at the Brooklyn Center for Theater Research. It's called no Hurt, where the Hurt Should Be. I'm going to start kind of right smack dab in the middle. All you need to know is that there is a main character named Joy, and for some reason she's in the woods.
Speaker 3:Woods, the living ground crawls to shift the forest floor and they emerge, centipedes and slugs charging bushy tails. Raised bright, now hard-shelled rabbits sudden from the undergrowth, their razor-clawed toes needling through the brush, snapped tails whipping pine cones across the clearing, a miraculous army marching toward her. There are others among them too Possums, squirrels, raccoons, field mice by the dozen, all feathered and furious talons pounding the evening earth From each corner of the folly. Hulking black bears delicately weave their antlers through the vines, white-tailed deer tusks rooting for fresh soil under her dripping mess Nose. They can smell her Every direction her eyes take. There are more, and they are closer Over her now, tail and hoof brushing against the pieces that still have a purpose, soft parts wrapping around the rusted metal mouth. Joy tries to avoid the crimson puddle beneath her and fails, holds her breath as she goes under an inch or so, plenty enough to fill the openings Curling into herself. Her fear slips backwards into the deep cavern of her hunger. She'd been hungry the whole time. There was almost never time for breakfast and they'd left late anyway. Raced through the rolling Piedmont just to. Almost never time for breakfast and they'd left late anyway. Raced through the rolling Piedmont just to ride the brakes for the peaks and plummets. They made the mountains by mid-afternoon. Joy knew a straight shot was always her mom's best bet, less room for the itch to render a scratch.
Speaker 3:The window's warmth kept Joy in the dreamy grip of the passenger seat, woke as the car's wine mellowed, teetering onto the widened shoulder, pulled up to one of those scenic overlooks for a stretch the legs. They were in the middle of nowhere and Joy had done nothing to raise a hair that day. She'd hummed to the radio and when the signal dropped she told polite stories. Her mom got out of the car and into the wet heat she paced the barrier between asphalt and consequence. The ghost of a shiver crept up her spine as she stood in front of the sweeping vista, hands in her pockets now digging for a distraction, lit a long cigarette before she wandered back to the sedan before and knew well enough what was next, but not what to do with it or how to undo it. Just kept running until she couldn't make out the sound of her name.
Speaker 3:Her mind caught on to what her body had done once her feet had carried her out of earshot, grabbed her book before she bolted, clung it to her chest as the caged animal in her legs twisted into another sprint. Clumsy sneakers over sweaty root, all pitch until she, a burst through woven branches, finally reached the plateau, saw the whole unknown valley up there Swore. The sap on her soles was the only thing that held her on the ledge. The cliff seemed like a better option once the real pain began. For the first few days, the mosquito bites over the hunger, her whole body, a scab to pick, but the berries were the worst of it. Doubt even her brother could have gotten that right. Just thankful she'd found the stream before she turned inside out. Surely the only thing that saved her laid in its chilly belly, the water rushing into her open mouth as the current washed away the rest.
Speaker 3:Her second baptism Can hear it now. The bubbling tides in her ears drowns out his approach. He's over her before she realizes. He's screaming. Only knows from the strain and shift in his jaw. But joy cannot make out the words over the liquidus symphony around her head. His vest flashing, she dives back into the puddle. Dirt turns to mud. From her perpetual leaking, she churns the clay and clot into a frantic froth. Only once the hunter's steady hand reaches out for her free shoulder does she turn her face back towards the circle of sky slowly ridding itself of color. With the uncalculated panic of a forgotten fox, joy lunges, taffy tendons pull from their place, working air into her veins, finally severs the numb to nub, unburdened from the weight. She pushes past the hunter, offhand, weak arm, treble clef groping against the dark. Thank you, wow Good fun.
Speaker 4:Thank you Wow.
Speaker 3:Goodbye. So the key piece that I guess you miss in that is that Joy has her arm stuck in a bear trap. So a great little story about a 14-year-old who has run away from her mom because she'd rather live in the woods. Yeah, so yeah, kind of a tragic little horror piece, horror piece.
Speaker 4:Gorgeous. I mean juicy. Thank you, it really was juicy. I hate that word, but I love but. I love it. I mean it's very accurate.
Speaker 3:Ring it out. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:Um, so how, how old is this piece? Is this a new piece? So yeah, this is relatively new.
Speaker 3:I wrote this last year. That was probably in November, okay yeah, in November, still trying to place it right now, kind of feeling out some stuff. But hilariously, the last time we chatted you were like this isn't a part of a bigger thing and I was like should I keep this for a bigger thing? And I'm considering that, like kind of maybe this trials and tribulations of a young girl who is would rather rip her arm out of a bear trap than go back to the car with her mom.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know. Yes, I mean, it's just so I'm going to use that word robust. Your writing is Thank you. It's like you know I'm speechless.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I am.
Speaker 4:I mean, I'm kind of I don't know what to say about that.
Speaker 2:I was collecting turns of phrase and like these juicy sentences and talking previously about my love of a good sentence, and there are so many good sentences, um, that pull you in. They're so textural, so sensory explosion and yeah, like I don't even care what was happening.
Speaker 3:I was like I just want to hear more words and these yeah, that's the, that's the trick, right, and I think that's kind of where my uh, having spent so long focusing on poetry, and then this is probably. I mean, I've written poetry quite a bit, I mean on and off, over the last 10 years, um, after college, but I haven't attempted a short fiction piece since.
Speaker 3:I was, like in high school and so this was definitely the first time that I was trying to take what I've learned from the poetic tradition and turn it into something longer format and it's really, really dense and it's a little hard to read, to be honest, like out loud because it is so dense, but I think that's kind of the charm of it, honestly, and kind of this visceral reaction. You know this. I wanted you to be able to feel the arm and and feel the wetness and see this like little clearing, uh, with a young girl hallucinating in pain about fake animals, like coming to sniff her out and is the hunter. You know this, this sort of magic realism that we talked about earlier, uh, was something I was really trying to hearken towards of, like, is this real or is this fantasy? Is it a fever dream?
Speaker 1:is it a?
Speaker 3:fever dream. Yeah, yeah, and and that was something that gave me a lot of honestly kind of led the structure of the piece like kind of this flipping back and forth, and I set this rule for myself um, like, if it's in the past tense kind of explaining joy's experience, then it's going to be this more forward prose style. But if it's in the past tense kind of explaining joy's experience, then it's going to be this more forward prose style. But if it's in the moment, um, like if it's in the present, what would be happening in the mind of a 14 year old who's experiencing excruciating pain and who's going through this really like kind of absurd but but very intense experience?
Speaker 2:and and the answer to me was they would be like hallucinating, like fully, there's a sense of urgency, but hyper awareness of all of those senses, of all of that experience, and it's physical but very internal as well. Yeah, and how do?
Speaker 3:we? How do we uh rationalize the world around us whenever we're in crisis?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Right? And the answer is often you make things up. I mean, that's all we do in writing, right? Yeah, we just make shit up, and so I thought that that was a I don't know kind of an interesting way to break up the piece and and also how to create images that don't exist. You know, like I want to get away from the super, super tangible, but instead to kind of smash together. I mean, that's the magic of metaphor, right, to smash together unlike things into a like thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And that first, that first scene that I was reading from, is one of my favorite things I've ever written. And one of the most difficult things I've ever done was like how do I take these things that I love woodland creatures and make them horrifying but at the same time, like how is that serving as a distraction for Joy? Like is envisioning these things around her, giving her a moment where she's not having to think about the arm, like anything to not think about the arm? And I think we've all kind of been in that place. Like how do I rationalize the world around me and how do I distract myself from the real shit that's going on?
Speaker 4:Yeah, right, or our brain I mean studies Like our brains go into protection mode, you know, especially in traumatic events. Right, we're going to do whatever we can. I mean, that's very much what I'm working on right now. Is you a young girl that that is going to have such a traumatic event, and then all these 1800s literary characters sort of come out and save her?
Speaker 1:but is it real?
Speaker 4:is it not. Is she on her medication, is she not? You know what's going on, um, but I just want to get back to the, the beginning of the piece, the. The exploration of the animals alone was so beautifully done thank you um. So how long is this piece right now?
Speaker 3:Um, in total, it's about a 10 minute read. I believe it's about 2000 words, um, which is parsed down, I think it it it started being more of like a 3000 word piece and then, as I was writing it, I was just like I needed to be tight, I needed to be concise and I started cutting the subjects of sentences, which was a really interesting choice that I learned some inspiration from Hank on Just if we know who it is, then you don't need to tell us again.
Speaker 3:And cutting that and just compressing it as much as possible, your poetic syntax Absolutely and trusting the reader to know what's going on even if you're saying something that is completely absurd. Uh, and and yeah and the animal and nature writing has been a big inspiration to me forever. Um, I mean throw whitman, kind of like these we were talking about john mcphee earlier like kind of these really great nature writing worldly. They make you feel the river, they make you see the trees and and kind of taking that into my own work and also the influence of the southern, of southern writing, you know like I I, literally, was laying down in bed and I was, like what animals would I see out of my dad's window?
Speaker 3:like what? What are real tangible things that I I've seen on the farm? Like what are real tangible things that I've seen on the farm? And then how do I smash those together in a way that is not only like provocative but also, like you know, very, very poetic and the idea of like a gentle black bear or a violent deer or a like feathered possum with wings and you know all of these things, and it's terrifying. But also, I mean, in the story, these animals are kind of what's bringing. She is not scared, she's terrified, but she wants to be with them, like the whole thing is they're. She thinks that they might be attacking her, but really she knows that they're bringing her home and they know that they're like welcoming her into this, this new community, which is in the woods, away from the world, and trying to, you know, ensure her that it is a safe space. I've like built this whole world around this.
Speaker 4:No, I love it.
Speaker 3:It's like an X rated snow white kind of thing, or nc-17, maybe, exactly like I won't go x-rated but nc-17 like and I really I'm so interested in and where she goes and what happens so she get her arm out like what yeah, I mean, at the end she, she definitely, uh just decides that it's a better idea to rip her own fucking arm off than it is to talk to this man and to be potentially put in a position where she has to go home.
Speaker 1:Um and of course like.
Speaker 3:This is something that we all think about, right like, or at least for me as someone who grew up with a relatively troubled childhood, which I am finding is not uncommon yeah, right um, and these like very troubled relationships with your parents, and I mean this is rooted in in quite a bit of truth. You know, like I personally have not had my arm stuck in a bear trap.
Speaker 3:But I have been on the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere with an unpredictable parent and being nervous about what's coming next and thinking that it is better to be a girl stuck in a bear trap than it is to be a girl stuck in a sedan.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yes.
Speaker 3:And so that's where the truth is rooted, right. And yeah, so it's this kind of interesting. It is my story, but it is also very much not even of reality.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's the trick.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I love it yeah.
Speaker 3:Beautifully done, thank you, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Juicy and robust, that's the trick, yeah, and I love it. Yeah, beautifully done, thank you. I really appreciate it. Juicy and robust, yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 3:So I uh just to to close out that I have actually at this point kind of stopped thinking about sending it out to more people and I'm considering, like what could this be as a larger piece?
Speaker 1:or as a series.
Speaker 3:So thank you, really thank you for bringing that up to me recently.
Speaker 1:Rita, oh my god.
Speaker 3:I feel honored and I and I I want to just throw it in also, uh, as someone who hasn't written much in the last 10 years, but is it's all? It's been my whole life, my whole life? Um, it means a lot to hear y'all's feedback and and the kindnesses that you guys have said about this piece specifically. Um, it means a lot and it's also driven. It's continuing to drive me.
Speaker 2:It's exciting. We can't wait to hear more, whether it's this piece or the next piece.
Speaker 4:I would just love to see where this character goes. You know, what I mean. You just blew my mind Just with the sedan aspect. I'd rather be trapped in a bear trap than be in a sedan with my family and I think we've all been there on on certain degrees and levels and like, what a beautiful way to, instead of just saying I, you know for me, I'm such a writer that I will write. I'm in a sedan right so to hear this aspect of the alternative, you know, is just so inspiring.
Speaker 2:It really is. Thank you, opening doors and windows for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm still like I think she's gonna take some of it because, as you were reading and and and being familiar with the piece, I was thinking about what you're working on, rita, and that same kind of trapped escape in your mind. That same kind of trapped escape in your mind, I was in your character talking about counting and you used that a few times. When it's an escape method, and it's also how do you regain control? And you have this method of I look at things and I count things. That's how I organize, that's how I focus and I count things. That that's how I organize, it's how I focus, how I make things real and it's, yeah, just all of these different tools and tricks that the mind uses.
Speaker 4:And and going into what your comfort zone is, and you're playing with animals and you're playing with numbers yeah, and total Vonnegut ripoff, by the the way, you know like I always think about Jailbird when he just does the like you remember that or like Slaughterhouse-Five. So it Goes that repetitive, either movement or word or counting, or you know.
Speaker 2:It's methods for grounding and escape at the same time.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean are we all, just all, just like I don't know, mirroring coping mechanisms back into our work, right? And I mean, even if the whole idea is just to be able to give someone like a gleam of, a glimmer of seeing themselves or a glimmer of of a different version of getting through, something that they can identify with?
Speaker 2:100%.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's the whole thing and and please take anything from it. I will take things from yours, if you take things from me you know like I really I love the idea of you know.
Speaker 1:So we go to these reading series. I feel so inspired.
Speaker 3:Every time I hear something there's a little bit different or something that sounds even similar to what I'm doing, I'm like you can do this, you can do that, like, yeah, I've been trying to figure out how to do that, yeah, and we're all learning from each other, as it should be.
Speaker 2:And yeah absolutely.
Speaker 3:This should not be a singular task.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I agree, it's a village. Well, thank you so much. That was lovely, wonderful.
Speaker 2:And future. Yes, we'll figure out where you fit in our lineup for reading absolutely you know, I'm always reading series um, yeah, we're all chomping at the bit to get our slot.
Speaker 3:I'll figure figure out where you fit um, put me next to some other sad readers. Me and rita just have to be as far away from each other exactly. Yeah, we really do it okay yeah, but. But I thought, hank and I did really well together.
Speaker 4:Our stuff matched up really nicely, which is nice.
Speaker 2:You do such a good job. Yeah, segue Segue to. Now we're going to hear a little from Hank so K. Hank Jost is a writer of fiction, born in Texas and raised in Georgia. He's the author of Novel and Stories, deselections, the novel Madstone, and editor-in-chief of the literary quarterly Commonwealth Journal produced and published by Whiskey Tit Books.
Speaker 2:His fiction and poetry have been recently featured in Volume 1, Brooklyn, the Burning Palace and Hobart. He's a contributing writer for Poverty House and the New Haven Independent. He's currently seeking representation for his newest novel, Aquarium, while he works on his fourth book. So, Hank, what are you reading for us today?
Speaker 5:I'm going to be reading the first, I guess, page and a half from the aforementioned fourth book. It's titled Ordinary Time. There are those that leave. There are those that pass through. Those that pass through are rare to know this of themselves. Those that leave, we must regrettably admit, have often done so with good reason. There is a place for forgiveness in all this.
Speaker 5:Last summer, there was to us a great return. Look, it was the high swelter of that season's second month. Ty had already bumbled back and Claire's brilliance was yet to reappear. It would be nigh to autumn before the blue broke to bring her this is not a beginning. A beginning is far behind. It would prove ourselves nothing but foolish. Settle this with yourself. Listen, one of them has died Just now.
Speaker 5:They'd taken the road from the city nearest where they'd landed after hours in the air, the both of them, our liz and her duane, in a rental car, two or three bags between them. They brought little. Remember that they had not intended to stay. Liz had not intended to return. It must have been like this. Liz, driving for Duane, had never yet acquired a license. The city he's from has many ways to get around, all of which stand to preclude the need for driving lessons toward the completion of one's coming of age. We've heard tell of these places. All to say, with Duane came the difference He'd said it that our skies are too large. They made him dizzy. It must have been on the drive from the city nearest, on that big multi-lane high-speed road that Dwayne first looked up at the great blue vault of our pride and experienced his first bout of purgative nausea. We know from Liz's jesting through her early grief, the little breaks allowed to glimmer in our mourning and condolences, that Duane had suffered from carsickness on that road, that they'd had to pull over, that he spilled until he was all dust inside. Duane struck us then as possessing an inner thinness and tissue paper heart. We ought to have been kinder. It is difficult to change the way of things, but we've all seen it Dwayne stepping out onto the land, hands on his hips, plodding steps in boots that never fit, breathing our air, with his head hung down at the parched limestone loam. Make a squint and he'll look up, as though to test himself. And the immensity of that thalassic azure, white, hot light covering over endless night would have him doubled over half an inhale. Later he'd dump everything he had in him hands and knees once or twice.
Speaker 5:Stranger habits have been known. Tammy lou mayfield's got that thing with numbers and food which, though common, has kept her from indulging in meals enough to render her lightheadedness fairly chronic, ever stalwart. Seeming scott r Ryans never once had any peace on his feet, given his near-constant futzing with the jammy ingrowns that plague his big toes. His ex-wife, poor Lucinda, has been disastrously late to shifts at the hospital on more than one occasion for the need to lock and unlock and lock again the door, check the stove, all the lights and reflush the toilet before leaving. There's that one time she broke the key off in the lock. Daughter Sophia, cross-armed in the car and freezing before school Remember that broken spirit sitting then to cry on the porch steps. Not a moment of help for her in the world. Can't blame Sophia for being petulant, an adolescent to the brim, what with all she's managed to mound for herself to worry over.
Speaker 5:Of course, our afflictions are not simply on account of what we've allowed into our lives. If so, all difficulties of character could be then absolved by hermeticism. Take Lee Dunn, for instance. Tragic soul can't hardly bear the lot he's drawn and has all but locked himself away from us. Though he'd once increasingly been given cause to believe that Claire Hanlon's returned for his sake, for his singular liberation from a cave of his own construction, it's been made apparent quite recently that he's in no possession of sufficient will or desire to pull himself away from the shadows. His withdrawal has cast upon his wall. But now we'll no doubt hear from our farmer stock that withdrawal from the rabble is in no wise a guarantee of self-abuse and weathering of one's character. Beau Hanlon's proof enough of that. Never a better man, it's been said again and again of our elderly. He's far the superior of those twin demons, eustace Abner and Milton Crawley.
Speaker 5:But listen, we're clouded here. Perhaps Dwayne is fortunate to have seen all this from eyes that did not know it before. That great highway and Liz, confident behind the wheel, gunning through traffic and taking the open roads. Lawlessness on faith. It is a small joy to imagine what must have been said between the two of them in the privacy of that sedan before they exited to us. Imagine. Imagine now Dwayne as we've come to know him in all his quirks, green-lipped and water-eyed, head against the passenger's window, counting the beats of his speeding heart, liz then singing along to something years unheard, one of those songs we'll never stop playing, knowing nothing, for Duane's never been one to complain and she's for a moment forgot that her father's dead and it's all just coming home quick into peace and quiet.
Speaker 5:We have to imagine it. We can only know what folks say and do. So much of what we know of ourselves is conjecture. We know when they arrived, remember it, like the sudden appearance of a cyst, and Duane had said this is it? And Liz said, yep, this is all of it.
Speaker 5:And there, in that brief exchange, the whole of our fiction revealed that this is all one place is a difficult case to make, one of those boneheaded, never gonna get it figured, conundrums that'll keep everyone fiddling with themselves until it's all said and done, none knowing the answer any better than when we asked it first, once we got here, how much is it and how many of them are there?
Speaker 5:Wise man puts his money on one, and that's fine for the wise, truly oneness undeniable and preferred. For, let's be honest, how much of our wisdom is consolation? Hasn't that been what's drawn all these lonesome souls to its pursuit? Make the all of it an object, soft and solid for the great mind's weariness to rest upon. It comes down to a dream and for those that need it, let the dream function as it must, though, all through all unlikeness and conflict, through all the unfittable pieces and unsquareable spheres, through the contradictions evident in our individual accounts of things so commonplace as to be nature to the very failing fabric of this torn reality. Let this wisdom, this dream, run its thread to cinch the gaps for those too afraid of the silken dark beneath wow, I actually teared up.
Speaker 4:I'm gonna be honest wow, oh, gee thanks um a new era speechless again like. So this is a new piece, correct?
Speaker 5:this is a new novel.
Speaker 5:Yeah, a new novel, yeah, um will you just tell us a little bit about the characters, and just for the readers I know all right listeners readers I mean the the basic, the basic concept of the novel is one summer, four people, or I guess three former residents of a small town return to the small town Ty, claire and Liz Liz, bringing her partner Dwayne in tow. They all returned for different reasons and in you know, in places like this, in these small rural areas, people coming back is not a common thing. So what does it feel like for that place to have someone return? So the narrator is the town, dealing with this conundrum. But because it's the town, it's also of multiple voice, it's a multiple registers. So the novel gets bogged down and the narrator arguing with itself right, yeah duane says this is it.
Speaker 5:And liz says yes, this is all of it. And the narrator's like that's fine, but not really, this can't be all of it. They can't be the one seeing all of it. You know, we know things that they don't and and and we have a greater story to tell. Fuck these city folk like what do you? You know, um, and so it's, it's. It's a, in in one way, sort of an experiment in narrative register, right? Yeah it's not exactly an omniscient third person. It's a partially informed and arguing collective.
Speaker 4:But I love that I love you can hear. You know you can actually hear the multiple voices in the narration. I I don't know if that sounds crazy or not, but I can hear like it almost sounds like it's like it's all like. When I think about recording. It sounds like a double track almost you know, like there's just so many voices going on in that one sentence, right um it for me.
Speaker 2:I kept uh envisioning kind of a pendulum, that there were two pendulums. One pendulum is is is the narrator having this internal dialogue, and then it's the pendulum of of the the sedan the audience of the sedan. And so these two opposing that, they're timing together, having different experiences but in the same race swing. I love that, yeah, I know that does that's beautiful. I love that get a visual to that.
Speaker 4:I'm just so excited that we have a form signed by you guys, because I'm going to sell that shit. I have two fucking signatures worth money. Now I get anything out of this podcast. Here's my pitch, my starter sentences. Y'all going to be famous, or?
Speaker 5:need to be.
Speaker 4:I mean, it's just that was wow. What a way to spend a Sunday.
Speaker 2:Two sedans Surprise, this is the to spend a Sunday. And two sedans, two sedans, yeah, surprise.
Speaker 4:Surprise, this is the title of this segment, two sedans and the baby blue sedan, and I am doing the best that I can.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 4:Anything else Do you want to? I know it kind of speaks for itself, I mean it's funny because I wanted to do this big Q&A with both of you, but your pieces are so standalone.
Speaker 5:I'd much rather someone just read the whole thing.
Speaker 3:Well they're going to A lot of people are going to.
Speaker 3:I will say, obviously this isn't my piece and you didn't chime in on my piece, but I do think that, like this is a, this is just a really if. If anyone out there reads any of Hank's earlier work, like this is just a huge shift, um towards like just zooming out, like if you're if, if you ever read, like if you're into classics, if you're into big, chunky everything books, just where they keep going, and you're still like you don't know why you're so interested, but you are so interested, like that's what this book is going to be yeah, that's the intention.
Speaker 5:It's like 35 or 350 000 words, at least on the first draft yeah, we're looking at, we're talking like a five, like we're talking like a 500 trying
Speaker 3:to write a 500 page trying to write a book, our 500-page book.
Speaker 4:So have you finished it?
Speaker 5:No, Okay, so this is like in motion right now. Yeah, this is what we were talking about earlier on the last episode or whatever. I'd been working on another sort of long novel and then the last couple months wrote a couple of short stories.
Speaker 5:They're all sort of like I don't know doing like experiments and trying to figure out like voice and different sorts of registers, and then coming back to the novel and being like I can't fucking write this anymore, like I just this isn't my, the voice that I've been cultivating for the past three months but I still really like the story.
Speaker 5:I still really like these characters instead of like taking these short stories and then the I don't know the spirit of that last novel and trying to write something that's now become this. Uh, there's a lot of like little, I guess, like tricks that I have planned, like really technical things. Like you know, the narrator here is we right, right and has a couple moments so far of like sort of direct address to a reader, like this.
Speaker 1:You know you uh settle this with yourself you know, this is not a beginning.
Speaker 5:We can't find a beginning. The attempt to find a beginning itself would prove us foolish. So settle that now we're starting where we're starting, this is the closest thing we can find. Um and sort of then like ramping that up, um, with these, uh, direct addresses to the reader and then like what's the it's?
Speaker 1:like thinking, like logically, like what's the pivot?
Speaker 5:here you have a collective narrator, and then you have like an acknowledged reader, so like, the next step for me seems to be like to even acknowledge the artifice of the collective narrator.
Speaker 4:Hmm, and then?
Speaker 5:break it to where it's like me, the actual author of this constructing thing, talking to you the reader and I was like.
Speaker 2:Well, how does? How does that make?
Speaker 5:sense without being like Mabel gazey right.
Speaker 1:It's like what's the thing like narratively? What's the function that narratively? What's the function that I can?
Speaker 5:serve like the authorial voice can serve in something like this, and I've already established the rule and it said pretty explicitly. It's the. We have to imagine it. We can only know what folks say and do. So much of what we know of ourselves is conjecture right. This narrator can't speak for the inner thoughts of any of the characters. Right which you prove Right, but I, the guy that's making the story up, can tell you very directly what I mean for you to read into it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which then opens up another logic of like what if?
Speaker 5:this other third narrator, the I says what you're supposed to read into it, but then the actual text gives you nothing but contradicting evidence to this reading that I'm requesting that you have. And now it's this whole matrix of meaning and this whole matrix of dealing with it, and all you're actually reading is a story about three former rednecks coming home and discovering that they're either bored come back to the right place or whatever.
Speaker 4:Yeah right.
Speaker 5:I don't know, it's like a hyper, a hyper-examination of what is fundamentally the most mundane, all framed in a way that's closer to the intentions of the people that wrote 1st 2nd Samuel and 1st 2nd Kings.
Speaker 4:You know?
Speaker 3:Yes, of course, right I mean oh, Is this what you mean by auto-fiction? Is this?
Speaker 5:what you mean by auto-fiction.
Speaker 2:We're going to do a part two on auto-fiction. Let me come talk about auto-fiction.
Speaker 1:No, that's what I mean. So four of us will do because I'm so conflicted as well. I agree, yeah, we've got a few. Yeah, we all have thoughts.
Speaker 4:Yes, so so many thoughts, right? Um well, thank you both. Oh my gosh that was incredible, both of you, I mean. I can't wait to read more, to hear more to just be near both of you. I mean, you're so inspiring, you really are. It's just been lovely every time we're not going anywhere. Good.
Speaker 3:We're always here for you guys. Thank God, god willing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, God willing. You know where the bar is.
Speaker 4:I'm always here. We live two blocks away. We are very accessible. All right, marissa, you want to sign off? All right, give me a little high five, high five.
Speaker 2:Another one and a kiss, and a kiss, all right.
Speaker 5:Thank you so much.